John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I'm so happy I read this!!

Hello, I'm new to the forum. I am currently contemplating building a small studio consisting of a control room, vocal booth and a lounge I can dj in for friends and not disturb my wife, children or neighbours. I know a little about studio design (stress little!) as my father-in-law is a producer / engineer and I eagerly watched him build a studio in Melbourne a few years back.

I was convinced that I was going to have to build a floating floor to isolate the sound and not disturb the above-mentioned people. I'm so glad I can put a red pen through that part of the project - what a time and money saver.

I'm totally hooked on this forum... been reading solidly for most of last night and today!

also depends where you live... if your house is located near a railroad track, you need of course to get rid of these vibrations when a train passes by...

in my case I am not building a floating floor, only a nice laminate of ikea with some sound absorbers will be the finish touch....
reasons are...

• to cut costs
• have a free standing building
• nice deep concrete floor
• have a heavy grand piano, to support it, need a more heavier floating floor... is also more $$$$
• we don't record that much drums or other heavy bass instruments, they will end up in our iso booth on a thick carpet with some bass traps in the corners...
• many professional studios don't have a floating floor at all

just my 2 cents...

I'm glad to have found this thread. It put an end to my sub-floor deliberation. I can now ignore the feat without worry!

I plan to build double stud walls ontop 6" of concrete (high psi+fiber pour).

My concern, now, is this. Should I put some type of neoprene or Audimute material beneath the bottom wall plate, ontop the concrete? I'll be using pressure treated lumber for anything sitting on the slab flooor.

Also, should this same type of material sit between that same bottom plate and the wall studs? It makes sense in my head but i'm worried it may be an overkill.


I'm hoping to get the area (20'x10') framed before the snow hits here (bleh).

Thanks!

Im going to start converting my garage into a studio. Its basically going to be a control room and isolation is not important as it is detached. I wanted to float a wooden floor, purely because the concrete is freezing cold and i wanted to insulate it so it didn't sap all the heat from the room. Also i was going to lay a damp proof membrane incase there is any damp down there which i couldn't do if I didn't float a deck. Has anyone got any suggestions for this situation? Obviously if i don't have to float a floor then it saves me time/money/headroom which is great, and if it is going to cause resonances that weren't there beforehand then i seriously want to avoid that too. But at the moment I think it would be impossible to heat, and i cant guarantee that there is no damp although it doesn't look like there is. Also i don't want to use carpet as i don't want to make the room too dead. Thanks for any help guys

Hi

Nice thread
I didn't do any insulation work in my studio, because I always tought I needed a floating floor !
Now I've a little hope

Just a question, here you can see some stage of building of my last house.





After making the structures, they simply filled the big cubic holes on the ground with concrete. Then they put the tubes for heating and the electric wire, and add another 10cm of concrete on it (still not poured on the picture):



That means my floor is only made of concrete, with no gap under it, simply it was made not everything in the same time.

Do you think I can avoid the floating floor ? I'm in one side of the building, and there is only empty spaces near me. Above their is an appartment that is rent.

Thanks !
-fx

Very informative thread.

It's a relief to read that floating a floor is probably not necessary in my case.

I'm building on a 12cm concrete slab placed directly on earth (basement in a residential area).

However as I'm living in Berlin insulation against the cold is needed.

I will add 70mm Polyurethane blocks, underfloor heating (water-based) and then pour ca 60mm concrete on top. Along the walls there will be a 8mm foam strip to separate floor and walls (standard german construction).

Would this construction "float" the top 6cm concrete layer (on the insulation) in such a manner so I would actually make things worse? Introducing a higher resonant frequency or increasing sound transmission to the walls?

The walls are 30cm or thicker brick walls, only the upstairs neighbors are my concern.

The studio is primarily a 20sqm control room for electronic music, so there will be no drum kits or other acoustic instruments (for now) but in the future I might expand into the adjacent room.

Great thread!

