John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hey guys,

I am at the design stages for a single wall (seperating live room from control room) for a new studio. The room has concret floors. The ceiling height is 10' 8". It is in the shape of a rectangle (18'2" wide & 36'6" long.) and has no interior walls (it's an empty rectangle). I want to build the seperating wall 14' away from the back wall (the 18'2" wall). This would leave me with a control room that is 18'2" wide and 14' long. And a live room that is 18'2" wide and approx 21'6" long (36'6" minus 14' minus thickness of wall estimated at 1').

I think I should use the "leaf spring leaf" concept discussed on this forum?
I am also planning on putting a double laminated glass window (4' by 6')somewhere in the center of the wall.

And lastly my idea is to put a vocal booth as the doorway that will seperate the live room from the control room. This way the doorway will be a double door "sound lock." I am planning on making the vocal booth 6' by 5'. I realize the draw back is that the only way to pass between the live room and control is through the vocal booth...But I only have 729 sq feet and I'm trying to make the live room and control rooms as big as possible.

Lastly, the room currently has ceiling tiles (generic office ceiling tiles) which limit ceiling hieight to 8 '. My plan is to remove all ceiling tiles which brings the height to 10'8". My question here is would it be beneficial to leave the ceilng tiles (8 foot ceiling) in the control room?

Any advice you can provide on how I should go about this...or if there is a better approach I could be taking, would be very much appreciated.

Thanks
James

I forgot to mention that the ceiling (10'8" ceiling above the office tiles) is corrugated steal.

James

James, when you say "corrugated steel", do you mean that this is the outside roof? Or is there something else above the steel, like a concrete upper floor? This can make quite a difference in the way to go, depending on whether you need heavy sound proofing or not, so I need to know more in order to answer... Steve

Hey Knightfly thanks for the response.

This space is in the basement of a 3 (or 4) story commercial building. Above the steel is a layer of floorboard (Plywood). The floor board has tiles. The space above me is a drug store/donut store...so the tiles are the typical type seen in stores like these

I just posted a jpeg of the layout on my website. www.originproductions.ca. Click on the dial labeled "New Location Info."

James

There are probably a few thousand details that you will need to look at - things like sound isolation (present versus needed) , not having your absorbers in the live room directly across from each other, modal considerations in both rooms, adequate door hardware and seals so as not to negate your wall construction, type of glass, size, thickness so you don't lose STC, correcting for parallel walls, etc - I don't have time to write an entire book at the moment, but if you pick a place to start... Steve

Like I said before...we have a big empty rectangle to work with. We are planning on doing the framing with steel studs...but were wondering if the studs should scew right into the concrete or if we should lay a strip of rubber (or neoprene) down first? We are actually unsure about how alot of the connections should be treated...eg. How should corners be treated...should the drywall be seperated from the studs by rubber strips everywhere?

The main wall that seperates the control room from the live room is so far designed as double wall ('Leaf. spring. leaf)...2 sets of framing etc etc. We are planning that each leaf be a double layer of drywall (glued together), and also planning that each leaf be a different total thickness from one another? So far all doors are planned to be two solid cores glued together and lined with rubber gaskets etc.

All the treatment with broadband pannels and diffusers will be done at a later date.

Any more suggestions?

James

First, you should re-read the sticky "complete section" - somewhere in that I cautioned against gluing successive layers of wallboard together. Reason being that by doing that, you make one thick panel out of two, and now you only have one resonant frequency and one coincidence frequency per leaf of the wall. Whatever that frequency is, that's what will get through the wall easier and cause a weak spot in TL.

Check out that thread and post back, and I'll clarify any points you (or I) missed... Steve