potential 2nd floor Studio project

[David]

I have been contemplating turning my office into a music studio, with both a live and control/mix room, seperated.

First problem:

I rent so the only viable solution I see is to design and build a room within a room. Since this will be carried by a carpeted floor, underneath which is half inch carpet matting and 1 inch underlayment, I wonder if the conecpt is at all possible?? What about the carrying load? Would this not become too heavy?

Second problem:

Since this townhouse was built in 1986 and the contractors were nice enough NOT to put ANY insulation between floors, I have a space underneath my floors of about 20 inches, that just carries every and all sound to where I dont want it to go

Third problem:

the room is 11 foot by 11 foot, with a rather large window, facing the front parking lot. I need to be able to continue to have access to that window to open and close it if need be.

Fourth problem:

I am hoping to use glass top desks with brushed aluminium hollow skeleton. 1 by itself is 2 foot 6 inch by 5 foot long and 2 foot 4 inches high. How appropriate do you think this kind of desk is in terms of overall acoustic performance??


Thank you for all answers and advice in advance. Please note, if any of you think that even trying to get this project going is a waste of time, be frank; especially if you think it would be much better for me to go rent another townhouse with either a garage or basement and set-up shop in that.

Kind regards,

David

[knightfly]

Hey David -

First - enclosing carpet with no air circulation is a very bad idea, grows mold really well (and not the Alexander Fleming kind, this stuff can really do you in) - also, your concern with weight is very valid - it takes considerable mass to get much in the way of isolation, although you can do a partial work-around if you have enough headroom and are willing to step UP about 1-2 steps into the room - the formula is mass-air-mass, so more air means less mass for the same isolation, to a degree.

Second - it's not just the space, most construction doesn't consider FLANKING noise - this is noise that travels well through any and all building materials, then re-radiates wherever it can vibrate a panel attached to framing, whether floor wall or ceiling - stuffing with insulation will help SOME, but until you break the physical, hard contact between areas you're pretty much screwed. Hence the "room-in-room" approach.

Third - windows - if the window is single pane (not "thermopane" or "Insulated" glass, you can put a second window in the frame that will help a fair amount - both need to be tightly caulked around perimeter, both can open, but both need to be a tight enough seal to give you a transparent version of the "mass-air-mass" rule. Some people have had fair success with thermopane windows and adding another window, but the low frequency iso won't be as good.

4 - I've done some furniture using welded steel tubing and oak veneer plywood, and wouldn't recommend it again unless you fill ALL the tubing with spray-foam to damp the ringing and possible rattles. Flat surfaces, even highly reflective ones like glass, are OK if you pay attention to geometry in the room and use absorption at key reflection points - try a search here on mirror for some ideas.

I personally would look for a place with a basement, preferably one with decent headroom; not perfect, but much easier to add your necessary mass/air space for good isolation - check out the REFERENCE section's first 2-3 links for more on how to accomplish isolation... Steve

[David]

Steve,


thanks for chiming in! I was chomping at the bit for an answer for days so I am glad to see you got to it. Most of what you are saying I had already guessd. It is good to get confirmation though, so thanks for that.

Maybe I am going about this the wrong way:

1: i could just drop the idea of a total room in room for now, until that point in time is reached where I have a house with decent garage or basement to do properly.

2: i could thus go for the compromise of still building a vocal booth in combination with making stand-alone traps and resonators , but leave the floor what it is, a rental carpeted floor.

At least in this capacity i'll be able to record proper vocal acoustics, without the current array of reverb, s-ing and slap-back (man my ears get tired quick!!) and I'll be at least in a better monitoring/mixing environement as compared to what I have today. And the kicker is, that if I do get that new house i am looking for, I'll save time by already having the resonators etc

3: as for the glass desk: the slates on top are heavy, really heavy, a good 3/4" thick on rubber knubs (or it is knobs, Oh Renee, my parsnip put me in your strong arms!! lol) i will fill the tubes up with spary foam, that's easy enough


well let me know any further thoughts you may have and thanks again!

[knightfly]

Vocal booth - if you build one, try to keep the inner dim's at odd #'s of feet. 3x5x7 or 5x7x9 or 3x7x9, in any orientation, are better choices (modally) than 4x6x8, etc - this will make things sound more uniform in response. You'd still need absorption, and quite a bit - the dim's will only improve low mid balance, etc... Steve

[David]

in terms of the vocal booth, i cant really say I would be too charmed putting auralex kind padding on the inside. I think it looks aweful and does not tprovide for an inspiration catalyst whilst recording. I understand using non-modular dimensions for the booth. Could I apply the same kind of techniques for building room in room studio to the vocal booth? So slot resonators, float the booth, double stud concept with airspace and insulation inbetween??

Also one other thing: off subject a bit:

I am using KRKV6 near monitors. I have also got these (massive) jbl household speakers, that I would like to use to instantly check how a mix or recording sounds on a regular system. I am using Pro Tools LE and pc thusfar and if I want to check my mixes I have to bounce to disk first. How can I incorporate both concepts so with the flcik of a switch I can play my work through the jbl's??

[knightfly]

If you make your inner dim's a bit larger than you think you'll need for moving around, etc, you can use 2" rigid fiberglass or rockwool insulation instead of the foam - sounds better, costs less, but is more work to install. There are lots of comments on this, maybe do a search on mounting to keep the number of results below 1000...

A vocal booth is just a small room-in-room when done well anyway, same physics apply.

For speaker switching - the KRK's are active, I'm assuming the JBL's are not - if you use a separate amp for the JBL's, its inputs would be line level similar to the KRK's, so all you'd need is a passive switcher of some sort, like the ones Radio Shack used to sell for switching between multiple tape decks.

Some of the fancier DAW monitoring controllers such as the Mackie Big Knob should also work, but more expensive... Steve