My question is if a floating floor is not usually necessary when you are building on a concrete slab, then what about the floating ceiling? If the ceiling is also made of a concrete slab of similar thickness- then is floating a ceiling necessary? I understand that it is far easier to decouple the ceiling from the concrete, but if the isolation provided by the concrete floor is enough for most, then surely the ceiling will also be enough for most ??

if a floating floor is not usually necessary when you are building on a concrete slab, then what about the floating ceiling?

It's not just about the mass: it's also about the damping effect of the earth. When we say that a concrete slab usually needs no floating floor, we are talking about a "slab on grade". Ie., one poured in direct 100% contact with the ground: no air gaps. If you read over the thread, you'll note that a floated floor may well be necessary for a studio that is not on the ground floor, since the concrete slab of an upper floor is just as much a drum head as any other large surface supported only by the perimeter. It will resonate, if it is not damped. A slab on grade is damped by the entire planet, and does not resonate much at all.

So if you could find another handy planet lying around, and attach your ceiling to that, then you'd be fine! :8



- Stuart -

after reading this fine topic, i've decided that, i'm NOT going to build my studio on my terrace with 100 square meters.
i'm going to construct my house, the american way, on the terrace, and then, the studio, on my 50 square meters flat where me and my wife live.
all off this because the terrace, is at the rear of building and its above an work office.
inside the house, the "foundations" are almost 60cm thick, because its the ground floor.
i would like to thank as well the someone who wrote, "you can kill people"! reminded me the people that work beneath my terrace, all relaxed up, receiving on their heads, some mighty floor..
considering the weight needed for the job to be done, just by imagining, it's too much of a risk, and the costs for near 100db absortion, is best to use the existing foundations of the building, and make ajustments as necessary.

i'm considering removing the house floor, and rebuild it with just shock floor absorvers sheet and some wooden floor.
on the ceiling, the suspended gap dampening. something like the studio on the picture below..
my house, has about the same areas, comparing the size of the drumkit, iso mixing table and piano.
all i need is to rearrange, like almost each one of us has to..
by the way, can an of you recommend a good forum for building wooden houses that withstand humidities and excessive heat?
thanks in advance!
very good topic!!

cyeazel wrote:

What are the key elements that would definitely draw the line between the acoustic need of a floating floor and the mere waste of time, money and effort that would imply its application when not really necessary?
Does anybody have an answer?

alex.

Some of the key elements would be:

1) How much sound is actually being transmitted thru the floor, or, how much of a flanking path is it?
Try doing some sound tests to see how well your existing floor performs as is. You may find that you don't need to float.
However, if you learn that your floor performs poorly then there a few other issues to consider. If sound tests show you that your existing floor does not adequately reduce sound levels, then you need to do the following:
a) figure out how much sound isolation you want to achieve
b) figure out how much additional weight your existing floor can hold via a competent structural engineer.

If you learn that your floor can hold little to no extra weight, then you've found your answer, don't float.

c) If you have additional weight capacity available, make sure that your walls and new floor will perform equally.

You don't want to build a floating floor that can't match the performance of superior walls etc, etc. That would be a huge waste of time and money. You have to take into account any new walls and new ceiling when factoring weight capacity for your existing floor.

2) What is your budget?

Floating a floor properly is expensive. You may realize during or after all your research that you just don't have the money.


These are what I would consider to be the biggest factors in deciding whether or not floating a floor is worth it.

That was really helpful. My music room is going to be over the master bedroom of my new house. It would be really nice to float the floor and walls but after reading this thread I start to really think the opposite.

Hi Ray, and Welcome!!

It would be really nice to float the floor and walls but after reading this thread I start to really think the opposite.

Yep!

My music room is going to be over the master bedroom of my new house.

Any chance you can swap those two around, and put the music room on the ground floor? That would make your life so much easier, with the build...

I'd encourage you to start your own thread about your studio!


- Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:Hi Ray, and Welcome!!

It would be really nice to float the floor and walls but after reading this thread I start to really think the opposite.

Yep!

My music room is going to be over the master bedroom of my new house.

