John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hey all;

A few familiar faces here..... Got pointed here from a post over at Home Recording.

My studio is currently in the spare room which was at one time an addition to the exterior of the house. As a result, the one wall between the studio and the kitchen used to be a fairly thick exterior wall. However, I won't attest to the quality or method of construction, as there are a few "suspect" things around here that would suggest that the job probably involved some corner-cutting.

I'm looking at sonically separating the studio from the rest of the house. Soundproofing is totally unfeasable, but if I can make reasonable headway, I'll invest and try to set it up so that I can record without my wife having to shushhh the kids for hours while I record bands doing vocals and guitars. If I'm REALLY lucky, I'll be able to record drums without having to evacuate my family.

For the doorway, I'm looking at hanging a pre-hung exterior door - maybe one with a nice window for aesthetics from the kitchen - from Home Depot. My sticking point is this pass-through window from the studio to the kitchen. The pic is at the very bottom of the page. http://www.recordingproject.com/bbs/vie ... &start=225

We don't want to block it off permanently, but I'm wondering if there is some sort of gobo-type shutters, or a removable insert or something that would be feasable for blocking out a fair amount of the noise. Or, with an approach like this, would I even be wasting my money bothering with the exterior door because heaps of sound will blast through my pass-through window anyways?

Thanks!

Chris

Here's axemanchris' photo (so y'all don't have to click and scroll)...



I'm guessing the "pass-through window" used to be an actual window, whereas it is now just an opening.

I'm also guessing that you're pretty much screwed by that gaping hole, and that no "temporary block" is going to cut the mustard.

But, I'll let the experts say. (I'm just a shopper here -- ask one of the guys with the nametags.)

Good luck...

Thanks for your help, Sharward. Yeah, I'm kinda worried about that. It would be nice, though....

Chris

Chris, welcome - I wish I could give you a "magic bullet", but then everyone ELSE would want one of the damn things and besides, I'm still looking for the FIRST one, guess who's gonna KEEP it if I ever find it

Your comment, "I'm looking at sonically separating the studio from the rest of the house. Soundproofing is totally unfeasable" - is unfortunately a complete contradiction of terms and concepts -

One of the reasons I've studied this stuff for so long is that sound can find more ways out of (or into) a room than any 6 people can find to stop it - any crack, (even one that's 1/64" wide and about a foot long) will hurt isolation - bigger is worse.

Almost all building materials transmit sound faster than air, and more efficiently; so any material piece that's common to both areas will transmit sound from one area to the other.

Sound will travel down a floor joist or stud to another framing member, then across a concrete floor, up a wall frame, and into the wallboard where it will act like a speaker and re-radiate into a room 3-4 walls away from the original sound - this is FLANKING noise, and it limits how much isolation we can get by just adding layers.

Doors must be hermetically sealed or they will leak - think of this small crack as a "helmholtz resonator" or sorts - the smaller the crack, the deeper the frequency that's affected.

Once you get everything sealed with huge amounts of mass separated by air from a SECOND huge amount of mass, then you have to "ruin" it with holes for air or you die; so there are ways of doing this without totally screwing your efforts, but they require space, time, money, thought, etc...

ON the PLUS side, there's a little help for your window plug here

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=272

My suggestion would be to take it a step at a time, depending on budget/time/need - the plug won't cost a whole lot, see what it does and where the NEXT most obvious bad guy is (if you don't already own a Radio Shack Sound level meter, you should; I use mine constantly when mixing, so I maintain an average 85 dB SPL at mix location in order to get consistent mixes (do a google on "fletcher-munson", it's worth a few hours reading)

You can use the SLM to find what is the loudest interference - put up a mix on your speakers, then just set the meter for "C" weighted, SLOW, and walk slowly around the house. Wherever you get the highest average, that's where your sound is leaking the worst. It's a two-way street, so this will also be where YOU get annoyed from the most - exceptions would be IMPACT noise, which is a whole different animule.

Sorry for not wanting to share my non-existent "magic bullet", but I might run into a werewolf and need it... Steve

Thanks for the reply, Steve!

Well, it seems that there is some hope. Yeah, I was a bit vague about trying to distinguish between "sonic separation" and "soundproofing." What I'm looking for is to be able to record a band without deafening the rest of my family, or to be able to record a singer without sweating about talking in the front of the house. Silence is, for my situation, unachievable.

It looks like I have some reading to do, based on that other link. I have a lot to learn, so I guess I've come to the right place!

Thanks again!

Chris

You're welcome - lots more here, when you get ready -

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2125

Steve

That's awesome, Steve! Thanks!

Chris