John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Thanks for some great points. As far as the ceiling to the floor measurement, yes I have 7'. Only a half inch of drywall then the rafters. The booth is attached to a inside brick wall and I have another room on the other side. The other walls come into the studio. The heating/cooling duct is a dedicated duct for the basement. Now I planned on running new duct work into the booth through a silencer, then up through the ceiling. Now the exhaust fan has me a bit confused. So I hook the vent leaving the booth into another silencer? Should that fan be at the out take of that vent leading into the silencer or at the end of the silencer? Thanks for clearing up the glass angle myth for me. But I don't understand this. If I need glass that's 32x30 and 11x30 (It needs to have at least the same surface density as the leaf that it is in. So the glass on the inner-leaf of your wall would need to match the density of the inner-leaf, and the other glass would need to match the density of the outer leaf)? When you referring to a wall, is that a leaf? Any good silencer designs out there you can point me to...Many thanks again...Lc

Wall with drywall or some other hard/heavy surface = leaf. This is also the "mass" in a MSM system. To achieve sound proofing, you need 2 leafs with air/insulation between them. Hence the term MSM. Mass Space Mass.

For silencer boxes, there are many threads on the forum discussing them. To summarize what I've learned about them:

- do the math or hire an HVAC dude to calculate how big of ducts you'll need to supply your space with sufficient air flow/velocity according to code and then beef it up some more because chances are, the musicians in the space aren't going to be watching Netflix, they're going to be breaking a sweat.
- figure out the cross sectional area of the duct (simple math).
- the path inside the silencer must be at least double the cross sectional area of the inlet.
- the outlet of the box must maintain that size (double the inlet) all the way until it exists the register. So make sure your register is big too!
- Use proper duct liner inside of the box
- Make the box out of good heavy material.
- Don't use duct transitions. Have your small round duct go straight into the silencer. The impedance mismatch is key to the box functioning properly.
- Not only do you need to follow the basic "double the cross sectional area" rule, you should try and figure out the speed at which your air will be travelling. There are threads in here that discuss that topic as well. Basically, you want the air going slow enough so that it isn't creating noise either (like putting your head out of your car window doing 20 km/hr).
- The more baffles in your box, the better. But these boxes do eat up a lot of real estate, so we have to be realistic in our designs. I've seen lots of threads where people only have 3 baffles total and say that they work great.
- The inlet should be on a different axis than the outlet (ex: inlet on bottom, outlet on side)

Now, to bring back the MSM topic and relate it to the HVAC silencers, I think it's a good idea to have those silencers live between the leafs if possible. If they have to live in your room or outside of your room, make sure they are attached directly to the corresponding leaf and that they maintain the mass of that leaf. So, build it out of MDF, HDF, or plywood and then add more layers to it. You can look up the density of different materials to make sure you don't compromise your nicely sound proofed room.

Fans are usually put on the return duct furthest away from your room. You only need one fan for each room. Again, figure out what it's specs need to be.

You do need a silencer on the supply as well as the return of your room's air system.

I don't know the answer to the glass question, but it does make sense to try and maintain the same surface density as the rest of the wall. If you don't, you will have two sections of your wall with different resonance frequencies as well as having different TL values. I'm too tired to look up the surface density of laminated glass vs drywall, but that is something we should look up and confirm. Great thinking! SketchUp your room, share it, and keep us posted on your progress!

Hey John,

I'm glad I saw this post. This seems like a good design. How could it actually be effective though for recording? It seems extremely tight.

The design you offer on the Booth.skp file, my computer does not open it. Can you tell me what program opens a .skp file.

The design you offer on the Booth.skp file, my computer does not open it. Can you tell me what program opens a .skp file.

Sketchup Make 2017 is what you need: https://help.sketchup.com/en/downloading-older-versions

Also, please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things!


- Stuart -

This design is great, thank you for posting it!

I'm about to start building this in my single room studio. Does anyone know how much isolation it has (is it enough to record a an AC30 or a Twin without disturbing the neighbors)?

Would it improve the isolation a great deal to add another leave of 1/2" drywall to the inside and then move the absorption inside that?

Thanks!

cchhrriiss wrote:I'm about to start building this in my single room studio. Does anyone know how much isolation it has

I'm not sure if anyone has measured the isolation, but I would expect somewhere around 30 dB or so, by itself.

(is it enough to record a an AC30 or a Twin without disturbing the neighbors)?

That depends on a lot of variables! If this booth is all you have, (o house around it), then no, it won't be enough. But if it is inside a concrete bunker, then absolutely! Way, way more than enough. Also, how loud do you play? How far away are the neighbors? Where do you live? Are we talking mid-day or midnight?

You would have to describe the building and situation where you plan to use it, to determine if the TOTAL isolation will be sufficient.

Would it improve the isolation a great deal to add another leave of 1/2" drywall to the inside and then move the absorption inside that?

Not really. That would create a coupled-2-leaf system, and in combination with the room around it, that could potentially create a 3-leaf system, thus reducing low frequency isolation. Putting another layer of drywall directly over the existing layer, could increase the isolation by about 3 to 6 dB, roughly, depending on other factors.


- Stuart -

apologies for dragging up an old old post but i had a question about the design just for clarification.

are the corners behind the slats -not- filled superchunk style with triangular insulation? they have insulation immediately behind the slats but then there is a triangular gap between that and the insulation in the framing?

i hope the question makes sense. (:

-= george =-

No There's no superchunk behind the slats. Just insulation lining the cavity.

cheers
john

John Sayers wrote:No There's no superchunk behind the slats. Just insulation lining the cavity.

cheers
john

Thanks so much, John!

Now to get to measuring. Plan to start building it in the next couple months. I'll make sure to document on the forum.

-= george =-

Happy New Years to all! I would like to know if this model can be scaled down to 4x5x7 or even 3"5'x4"8'x7" range and still be able to get a decent sound for hip hop/trap vocals only? Also, instead of using rockwool is it preferable to use OC 703 and still to be able achieve similar results in a compact booth? Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions that will definitely help me get an idea if this is the right build for the considered space.

- Henry

it's possible to scale it although if you're talking about outer dimensions, then i think the booth might as well be one of your spare closets - music stand a laptop - open so you can communicate via video, maybe install some vent fan units on the door, and viola! or something similar to this.

annakieu541 wrote:The design you offer on the Booth.skp file, Rachat de crédit et trésorerie my computer does not open it. Can you tell me what program opens a .skp file.

I have some problems like you

Bobby71 wrote:

annakieu541 wrote:The design you offer on the Booth.skp file, Rachat de crédit et trésorerie my computer does not open it. Can you tell me what program opens a .skp file.

I have some problems like you

SketchUp by Trimble. there is a free version you can use via the Web.

What's a ballpark cost of building this booth?

Also, how does the ventilation work? Where is the ventilation?