Multiple practice rooms in one large area possible?

[shinysteve]

Hi.

First post going down here so I've done you all the decency of spending vast amounts of company time checking out the historical postings. I didn't see anything on my particular topic so here goes for my question:

The topic is this: How to create a commercialy viable set of practice rooms within a given enclosed space. Thats practice rooms, not recording studios. If i've got the wrong forum, let me know and i'll Foxtrot Oscar!!

Lets assume i've got a rather large underground area with dimensions of say 10meters x 15 meters x 3 meters. (er, 30 x 45 x 9 feet?)
lets assume that there are no partitions within this space and that I want to build 4 or 5 practice booths/rooms.

I think I know enough to realise that I need to build a wall-cavity-wall area of suitable dimensions for each practice studio in order to isolate them from each other.

My big question, before I get into the details is this: Do the external walls of each practice room need to be concrete? I'm assuming I can use the floor and ceiling as external walls in the wall-cavity-wall practice areas but i'm not sure if plasterboard/stone board or whatever you call it would be good enough as an outside wall.
Would one of the external walls of the large area transmit sound between rooms if they both used it? I guess the answer is yes there but if its an underground wall, i'm guessing that it would be pretty thick/heavy and well damped by external earth.

Some other variables are:
The rooms would be practice/listening only with wiring facilites for powered equipment. (i might make a larger one as a practice/control room)
The rooms would be used by onyone from drummers to violinists including DJ's and vocalists.
Thres no real-world space i have in mind so I cant draw a picture. I;m assuming that when i get round to doing this i'll be working with a basement area under a commercial building.

Thanks to everyone thats posting such useful info in this forum.

Regards

Steve.

[dymaxian]

You're on the right track. As far as the outside walls go, I'd recommend concrete block or concrete, whichever is easiest/cheapest. Sound transmitting from one room to the next within the practice space isn't going to get you in too much trouble, but you don't want to get fired for having a heavy metal band on the outside wall.

I don't think you'd need to float the floors inside, or anything like that. You might be able to get away with building single stud-walls with resilient channels on one face (or using steel studs).

Sounds like a good project- good luck!

Kase
www.minemusic.net