"Floating floors in the control room" Who's done it?

[cajonezzz]

we're about to install the floor in the control room and are pretty set on the Auralex rubber feet and 2x6's for the basic framing. Anyone used this method in their room? If so ,what did you use to ill the void between studs? Sand? insulation? Thanks for any input ( pics would be great as well!)

[Dave Martin]

I did. 2x4's, though, on a concrete slab. And we decided against the Auralex on budgetary reasons (all of the floors in the building are floated except the entryway and the toilet), so I bought rubber from my local industrial belt supply house and cut it ito 1" by 2" pieces, which Iput about every 12-18 inches along each stud. I also used the rubber as insulation between the floor and the walls (which are not floated). I used insulation between the joists, then 2 layers of 1/2" OSB, and then the oak floor, which is 3/4" thick.

[cajonezzz]

Originally posted by Dave Martin
I did. 2x4's, though, on a concrete slab. And we decided against the Auralex on budgetary reasons (all of the floors in the building are floated except the entryway and the toilet), so I bought rubber from my local industrial belt supply house and cut it ito 1" by 2" pieces, which Iput about every 12-18 inches along each stud. I also used the rubber as insulation between the floor and the walls (which are not floated). I used insulation between the joists, then 2 layers of 1/2" OSB, and then the oak floor, which is 3/4" thick.

The existing floor is concrete in our new building.....the Auralex feet are $$$ but i was at a loss as to what else was out there.
Dave, i'd love to find an option as you did for cuting your own lil rubber feet..Did you just look up "industrial belt supply" in the yellow pages?
which insulation did you go with between the studs?


I'd love to see any pics you may get of your construction process BTW.

Tommorow is conduit running day...at least i won't have to breathe that sound board dust for a day or twogrudge
Oh,and whats your take on this as opposed to regular RC channel? ever seen or used it?
http://www.silentsource.com/rsic.html

[Mats Olsson]

We have a floating floor in our control room. We did it for two reasons: to isolate from outside noise and to be able to run cable conduits under the floor.

We hadn't heard of the U-boats when we built the room but our approach was similar. A local industrial supplier had a heavy ribbed rubber mat that we cut to small pieces (circa 2"x2") and glued them to the floor with the ribbing facing up. On top of that we built a framework of 2"x4" wood slabs that sits on the ribbed rubber pads with a distance of 1 meter (approx 3 feet). The floor in this room is approximately 35 square meter (what ever that might be in sq feet?) and because of the ribbed rubber pads the contact surface to the framework is less than 1 square meter in total. Between the frames we put steel wire, on top of the wire we put dense mineral wool. On top of it all we made a sandwich consisting of (from bottom to top) 33 millimeter chip board + paper + thin plastic foam (Pergo step isolation) + Oak Pergo Original (Original is Pergo's industrial strenght hard laminate floor tiles, often used in car show rooms, hotel rooms and dance floors over here).

While we where at it, we also floated the front wall on this floor, to get a double wall facing the main recording room.

The whole process got qiute expensive but it was well worth it. If I would do it again, the only thing I would do different is that I would build larger conduits and also perhaps put hoses there for AC to cool the main gear rack behind the console.

One thing to consider when you build a floor like this is to keep all material dry and also let each layer sit for a couple of days with a de-hydrator. This is to avoid rot in your floor. As your studio is located on the ground level, you might also want to consider an inspection hatch and some treatment to protect the floor from becoming a mouse- or ant-infested hideaway.

/Mats

[Ohso]

I couldn't get your silentsound.com link to work cajon so I don't know what it is, but ,properly installed, rc channel on the walls and ceiling made an incredible difference in my room

Drew

[Dave Martin]

Originally posted by cajonezzz
The existing floor is concrete in our new building.....the Auralex feet are $$$ but i was at a loss as to what else was out there.
Dave, i'd love to find an option as you did for cuting your own lil rubber feet..Did you just look up "industrial belt supply" in the yellow pages?
which insulation did you go with between the studs?


I'd love to see any pics you may get of your construction process BTW.

I'll try to find the pictures - a lot of them were done with my wife's old camera, which is out of focus, and then at some point I got more interested in finishing the thing than in documenting...

But essentially, I did look up the number for the rubber guys in the Yellow pages.

The studs were filled with simple R-11 insulation, and I had cross braces set at random intervals to help avoid potential cavity resonance (if there is any with the voids insulation filled).

By the way, m wire runs are spaces which were not left open - that is, filled with insulation. If I had to do it again, I would have used 2x6 material for at least the control room floors to give myself both more room for wires and to allow for air conditioning to go into the producers desk and wall racks. I think you've said that you've done this before, so you already know that however big your conduits are, they probably won't be big enough...

[Ohso]

A better alternative to regular insulation,especially for walls and ceilings, is "rockwool" which is a brown mineral fiber insulation made specifically for sound proofing. You won't find it at Home Depot but your local drywall/acoustical ceiling supplier will have it.
Be warned though-if you use this stuff, the "itchiness factor" is brutal!

[Dave Martin]

Originally posted by Ohso
A better alternative to regular insulation,especially for walls and ceilings, is "rockwool" which is a brown mineral fiber insulation made specifically for sound proofing. You won't find it at Home Depot but your local drywall/acoustical ceiling supplier will have it.
Be warned though-if you use this stuff, the "itchiness factor" is brutal!

I didn't find the 'itch factor' that bad - I'm re-doing the control and used rock wool.

But it seems to work well.

[Ethan Winer]

Craig,

> we're about to install the floor in the control room and are pretty set on the Auralex rubber feet and 2x6's ... what did you use to ill the void between studs? <

I built a pro studio years ago with floating walls, ceiling, and floor. Here's what the acoustic consultants had us do, which was fairly cheap and worked very well:

Place a layer of 2-inch thick 703 fiberglass board on the underfloor, then place two layers of 4x8 sheets of 3/4-inch plywood on top of that. Use two layers of plywood for stiffness (so it doesn't flex) and strength. Very important: be sure to use both glue and screws to join the two layers of plywood. If you don't use a liberal coating of glue and lots of screws, the floor will squeak as you walk around. Also, lay one layer over the other so one board straddles the ends of the two below. That is, if the lower boards are running north-south, make the upper ones go east-west. This way the upper boards straddle the joints in the lower boards.

Besides providing excellent isolation, this method avoids the need for studs, framing, rubber mounts, etc. In fact, since I assume you're floating the floor to increase sound isolation between rooms, the real goal is to decouple the two floors. Fiberglass will do a better job than studs and sand which add mass more than decouple.

One caveat: This was twenty years ago, and we might have used 705 instead of 703. I don't remember for sure. Hopefully someone else here is familiar with this method, and can advise which fiberglass material is better suited.

--Ethan

[Nik]

Hi,

My control room floor is layered in the following way:

1. Neoprene (high density) laid on concrete slab.

2. 3cm thick bitumen impregnated mineral sound board laid on top. Bitumen to stop adhesion to cement.

3. 30 mm concrete screed cast on top with no rigid connection to walls. This done by neoprene barrier at wall/flr joint.

My control room measures 80m2 and is on a second floor. Run Genelec 1038s. No leakage/transmission bellow. walls also floated and isolated.

Nik