John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all well.

Just a quickie.

I am moving to a new premises for my studio (i will post what i will do and my results in due course).

My biggest problem will be the sound traveling through the floor, disturbing the lady downstairs.

The studio will be in an attic space and will be used only for mixing.

What i would like to do is to put something on the floor underneath the speaker stands/mixing desk etc.

Currently, i have some carpet tiles and fibrewood which i am putting down in my current room to help create a non resonant hard surface.

My idea is to double layer some carpet tiles and then place the fibrewood on top of that, and place some sandbags on the speaker stands to weigh them down.

Is there any other fairly cheap alternative i could consider which would really help the sound?

The corners will be trapped with superchunks (Far front corners that is) and so will the length corners (All the way along the sides of the room as it is a typical loft slanted roof) be trapped by stuffing lots of bags of rockwool, duvets, blankets etc, and then placing a 10cm absorption panel in front (as i currently own these). I will also place superchunks directly behind the speakers.

For full details of my current DIY treatment and floor, it is all here :-

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =3&t=17566

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =3&t=17567

What i will do once i have got everything in place is to post here a full plan of my room and what i have done to treat so far, but i would like to do the floor first as i will set up all of the equipment on the false floor and it will be hard to move it afterwards (unless absolutely necessary).

If anyone has any ideas of something cheaper than the rubber sheets found in the shops, that would be great.

Thanks in advance,

TCT.

From what you say, it seems like you are mostly concerned about impact noise and vibration getting into the floor, and not really concerned about actual air-borne sound transmission through the floor. So one option might be to do the floor as a "drum riser", with a layer of semi-rigid insulation (such as 2" (5cm) OC-703, for example), then two layers or thick 3/4" (19mm) plywood on top. That would help to decouple your "floor" from the actual attic floor, and keep the vibrations out.

Even then, you still need massive (heavy) speaker stands with Sorbathane rubber on top, just under the speakers, to isolate them from the stand.

I would not use carpet: it doesn't have many acoustic uses in general, and the properties are totally unknown. All carpets are different, so unless you know exactly which brand and model number of carpet you have, and the manufacturer has published the acoustic properties of that model, there's no way of knowing if it is any use to you, or not.


- Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:From what you say, it seems like you are mostly concerned about impact noise and vibration getting into the floor, and not really concerned about actual air-borne sound transmission through the floor. So one option might be to do the floor as a "drum riser", with a layer of semi-rigid insulation (such as 2" (5cm) OC-703, for example), then two layers or thick 3/4" (19mm) plywood on top. That would help to decouple your "floor" from the actual attic floor, and keep the vibrations out.

Even then, you still need massive (heavy) speaker stands with Sorbathane rubber on top, just under the speakers, to isolate them from the stand.

I would not use carpet: it doesn't have many acoustic uses in general, and the properties are totally unknown. All carpets are different, so unless you know exactly which brand and model number of carpet you have, and the manufacturer has published the acoustic properties of that model, there's no way of knowing if it is any use to you, or not.


- Stuart -

Hi Again Stuart,

Thanks so much for your reply. It's good to hear from you again.

The drum riser seems the way to go as i can convert what i already have plus i will have rockwool left over.

My new space is so much better than my old one, the dimensions alone are around 13.5m, 6m, 3.5m (apex) and the slanted walls are already filled with fibrewool and have pourous wood as their surface.

The REW results were very good compared to the old one. Here are a couple of them just for you to see plus photos (untreated btw) :-
Sorry about the quality of the last two, the light in there is terrible at the moment.

What i am going to do is build a hanging ceiling about 2m of the way up with 30cm thick rockwool to cover the mix area (nice and thick to deal with the bass). What we will do so that it isn't too heavy is to hang a net between the beams (see front view photo. The mix position is where the laptop and speakers are there) and fill up some duvet covers with rockwool (30cm thick) and place them on top of the net.

I would love you to take a look at my results and my room once it is done, but i am aware you will need all the information about the room and as we have literally only just cleared out the masses of rubbish and boxes up there i haven't yet been able to measure accurately (plus my wife no longer has that nice software to do the plan diagrams).

I will keep you informed as i go.

Thanks once again,

TCT.