please help "soundproofing"

[Stuthumper]

yo all. i need some advice on building my own home studio,i want to make it soundproof,i don't want sound control or whatever i want to soundproof the thing,i will be doing it myself, what i need from u guys is advice and tips,i'm doing it over time but i don't want to spend alot on of course i want to spend enough to soundproof it i just don't want to buy all that ovepriced professional stuff. so can guys help me with what to use. i already know about the floating floor,and room within a room and the decoupling methods i just want to know what sort of things u guys soundproofed ur studios with,i hear that sand is very good because the sound just dies in it,but i need your help. thanx guys Stu

[Steven Denike]

This is the right place! Actually, if you simply go to [url=http://www.musicplayer.com]www.musicplayer.com[/url] , you'll find a button called 'search archives' - not the FORUM search, but the home page article search. Use 'studio construction', and you'll have at least three articles from Russ Bergen, one of studio design's contemporary legends. The most useful one is entitled something like '12 tips for studio design' in which his friend, Spencer Brewer, builds his quarter of a million dollar 'laughing coyote' room. Tips like 'lottsa glue is good for you' . . . he actually says how many cases of glue and silicone they go through, so just divide Laughing Coyote's square footage and budget by your square footage or budget, and you'll have a rough impression of how much you need. Note that, depending where you live, the trade names will be different . . . I live in British Columbia, so instead of rubber Torchdown, we have Ducan manufactured in Port Coquitlam . . . also, prices vary - incredibly. It's also hard to find sheets of neoprene (which he mentions in his article on glass in the studio). One note, these articles are reprints of former magazine articles he wrote, and the image links don't seem to work any longer - perhaps, once they've been archived, the system doesn't hold on to the ancillary links. Good luck . . . also, don't neglect to buy 'The PerfectTools' at the beginning of your project - having the right equipment will save a lot of frustration, no matter how expensive that table saw looks --> it will definitely pay for itself. Several great books on this subject: but my baby's awake, so I can't finish responding right now. P>S> whatever your budget is, expect it to double or triple . . . but if you're doing it yourself, you'll also have double the fun and triple the sense of accomplishment.

[Philip OKeefe]

[quote]Originally posted by Stu(thumper): [b]yo all. i need some advice on building my own home studio,i want to make it soundproof,i don't want sound control or whatever i want to soundproof the thing,[/b] Well, I hate to break this to you, but sound PROOF is a very expensive proposition. You'll only stop sound in one of three ways - distance (the Inverse Square law), mass (lots of thick, heavy and expensive materials), and trapped airspaces / mechanical decoupling. i will be doing it myself, what i need from u guys is advice and tips,i'm doing it over time but i don't want to spend alot on of course i want to spend enough to soundproof it i just don't want to buy all that ovepriced professional stuff. so can guys help me with what to use. i already know about the floating floor,and room within a room and the decoupling methods i just want to know what sort of things u guys soundproofed ur studios with,i hear that sand is very good because the sound just dies in it,but i need your help. thanx guys Stu[/B][/quote] Can your walls handle the weight of the sand? It's not cheap either, and you'd better be CERTAIN the structure will handle the load. I bought a building with exterior walls made of concrete block that was filled with rebar and concrete. I built the interior with wood framing, resiliant channel, hemosote / celotex, drywall, compressed and "fluffy" fiberglass, etc. But my main "shell" had a lot to do with the amount of attenuation I get. That and the fact it's a seperate building, and I used multiple layers of materials on the interior. Sorry, but acoustics is physics. there's no easy / cheap way to get around it. Blocking sound from coming in or going out takes mass, and costs money. Phil O'Keefe Sound Sanctuary Recording Riverside CA http://members.aol.com/ssanctuary/index.html email: pokeefe777@msn.com

[strat0124]