Any chance you can swap those two around, and put the music room on the ground floor? That would make your life so much easier, with the build...

I'd encourage you to start your own thread about your studio!


- Stuart -

Thank you Stuart,
The house is already built with all bedrooms in the second floor (all of them smaller than the space available at the roof. So It will only grow upwards.
And YES! I will definitely post in this forum. I’m doing my homework right know starting with a very steep Sketchup learning curve

Ray

An old thread but an important one.

How about this scenario:

I have an existing slab on grade, concrete blocks on the edges upon which my inner walls will be built. The outershell will be built on it's own slab not touching the inner slab.

The monitors will be built on concrete block stands on top of the slab and the front wall will be built from concrete blocks on top of the slab.

Could I build a wooden deck suspended above the concrete slab by 1' attached to the concrete blocks which the walls are built upon with a vent all around the perimeter of the floor to allow air and sound to circulate under the floating wooden deck which will be dampened with insulation?

Basically the floor would be like a big massive bass trap, similar to Steve Albini's Electrical Audio studio. He used a floating concrete slab suspended above the slab on grade but the concept is the same.

My thinking is that if the monitors and front wall are rigidly built directly on top of the slab with the suspended wooden deck floor it could work?

Thoughts?

If the design is for bass trapping, why don't you just build your walls inside out and achieve the same results? Is your main concern trying to find room to run duct work inside your room?
I like the idea of concrete soffit walls but you should try to design them in such a way that you can still use the lower portion of the wall for bass trapping and or ventilation. Maybe make a speaker platform out of concrete rather than having a post to the floor as that would eat up your space for hangers.

Greg

Gregwor wrote:If the design is for bass trapping, why don't you just build your walls inside out and achieve the same results? Is your main concern trying to find room to run duct work inside your room?
I like the idea of concrete soffit walls but you should try to design them in such a way that you can still use the lower portion of the wall for bass trapping and or ventilation. Maybe make a speaker platform out of concrete rather than having a post to the floor as that would eat up your space for hangers.

Greg

So I was looking at Tom Hidley's design at BOP studios, as well as having massive amounts of absorption by hangers on the back wall, side walls and ceilings (we're talking meters thick here) he also installed a bass trap pit between the front wall and the console. if you imagine a slab on grade with a thick floating concrete slab on top with a gap in front of the front wall where theres a pit for yet more hangers. The reason for it is as follows (speaking about NE rooms):

"There is, though, one small caveat to this cunning plan. The acoustic interfaces between the monitor wall and ceiling, and between the monitor wall and the side walls, are 'unloaded', meaning the low-frequency wavefronts produced by the monitors are fully absorbed as if the monitors are firing out into open space. However, the wall-floor junction involves two solid boundary surfaces, so the loading is unsymmetrical in that axis, resulting in a very uneven and unacceptable low-frequency response. Hidley's ingenious solution was the 'Bass Trap Pit' which he used for the first time at BOP. In essence, the control-room floor is floated above the room's structural shell base slab on industrial isolation springs, and the void between the two is used as a bass-trapping labyrinth, which sound enters through a very large slot across the full width of the bottom of the monitor wall. In this way all four monitor wall boundaries become 'symmetrically unloaded' and the monitors are working into a very good approximation of an anechoic chamber. With a negligible acoustic contribution from the room, its shape, size and contents no longer affect monitoring quality and accuracy, and mixes 'travel' extremely well. Control-room reverberation is, in effect, just more unwanted noise that masks detail; and with transient and phase accuracy greatly improved, mic placement, mixing and processing decisions become far easier and clearer."

I was also looking at Electrical Audio's design and it's similar, but I imagine even more effective. He has hangers around the perimeter of the room in the walls, and then he has a vent along the perimeter of the floor above the basement which is just a big vessel of air and insulation to trap low end.

This got me thinking that since my concrete slab is not in great condition and I need to run cable ducting perhaps i could use it to my advantage by using a similar design with a floating timber deck and some layers of drywall and OSB to 'trap' low end in the void below. Just an idea, don't know if it'll work.