Getting my Studio Organized - Need Soundproofing Advice

[HammondDave]

Selling my B3 has inspired me to completely reorganize my studio. As you can see its based around my Motif XS7. I also use my MacBook Pro running Cubase and Mainstage (with VB3, etc)... Any suggestions for soundproofing the room? Hard with windows, I know.... No basements here as I would hit water in 3 feet!

 

By the way.. Carpeting is the #1 addition....

 

Thanks for the advice....

 

http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/hammonddave/image_zps2818923d.jpg

[Steve Force]

You could move your sweethearts into my sound-conditioned project studio..

[HammondDave]

Lol... Knew I would read that...

 

But seriously. I am looking to add an 88 key controller to all this as well... Probably the new Casio.

[Joe Muscara]

I have a dumb question - are you trying to keep outside sounds from disturbing you or your sounds from disturbing others? I'm guessing the latter but I want to make sure.

[Theo Verelst]

Hi Dave, supposing you want to make the room sound damped it is also imperative where your speakers are and what type they are! Of course just having fun playing/jamming/exercising isn't the same set of conditions as putting together and mixing your latest CD. I have the experience that getting a serious amount of damping going on, for even for only somewhat dead acoustics, takes quite pile of damping materials, and preferably of several different kinds. Sound proofing for drumming or the train just outside a house of course requires a complete rebuilding with separate sound-box in the room, etc. to be successful..

[Brettymike]

Dave , just carpet the floor 1st and hang some carpet pieces on about 3 of the walls.

 

Brett

[HammondDave]

Thanks everyone.... Actually I would like to soundproof from the inside and out. May have to buy double pane windows.

[zoooombiex]

There's a bunch of very good stuff online if you google sound isolation. I frequently get the urge to do this kind of project for my music room. Then read a bunch of stuff and realize how much work it's going to be and put it off again...

 

Based on everything I've read, the only true way to soundproof a room is the room-within-a-room concept as someone said. That's where it gets very involved. To do it right, you're looking at creating a new airtight room with as little contact as possible with the outer shell of the existing room (e.g., suspended stud rails from the existing walls) and as much mass as feasible on the inner shell. And because it's going to be airtight (as much as possible), you also have to consider allowing for heat/ac through a damped port. Etc.

 

If you don't want to go all the way and just want to cut down on the sound transmission you have a lot more options. In that case it's basically a combination of (1) adding mass to the walls, floor, ceiling, etc., to cut down on the transmission BETWEEN rooms, (e.g., double layers of sheetrock with green glue between them), and (2) sound absorption materials to control reflections and standing waves WITHIN the room.

 

The windows may be a tough point. I haven't read much on that specifically because my room is in a basement without windows. But from what I recall it seems it's always suggested to block off windows. I'm sure it's a sliding scale though - double pane is certainly better than single, walled off better than double, etc.

[opdigits]

Along with your carpeting, I would suggest double pane windows.

 

Hanging "acoustic curtains" over your window may help.

 

You may want to apply some acoustic treatment to your walls and corners. You can use the Auralex site for some reference.

[HammondDave]

Thanks everyone....

[Steve Nathan]

You can learn a lot from another forum on this site

Etahn Winer's forum

Folks can get deep into the weeds there, but some good lessons are available, and unless you're building a room for serious and/or commercial recording, you can take some of it with a DB of salt.

 

[Aussie_Chicago]

' Selling my B3 '

 

Noooooooo , Why did you sell your B3 ? It has been my biggest regret for over 20 years selling my B3, I did get an A100 recently, and it sounds great but loved my B3.....

[HammondDave]

' Selling my B3 '

 

Noooooooo , Why did you sell your B3 ? It has been my biggest regret for over 20 years selling my B3, I did get an A100 recently, and it sounds great but loved my B3.....

 

That's alright, I still have two others.... My wife and I made a deal... One comes in, one goes out. Considering I just purchased a Mellotron 300, the B3 had to go.....

[Dave Weiser]

Definitely put down a rug.

 

For me, the next most important thing to tackle would be parallel walls. I can't be certain from the pic but it looks like you've got some of that going on.

 

If you do have parallel walls, do everything you can to introduce irregularity and asymmetry. Curtains for the windows, plants and book shelves are all common household items that can improve the acoustic qualities of a room while also having a good chance of withstanding marital scrutiny and decor concerns.