I agree with Phil....it's damn expensive, well at least for me. The biggest thing I tried to do was make the room dampened enough so the outside world wouldn't get the full brunt of the low end. Also to make it a good room for listening. Not sure if it's that great a listening room, cause nothing was done scientific with my design. I read everything I could online, bought books, and talked to pro installers. Since I built the whole thing myself, I learned alot about studio construction, sometimes after the fact with results you just have to live with. It was intended to be small demo studio, but the next thing you know I have all kinds of percussion, amps, PA, etc lining the walls.....so I ran out of space. Drum isolation is my biggest obstacle, in fact if I could solve that inexpensively, I'd stop pouring money into the space. I recommend an elevated platform in the center of your live room with sound-dampening half walls and plexiglass uppers. I saw Slash's live room and instantly wanted that setup. A heavy handed drummer will run you out of a smallish room, and the isolation helps. I put double walls in my studio with about a four inch gap of air between the two, with regular ole insulation batts between the 2X4's, and 3" wedge auralex on top of the drywall. The floor is half carpet and half tile, and the ceiling is drywall, with lighting cans, and the oh so cool black light fixture! I put batt insulation in the attic, and blew some more insulation on top of that. It really helps keeping noise inside, and the only thing that really bleeds inside is a low flying jet, a low rider with the massive subwoofer kicking 5000 watts, or one of my kids slamming a door SOMEWHERE in the house. I ran a A/C line and it really stays comfortable without the woosh of air noise. This is a studio on the cheap of course, and you can do better with more money, but it's a working environment 1000% better than the walk in closet I used to use. I still use other rooms in the house to isolate an instrument or whatever. Of course I don't have much room in my garage for the plethora of surfboards, bicycles, and lawn tools anymore (why I built a shed!) but hey my amps have a nice home! Glad my wife isn't reading this!

[strat0124]

Phil, does Riverside still have the Drive in? I lived off Jamacha Blvd in the late 80's......good ole El Cajon. We used to take the kids in their PJ's to the drive in, it was cheap, and had pretty good eats. Of course I have a fondness for Roberto's.....and the Jalepeno/carrot bar.

[Steven Denike]

Mmmm . . . jalapenos . . . [quote]Originally posted by strat0124: [B]I put double walls in my studio with about a four inch gap of air between the two, with regular ole insulation batts between the 2X4's, and 3" wedge auralex on top of the drywall. The floor is half carpet and half tile, and the ceiling is drywall, with lighting cans, and the oh so cool black light fixture! I put batt insulation in the attic, and blew some more insulation on top of that. It really helps keeping noise inside, and the only thing that really bleeds inside is a low flying jet, a low rider with the massive subwoofer kicking 5000 watts, or one of my kids slamming a door SOMEWHERE in the house. I ran a A/C line and it really stays comfortable without the woosh of air noise. B][/quote] Four inches! THat's a lot of real estate . . . What did you do for doors / windows? And can you describe your air conditioning? I just have a vent! And that's mostly for the gear!!

[-]

This is to the original poster (and whoever else is interested)... Check out this link: http://www.studiocovers.com/articles.htm If you click on the "Studio Acoustics" link, you'll have more information about soundproofing than you probably ever wanted to know! [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

[strat0124]

[quote]Originally posted by Steven Denike: [b]Mmmm . . . jalapenos . . . Four inches! THat's a lot of real estate . . . What did you do for doors / windows? And can you describe your air conditioning? I just have a vent! And that's mostly for the gear!![/b][/quote] Actually four inches isn't alot of airspace, and I used all 2x4 construction. It's basically walls within walls, in basic terms. My ac is a vent as well from my main ac trunk. I used strips of foam rubber at all points where my walls connected to either the ceiling or floor. I didn't use resilent channeling......should've though. I have no windows, and only one door, which is heavy with all the insulation/rubber weatherstripping/auralex. I had an odd space to work with, and just made the best out of it with minimal funds.

[Guest]

To isolate walls from my existing basement walls, I used rubber motor mounts that you can get at a duct supply house. These motor mounts are used to secure air conditioners and fans. They are highly effective in attenuating sound transmission. I used them to secure my wall studs. My walls did not touch my ceiling. I had between a sixteenth to quarter inch gap between the drywall sall and the ceiling which I sealed with architectural caulk. I put in my ceiling first. I think the ideal ceiling is to mount a grid suspended with isolators. Put some pink insulation above to stop cavity resonance and then you can hang two layers of sheetrock to the grid. Any better than that I would imagine would cost some. You get more insulation by varying materials than by density. Careful attention to detail is important because you can short isolation with a wrongly placed drywall nail. Two layer walls are one solution, but there are effective one wall solutions too. It does little good to have a two layer wall if your floor or ceiling is not discontinuous. I was in a situation where there was a small movie theater, behind the screen side wall there was a film editing lab and the sounds from the lab would come into the theater. Taking a skill saw and sawing the wood floor at the base of the separating wall significantly attenuated the sound transmission between the rooms, sufficient so that work in the editing room didn't disturb the theater.