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#1872930 - 01/15/08 03:45 AM Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV) , Cement Board & Room Acoustics
fingers57
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Registered: 01/15/08
Posts: 6
Loc: New Jersey

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Hi,

I am on the verge of building a recording studio in my 20'x20' basement. I would like to isolate the room from the living room upstairs and isolate the control room (with be a diamond shaped room in one corner) from the rest of the space. A friend of mine who is building his own studio recommended that I use a combination of mass loaded vinyl (MLV) and cement board ("Hardy Backer" is available at Home Depot) to isolate the rooms. My plan was to have the MLV (1/8" or 1/4" thick) inside all walls and ceiling.

What I'd like to know is how these materials will affect the acoustics of the control room and recording room (will they make for a dead sounding rooms?). I was planning on hanging the MLV inside the walls, then use the cement board to cover the walls followed by spackle or fabric for the final covering. The floor will be a hard laminate surface such as Pergo.

any thoughts?
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#1873052 - 01/15/08 07:58 AM Re: Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV) , Cement Board & Room Acoustics [Re: fingers57]
Rod Gervais
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Registered: 10/08/03
Posts: 478
Loc: Central Village, CT

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57,

Yup - my thoughts are that you are:

1. Throwing your money away.

For the cost of MLV and Cement board you can buy a lot of drywall and some green glue -

those products will isolate your room better than the others ever could.

By the way - MLV is pretty much not worth any investment - and has no real testing proving that it has any real value compared with ap product like green glue.

(For the record - I have no vested interest in Green GLue)

2. will never acheive any real degree of isolation unless you begin decoupling the inner walls/ceiling from the existing building framing.

Recommendations:

Your best bet would be to construct a room within a room - seperate walls and a new ceiling resting on top of them.........

Drywall is about the cheapest mass you can buy - you pay more per pound for cement board than drywall.

The Green Glue Mentione above - sandwiched between a 2 layer wall of 5/8" drywall (all properly installed of course) will give you just about the equivilence of a wall with 4 layers per face.

If you try to do this by just applying materials to the face of existing structure - then it will soon reach the point where the flanking path through structure is greater than any amount of mass you can apply.

The walls can be any finish youwant - but you are going to have to install bass traps as well as mid and high frequency sound attenuation to tame the room down from it's normal level of modal and non-modal issues.

Hardfloors are good - in fact they are prefered

I hope this helped

Rod
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#1873249 - 01/15/08 01:07 PM Re: Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV) , Cement Board & Room Acoustics [Re: Rod Gervais]
fingers57
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Registered: 01/15/08
Posts: 6
Loc: New Jersey

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Rod,

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions and saving me a lot of money!!!! I will clue my friend in about the sheet rock and Green Glue although he has already invested quite a bit of money into the cement board. Fortunately he hasn't bought the MLV yet...

Thanks again.

57
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#1873702 - 01/16/08 06:20 AM Re: Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV) , Cement Board & Room Acoustics [Re: fingers57]
gullfo
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Registered: 03/30/04
Posts: 75
Loc: Old Tappan, NJ, USA

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btw - MLV is useful in "soft" traps where the heavy MLV is hung in between insulation batts to create a limp membrane absorber for low-mid absorption. but as Rod points out is not nearly as effective for constrained layer damping in boundary walls.
_________________________
Glenn
www.runnel.com

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#1875789 - 01/19/08 08:00 AM Re: Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV) , Cement Board & Room Acoustics [Re: gullfo]
Derek Drudge
Senior Member


Registered: 03/06/06
Posts: 34
Loc: Florida

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Hey 57,

I went the Green Glue/double sheetrock route and it has worked well. Also, unless you have a supplier locally,MLV is very expensive to ship due to its weight.

And a question for one of the gurus on this forum: How would Green Glue work with cement board? Since 57's friend already has the cement board. Either drywall on cement board with GG or GG between two layers of cement board? Just a thought.....

Although, drywall/sheetrock is MUCH easier to work with than that Hardi cement board. That cement stuff makes a ton of dust that is bad to breath and is much harder to cut and nail or screw. Just another thought......

Edited by Derek Drudge (01/19/08 08:05 AM)
Edit Reason: After thought
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#1875794 - 01/19/08 08:07 AM Re: Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV) , Cement Board & Room Acoustics [Re: Derek Drudge]
Rod Gervais
Senior Member


Registered: 10/08/03
Posts: 478
Loc: Central Village, CT

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 Originally Posted By: Derek Drudge
Hey 57,

I went the Green Glue/double sheetrock route and it has worked well. Also, unless you have a supplier locally,MLV is very expensive to ship due to its weight.

And a question for one of the gurus on this forum: How would Green Glue work with cement board? Since 57's friend already has the cement board. Either drywall on cement board with GG or GG between two layers of cement board? Just a thought.....


It's difficult to answera question like that without have seen any test data..........

Perhaps our friendly engineer from green glue might pop in to field that question.

Sincerely,

Rod
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