John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi Forum Folks,

Appreciate the great resource here. Designing a single room, primary purpose is drum playing and occasional recording/jamming with friends. I will use this room quite extensively for work and some video/sound editing, so not to live / not too dead. I will only do a few drum tracks but still like to have a mic'd kit sound pretty good. Big picture point is isolation, as I generally don't like to be to overwhelming for the other occupant of the house and a wee little bit for some neighbors. Neighbors - not to big of a concern - closest is a couple hundred feet and only half a dozen within couple hundred yards. I am thinking room-in-a-room - especially on the north wall and ceiling. Room is currently unfinished basement in the corner of the house with dimensions of ~31' x ~18' x ~10' -

For a quick video walk around to get an idea of some of my thoughts - low quality but gives the idea. All can be changed and most likely will be. Just like usual I do things a bit backwards and have function follow form... The items in the design are things I like but do they work?
Walk Around the Studio

Here are the wall by wall thoughts
East Wall - Can put absorber columns on the side, and boxes on the bottom as well as some insulation up in the light box. Maybe six inches of wall space as this goes to under the garage. I do like the looks of the quadratic diffuser and would like to incorporate at least one large one some where in the room say a nice studio with them in the live room behind the drums and liked it - one in the design is #23 and can give it a pretty good depth into the wall and maybe two feet out. The smaller side ones I think would help with the cymbals South Wall is also ~6" and has the panel in the center of the room (added center display rack). Obviously can tune to help with problem peaks. The horizontal absorbers are a bit of decorative and may back light them for some ambience. Absorber panels on the right for the speakers West wall - have the similar corner and bottom traps - put an absorber panel on each of the first points of reflection for the speaker. Have a design that puts the speaker in the wall, as well as lines the wall with a 3D diffuse panel but think I want to keep it a little "cleaner". North wall will be a separate inner wall about 18 inches in with space for duct work a set of double doors on both walls. The back of the theater room is on the right side so need good sound proofing there, the left side goes out to the patio so have though about putting a closet on that side - I had put a panel on both sides of the door but think I may have a problem on the left side with the speakers and direct reflection off the panel - like symmetry but maybe some how work closet doors that look similar. This one is a1/3 of the wall length Ceiling can go either isolated from floor joists or did see the room Greg helped Darren with and liked the 2 layers of 5/8 up inbetween the joist so may try that as well. Tried not to put lights in the ceiling but will have a foot or so drop on the sides to accommodate lights and some other wiring underneath a dropped ceiling. The drop in the ceiling can also have some insulation for more absorbing in the corners. One design had large absorber panel directly above the kit - options there as well

SO - Forum Thoughts?

Probably best to analyse the situation first. Is Isolation a priority? If so, find the paths that sound likes to take from one room to another. Big speaker playing consistent music very load. Search for the leaks using a Sound Level Meter. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/noise/app.html

Thanks DanDan,

Will check out current leakage.

Update:

Room Dimension - -
So, as mentioned in OP, the North Wall is moveable in to give some isolation (double leaf) as well as the East wall in some that the QDR doesn't appear to stick out as far. But it looks like the overall length may still be a bit problematic. Unless I cut off ~4-5 feet, the Bonello Graph shows a non-ideal situation in the 25 and 50 buckets. Looks like L-293"xW-191"xH-113" gives a good return but taking the length over that starts the problem. No double peaks on the modes. Would prefer not cutting out that much space - unless I move in the West Wall and put a sauna in there -

Can I keep the length around ~347" and easily cure a slight ill shown in the graph? Or is the room just to long?

(I will have plenty of low freq ~ 50 running on the double bass)

the challenge with sound isolation, it's got to be 3D - walls, floor, ceiling - not just one or two walls.

one consideration is go with the full size of the room since it's not only a critical listening spot, but also your HT and a live room. so best bet in that situation will be getting as much room volume as possible, sealing up everything including adding mass to the underside of the floor above and using isolation clips and hat channel to suspend the ceiling, and similar on the walls. this will help maximize isolation without losing too much space (which you'd lose if you went with room within a room). e.g. https://kineticsnoise.com/arch/

and then treat as needed - get the front of the room (i.e. your listening spot) to be symmetrical and first reflections etc all done, then do some absorption around the room with broadband absorption and finally any tuned treatments for the remaining problem frequencies.

you can use "soft" soffits around the ceiling to increase the absorption around the room significantly without taking up floor or walls and you can mount your lighting in those. the hard duct soffits can do the hvac work.

Thanks Glenn,

So go with room as large as I can with double leaf (at least) all around and ceiling with added mass.

For the wall to the East - foundation and nothing but dirt on the other side. Would it be best to sorry about good thick wall (say 2 x 5/8 DW) on the inside or go with a bit thinner wall (1 x 5/8 or even 1/2 DW and then have ~8-12" of pink fluffiness behind? I can certainly seal seal seal around that wall but does having a thinner mass inside leaf wall with more volume behind to absorb work better in this situation?

And note the home theater is on the other side of the North Wall. The double doors goes into the back of the theater.

Kelly

you're better off with the additional mass with the 8-12" of soft stuff - which you can compress slightly - e.g. you could squeeze in R49 into the 12" space with not ill effects and probably slightly better damping due to the contact.