 

+1 for hanging a few rug-like things on a few but not all of the walls.

[Theo Verelst]

I've seen a few lectures of professional AES members (in Europe of course) about the studio treatments and damping, but it remains a hard subject to do right, from diffusers to bass traps, all-damped speaker wells to brick baffles, and standing wave measurements to reasonable sounding concert halls: all the wave properties and even the fundamentals of wave shears and early reflections and binoral errors are pretty difficult to fully grasp.

 

Of course there's a difference between a nicely "tuned" well made wooden house and a concrete bunker, and as more than one have remarked: a basement has advantages (also in that it may be the floor and walls are very solid because they are damped by the surrounding earth/sand. So a nice city house from before too much traffic isn't the same a American style woodshed, I'm sure. My current home-studio space is in concrete with double glazing, but they built in wave traps and "weak" inner wall parts. The concrete damps very well, has the obvious harsh sound to it, but will not bulge or resonate and allows metal speaker rests to be very stable. The weaker walls bulge, transfer waves to surrounding spaces and generally suck. If you don't take precautions bass "energy" will resonate the weakest wall parts if the rest is solid quality (hard and thick) concrete, which sucks. Possible treatments involve proper speaker placement, lots of damping (which then takes the role of absorbing bass energy, like mattresses are fine) and possibly digital/electronic signal conditioning. The advantage of concrete are of course pretty good damping of most waves, possibly with the help of ample mid-range frequencies damping, no bulging and therefore ever-the-same bass redonance emphasis, and with double glazing I'd have to put on a 100Watts (depending on the material) to be heard even in the adjacent garden (windows and vent holes fully closed, not counting the "weak" wall parts), which is cool.

 

Wooden city houses is a different story, when I played synth tracks in one of those typical Amsterdam turn of the previous century houses, it was hard to prevent leakage. Persons simply talking in an adjacent unit already sounds through walls and floors easily, so in that case it is hopeless to want to be able to play at band levels without getting serious trouble in no-time. So damping is primarily about a little direct-wave damping, preventing the main resonant modes (helps surrounding people not finding the sound too annoying) and making a low volume studio monitoring situation work right.\

 

Of course a wooden room has it's own character, which you can want to preserve. Many piano-wooden room combinations, when not too much made like a classroom, can sound great. So maybe a little damping while retaining those nice acoustic properties can be in order. If you want sound isolation from outside to inside and direct neighboring rooms to be silent, oh boy, that could be a lot of work. I happen to have used those industrial grade damping plates of about 1/2 m^2. I have a pile about 2 meters high of those, well, that wouldn't even make that much difference!

 

So a compromise certainly would contain extra wall, crafty damping of main modes and analyzing which frequencies and resonant modes are most prevalent from you monitors/speaker to the target neighboring rooms, and from the outside noises into the target room. Without focusing on main problems, the only solid solution will have to be better than a few dBs here and there with some carpets and blankets, unless you want the acoustics to improve, that should be possible with not too many changes.

 

I mean, my current space of about 4m x 6m has soft-board (if that's an English word) on the whole floor, covered with hard-board and normal carpet, 2/3ds of the walls and about a 1/4 of the ceiling damped with various materials. I suppose that will save neighboring spaces only a little in sound, except for very important sound-channels like thin-material bass-trapping corners, wall directly besides or behind the monitors, the back wall and its corners, and I've prevented bad standing waves in most frequency ranges so those horrible resonating nuisances are well under control, but it is in spite of so much damping materials still far from a "dead" room.

 

Theo V.

[Steve Force]

You can learn a lot from another forum on this site

Etahn Winer's forum

Folks can get deep into the weeds there, but some good lessons are available, and unless you're building a room for serious and/or commercial recording, you can take some of it with a DB of salt.

 

Yes. Double pane windows will help immensely, as will gobos, some throw rugs, perhaps hanging a tapestry or install some sound absorption panels on one wall to mitigate reflection, etc.

[HammondDave]

Great advice... Now what would you suggest for monitors?

[Theo Verelst]

SOMETHING BIG AND AT LEAST 3-WAY, preferably multi-amped, non-digital amps. For sure.

[Steve Force]

Personally, I really like my ADAM-A7 pair coupled with an active subwoofer (Yorkville in my case.) Plenty of sound for your room.