new studio build on 1st floor of building - advice please

[Freq Farm]

I'm seriously thinking about moving my studio to a new bigger building and I think I may have found a decent candidate - great area, great vibe, decent price and character.

It's got 2 floors and about 1800 sqf of space. The plan is to build studio 1 1st then wait 6 mnths - 1 year while we get studio 1 finished and fully booked before moving onto the other studios.

I'm planning to do the room to high specification, including hiring a decent designer - so suggestions please, I'm UK based so I would prefer to use someone here, I'm considering Whitemark among others.

I'm struggling with one major issue at the moment and that is the placement of the 1st studio. The ideal situation would be to build studio 1 and the lounge on the 1st floor while using the ground floor for something non-studio related.

The building is old, but there is a decent sized RSJ (I-Beam) and steel columns running the length of the buidling down the middle on the 1st floor. From what I can guess, the RSJ beam is supporting wooden joists that are set into the brickwork, then there is ply on the top and bottom. So i'm pretty sure we'll be fine as far as weight is concerned (I will check with a structural engineer before i go ahead).

At the moment you can really hear when someone is walking on the first floor when you are on the ground floor.

I know the ground floor with it's lovely concrete slab is the best option, but from a business point of view it's not the best solution.

Am I mad for even thinking about putting the studio on the 1st floor?

Is filling the exisiting floor cavity with sand or one of the new products designed for sound-proofing my builders tell me about an option?
If so I plan to float the floor of the studio using methods yet to be determined which would add further deadening...

[Ethan Winer]

Max Hodges is very good, and affordable. Dan Fitzgerald in Ireland is also very good. I'm sure there are other UK designers, but I can vouch for only these two.

--Ethan

[Weasel9992]

Our very own Andre Brito. He knows his stuff and is a great guy aside from some weird thing he has for diffusion...

Frank

[Ethan Winer]

Of course, Andre too.

[Freq Farm]

thanks for the recommondation!

sooooo fwiw do you guys see major headaches trying to put a studio on the 1st floor of a building with pure timber structure inside?
(it turns out what I thought was an RSJ/I-Beam was in fact timber)

[Freq Farm]

How can i get hold of Andre Brito?

[Northward]

The minimum load bearing capacity of any floor for a studio must be at least of 1t/m² static load. You must add about 200kg/m² of dynamic load capacity for a studio in normal use.

If the building is old, this is reduced by 200kg/m² down to 800kg/m². You must also be careful to ask the structural engineer to look if the building wasn't overloaded at one point, which may imply that you cannot load it as much as expected on some spots and must redirect some load on specific points.

It sounds like you will need to decouple your studio too (or you will hear everything on the ground floor and render it unusable, no matter how much insulation you use), which means that on the perimeter of your rooms, the structure needs to stand weights of over 1,5t/m². Decoupling takes a lot of materials and weight.

I wouldn't put it on the 1st floor for technical reasons (a lot of extra things to calculate and implement) and cost reasons: expect it to be very expensive if you want serious soundproofing (extra work load for engineers, acousticians, more materials...)

YMMV

[ten21studio]

Hi

Firstly I have no vested interests.

Secondly I have built my own studio Ten21 Recording Studio, Gallery Page so I have learnt a thing or three along the way

Thirdly general builders have absolutely no idea of the attention to detail required to build a studio. You cannot apply standard building practices without having an acoustics HAT on.

Fourthly, I used Recording Architecture who were excellent and one of the big names. They design studios all over the world and all I can say is the isolation between my drum booth and my control room is awesome.

Finally my studio is also on the first floor.

Last but not least

YOU ARE INSANE!!!!

Welcome to the club!!!!

Regards

Sean Kenny

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Freq Farm

How can i get hold of Andre Brito?

His screen name here is andrebrito, and he posted in this thread:

Artwork on Acoustic Panels

[andrebrito]

I have to agree with northward on this matter...

One thing is to decrese footsteps sound, that can easily be solved with damping products like Green Glue, Ethofoam etc etc.. even carpet

Creating a studio on the first floor also implies "room in a room" solutions but now you have the problem of:

a) determinate what is the maximum load you can use for the specific building (needs a structural engineer). The building has timber structure so the load is actually low. Forget about using concrete slabs on such a structure. Indeed even a normal floating floor may cause problems if the timber structure is not regularized.

b) clearly your words seems to indicate this building has severe structural problems in terms of noise, meang decoupling the above room with springs/elastometers of very low frequency are necessary for your "typical" studio situation of a death metal band recording at 2 am !

I would stay away from this building to be honest, unless your idea is to have a control room where you can have change of the volume and mix/master at lower levels at night

[Freq Farm]

thanks everyone for your great input!

After lots of measuring up and thinking about this building i'm in this mindset:
There is no real sound leakage issue, there are no neighbors above or below, next door there are commercial buildings and the nearest residence is at least 50m or more away.
The floor the below studio in our building is fine with a bit of leakage because there will be a sound system on the entire time the bottom storey is open.

Soooo, my main concern is getting a killer sound in the studio.
Well that and not causing the building to collapse on me....

If there is a way to build the studio and get a great sound I can live with some sound leakage. But if we need to put steelwork in to support the 1st floor I think it's a bad idea for the delays it will cause due to planning permissions and also because I don't own the building, if I'm going to those lengths/expense I'll wait till I can find somewhere who will sell me the title deeds.

[Northward]

Originally Posted by andrebrito

I would stay away from this building to be honest

+1