John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hey all - i'm looking for construction detail pics of independently framed vaulted ceilings.
Anyone do a build like this? Or can you point me to a build thread that did?
i have a single room recording studio build underway (30' x 24') with ceiling 10' at the sides and almost 13' in the middle (vaulted section). I'm trying to decide how best to do the inner ceiling construction for the room-in-room design i'm working on: independently framed or hang it?

( quick facility details : private production facility / do a lot of loud rock - hardcore once in a while - but not all hours of the night. typically work the loud stuff before 11 PM / neighbors VERY close on either side - but VERY cool about noise ).

thanks for any help!

-pete

see attached for where i'm at:

i was leaning toward hanging 2 layers of 5/8" from these:
http://www.kineticsnoise.com/arch/icw.html

that saves me having to frame another ceiling. yeah?
.... but the question then becomes - how are the inner walls coupled to the new (hanging) ceiling?

-pete

Hi Pete, and Welcome!

How much isolation do you need?

That's the key question. If you need very high level of isolation, then you need a large air gap, which is difficult to do with a hung ceiling, so separate framing would be better.

If you don't need extreme isolation, then I'd suggest using either Resilient Channel, or alternatively RSIC clips plus hat channel, then 2 layers of 5/8" drywall. That will get you pretty good isolation. Adding Green Glue between those two layers of drywall will improve it even more, especially in the low frequencies.

I did a similar room for a company in LA last year, and they did need high levels of isolation so we did a separately framed ceiling for that, but if they would have not needed so much, then I would have done RSIC clips plus hat channel.

The defining factor is how many decibels of isolation you need, and what frequencies you need it at.

That's a pretty nice sized space you have there: bodes well for a great studio!

I did notice that there seem to be large gaps in the outer sheathing on that room: Those will need to be very well sealed, and you'll likely also need to beef up that outer leaf somehow. More photos and a diagram or plan of what you have in mind would help.



- Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:Hi Pete, and Welcome!

How much isolation do you need?

That's the key question. If you need very high level of isolation, then you need a large air gap, which is difficult to do with a hung ceiling, so separate framing would be better.

Thanks for getting back to me here... i was afraid i didn't put enough info into that first post.
Since i started this thread i've discovered a build thread on another site (a hi-end facility in Austin) which did a ceiling VERY similar to what i'm doing, so i'm sort of copying that. Unvented attic design, open cell sprayed underneath, multiple layers of rock hanging from ICW hangers. As far as level of iso required... i don't have exact numbers (yet). I'm basically going for the best i can afford and get away with. A separately framed ceiling (vaulted) would bring the overall height down too much (for my design) so i was looking at Kinetics' ICW hangers or IsoMax clips. The later was used by a friend in a hi-end home theater build he did and he raved about the isolation achieved. I'm planning on taking some measurements and making a decision soon... the IsoMax clips have got to be less expensive... the ICWs are $$$$$!

As far as gaps in the sheathing... those are getting (or already are) sealed up with plywood (the ones left in the roof) and... caulked.... the whole 9 yards.

speaking of caulking the outer wall... am i going overboard here with the OSI SC-175? i'm assuming EVERY seam EVERY joint?

(side question.... how do you rotate pics that you're attaching? this one is rotated 90deg CCW for some reason!)
-pete