8' Versus 9' Ceilings

phyl · Post by **phyl** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 2:37 am

The project studio I plan to build will be in a new house. The builder will do 9' foot ceilings in the basement for about $5k extra and I'm thinking about going for it, mainly because of the extra headroom I would have after floating a floor and adding two layers of sheetrock and RC to the ceiling.

Any opinions? Are there any other significant benefits I'm missing, or would it be $5k wasted?

Dan Fitzpatrick · Post by **Dan Fitzpatrick** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 3:38 am

do you have any tall friends?

i would do it, i'm starting wiht an 8 ft 1 inch ceiling and i will end up with maybe 4-6 inches above my head when standing (i'm 6 feet tall) ...

don't forget you will lose several more inches when you do ceiling absorption. you definitely will not be playing guitar townshend style either.

dan

phyl · Post by **phyl** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 4:05 am

On the ceiling I figured I would lose approx. ~1.5" due to drywall (two layers) plus the thickness of the RC. Is there other ceiling treatment that I'm missing?

I'm still crawling through the FAQ articles so it's possible I've missed something.

Dan Fitzpatrick · Post by **Dan Fitzpatrick** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 4:19 am

once you start learning about the interior acoustics, you may discover you need to add absorption insulation to your ceilings, because they are so low they will reflect sound and hurt your recordings.

so you might be adding absorbers to your ceiling that could take up 4 or 5 inches (maybe more, maybe less? not sure) anyway you should check into this before deciding on ceiling height. dan

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 6:06 am

I agree; in fact, if you're feeling REALLY flush, you might ask about 10 foot ceilings - even if you don't need extra headroom for a floated floor/max isolation, a room with an 8' false ceiling and 2 feet of insulated air gap, with slots cut into the ceiling material, will sound AWESOME.

More is ALWAYS better, if you can afford it... Steve

bryanarchy · Post by **bryanarchy** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 6:02 pm

Dan Fitzpatrick wrote:once you start learning about the interior acoustics, you may discover you need to add absorption insulation to your ceilings, because they are so low they will reflect sound and hurt your recordings.

so you might be adding absorbers to your ceiling that could take up 4 or 5 inches (maybe more, maybe less? not sure) anyway you should check into this before deciding on ceiling height. dan

A bit of a ceiling absorption question... if noise leakage isn't an issue, can treatment (to improve recording quality) be localized, say, over the drum spot?

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 7:02 pm

Absolutely; if ceilngs are lower than maybe 14 feet an absorbent "cloud" placed over drums will improve the sound of especially the overhead mics - usually also a few non-backed Gobo's around the kit and a foot or so from walls will help get rid of boundary effects on mics for a better sound... Steve