John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello,
first of all, I'd like to say that this forum is a goldmine! Amazing work!!

I have basic knowledge of acoustics and am helping a friend of mine with the design of a recording studio. The house isn't even built yet, but I have some drawings. The recording studio is supposed to have rather live acoustics, suitable for recording piano for example, but pop music as well.

This location is in an industrial area, no basement, but neighbours on two sides which might get noisy (worst case a car mechanic). I don't know yet exactly how the walls will be built, but the house will be a steel-frame house.

The plan is to build the live room (red in pictures) out of timber, use double gypsum in walls and ceiling with 100-150mm rockwool in the cavity (total cavity will be 20-25cm). The walls and ceilings will not touch the remainder of the building (except the floor). The green area will be the control room, and the blue area is a lounge or will be an extension of the live room (more on that in my questions). Note that the dimensions on the sketches are approximate.

The live room will be treated with bass traps in the corners (perhaps covering around 10% of total area) and will probably have perforated/slatted wooden panel on walls with various thicknesses of rockwool behind (probably at least 25% with no rockwool). I would also to cover up to 20% of walls with diffusers, like for example the A1-LF design from Arqen. This part will be done a little bit in ad-hoc manner after the shell has been built.
I want to ask you guys five questions if I may:
1. Would you recommend a floating floor to get better isolation from our neighbours?
2. Would it make sense acoustically to extend the volume of the live room by opening it into the blue room?
3. The height of the room is considerably more than Bolt's curve suggests. Would you reccomend lowering the ceiling?
4. I did not plan to have the control room as room-in-room. Would you consider that necessary?
5. Am I too optimistic regarding the noise isolation of the live room?

Thanks a lot in advance, I know you guys are busy but I would appreciate even shortest answers.

best regards,
Mos

OK i'll give it my best, but as everyone says just be patient and wait for Stuart.

1. Would you recommend a floating floor to get better isolation from our neighbors?

No floating floor. Properly installed will cost you a small fortune. But since you are on the ground floor you already have great isolation.

2. Would it make sense acoustically to extend the volume of the live room by opening it into the blue room?

I personally love the look and feel of an open loft in a studio. However the only way that will work is if people in the lounge area are perfectly quiet when you are tracking. food for thought

3. The height of the room is considerably more than Bolt's curve suggests. Would you reccomend lowering the ceiling?

Stuart will go into more detail, but this does not necessarily effect your live room like it does your control room. High ceilings in a live room add ambient color and natural reverb that can be tamed with proper acoustic dampening. But also are desired by many engineers.

4. I did not plan to have the control room as room-in-room. Would you consider that necessary?

At minimum you want the live room decoupled from the control room. And depending on ambient noise coming or going you will need to decide the amount of isolation you want.

5. Am I too optimistic regarding the noise isolation of the live room?

Yes

On another note. The Control room needs symmetry. I would move the green line back to the 4505 line. Straight across and then use sepmeyers calc http://www.odometer.org/misc/ht/

I am assuming the 4.8 and 3.0 sq meter rooms are WC and ?. Move the WC so the door at least opens into the live room opposed to the control room. And that wall I would recommend decoupling as well from the control room

Hope that helped some until the real help arrives
Best
T