Home Studio Advice

[BuBoNiCNATE]

Hello Everyone!

A friend of mine suggested this site to me when I mentioned I planned on
redoing the interior walls of an addition to my home for the intent of
making it a studio. I plan on mostly recording rock music. Any advice your
experienced minds could give me would be much appreciated. My budget
for materials is about $2000. I am fairly skilled at construction, but my
background is mostly scenic, not home or sound proofing -- so most of the
labor I should be able to do myself I expect.

My studio is located on the north side of my house (it looks like it was first
a patio and has slowly been converted to a room). I have removed the
previous drywall, and intend on boarding over all but one exterior window
and door in the room (as shown in the plans below). I plan on restuccoing
the exterior to match the rest of the house once the windows are
removed. The studs in the walls are mostly 4X4s.




The ceiling slopes from about 8' 1" on the south side near the home down
to 7' on the north side exterior wall.



I have neighbors on the north side of my house I am attempting not to
anger with my antics.


I have two goals I am attempting to achieve.
1. Soundproof the room so that my neighbors very close to the north don't
complain when I am up all hours of the night recording/playing/rehearsing
drums and rock music.
2. Perform any sound treatment or construction to walls/floor/ceiling that
would be advisable at this stage to improve the acoustics of the room.

I have been reading many threads on this site about the use of sound
proofing products, and for the most part they seem to be getting bad
cost/improvement ratios. Are things liek Quietrock/Green-Glue etc what I
should use? Or should I stick to more traditional methods in my 2000 dollar
budget range?

How should I rebuild my interior walls? Which method is best for someone in
my situation and ambitions? Resilient channels? Double hang drywall? Some
excellent sound proofing product? My south wall is exterior house stucco
since this is a converted patio, should I hang more drywall on top of it?

What about my ceiling? should I rehang the drywall on it as well?

What would be a good solution for my floor? It currently has linolium on top
of concrete.

What about my doors? Should I double hang doors? The door to the house
is a pocket door -- is there a good way to deal with a pocket door (extra
insulation techniques perhaps?), other than remove it?

Here are some pictures of the gutted interior:

One from the control door


One from the exterior door


One from the pocket door to the house


Any advice would be much appreciated. I look forward to any help you can
provide-- and if any more specific info is needed for advice to be given,
please just let me know!

Thanks,
BuBoNiC
NATE

[DanDan]

Well done on the well presented info.
However Nate, my sincere recommendation is don't go there.
Drums are loud, soundproofing is difficult to achieve, particularly if you want to breathe as well. I use an electronic drumkit for rehearsal and practice. If you put some time into programming a use kit with your choices of sounds and playing feel, you may be surprised at how useful these are. Pods and software Amp SIMs are great also. Get a good headphone system. Record when the neighbours are out! Room treatment is well covered here and at RealTraps and GIK sites and many other places. It is simple enough. Soundproofing however......Nope.
DD

[Waltz Mastering]

I would agree with DD. To get isolation for a full on band will cost some money - a lot.

Maybe concentrate on getting the control room to have a good response and isolation and/or build and float a smaller room inside the existing planned studio room away from the outside wall or any other walls if possible, so that you can track and overdub vocals, live amps, acoustic guitar's etc. Even then, you will benefit greatly from a bigger budget, but you can do this over time.

[BuBoNiCNATE]

Thanks for the words of warning but since I have already gutted the room,
I am going to have to put it all back together anyhow -- perhaps there are
a few things I can do now and leave open options to add more later?

If my budget is not currently enough, I could wait and save more money...
or perhaps I could charge some of these materials and get another 1000
dollars or so? How much more do you think I should invest to help sound
proof the room?

Here is my current hypothetical and some questions:

I figure its going to take about 18 sheets of drywall to replace the walls
and another 16 to do the ceiling if needs be. So about 34 sheets total for
one layer. I think my local Home Depot has sheets for about 7 dollars. So
about $240 dollars for one layer of drywall. Unless someone thinks that
something like Quiet Rock would be worth the extra money here?

My local Home Depot also has resilient channel (RC-1) for about 5 dollars a
stick. I'll need at least 1 stick per piece of drywall -- so maybe 40 sticks to
be safe? So the channel should be about $200.

Then there is the insulation. If not perhaps just thicker fiberglass insulation
would help? Something like R-19 instead of R-15? I can get 118 sq. ft. for
about $60 at Home Depot. I am guesing it would take at least three
of those to do all the walls and cieling. That would be another 180 dollars.
Does anyone know if something like DB-Block would be worth the money
here as well?

So drywall, channels and insulation would be about $620. I am guessing a
box of screws will be another $20 -- bring me to $640.

I would need about 1 tube of caulk for the edges of each sheet. I would
have to buy around 4 cases I am guessing. I can get the non-paintable
silicon caulk for about $65 dollars a 12 pack case. Caulk for this first layer
would cost about $195. So that would bring me to about $835 dollars.

If I then needed another layer of drywall it would be another $240. This
would bring me to $1075 dollars. This is also where I thought maybe
someone could tell me if Green Glue might be worth the money? I could use
it or perhaps just some sillicon caulk between the two layers of drywall?
Between two layers of drywall is where Green Glue is reportedly supposed
to really shine -- but I don't trust the tests I have seen since they are all
from the company that makes the product. I would love to know if
someone has actually compared this product to just silicon caulk or no
caulking at all and think the money difference would be worth it for me.

I would need some drywall joint compound, that would cost about $20. But
luckily I already have interior paint for when I'm done, so I don't have to
worry about that.

I also have an exterior window I need to make some kind of plug for. I
would love any tips of this. I am afraid this is where I am going to lose a
lot of my sound. But maybe there is a way to minimize it easily?

I could possibly bump up my budget to about 3,000 dollars if I charge some
of these items on credit. That would give me about $1900 left over if I
were to go with 2 layers of drywall and resilient channels with silicon caulk.

Where could I most efficiently spend this extra $900-$1900 on sound
proofing or room upgrades beyond that?

Thanks again,
BuBoNiC
NATE

[Waltz Mastering]

I would not bother with fiberglass insulation. Mineral fiber or rockwool will be much better. (get at home supplier)

I don't think there is any reason to get channels for the first layer of drywall since there is no existing wall to space it from (maybe for ceiling)

If you really want to go a head with some sound proofing on walls maybe try this combo:

Rockwool insulation > sheetrock > Mass Loaded Vinyl > sheetrock > channel > sheetrock > Green Glue > sheetrock

So, attached to the existing wall you have a MLV sandwich then a channel/air then a GG sandwich.

Use the thickest sheet rock you can.

For the ceiling , use a lot of GG between thinner layers sheetrock and air/channels since you have to be careful for the weight added.

With the combination of sheetrock, gg, mlv, air, and rock wool, -- this will act like a shock absorber for the sound and greatly reduce but not completely stop sound from leaking because you still will have low frequency transmission. Good luck.

[Ted White]

Some suggestions:

Avoid the introduction of small air cavities. Stick with one large one. Never add a small air cavity to what you are doing. The air space created by adding channel and drywall to an existing wall will drag down performance significantly.

Add some aspect of decoupling if space permits. This can be resilient channel (least desirable), staggered studs, double studs or resilient clips. Clips are often used on ceilings since it's tougher to install new joists.

The mass of drywall is about as economical as it comes.

If you can Decouple-Add Absorption - Add Mass - Add Damping you'll have the basics covered.

After that, consider careful venting and doors. These are often the biggest sources of sound flanking (leaking)

[DanDan]

Fibreglass is as effective as other insulations. It is simply nonsense to say one is better.
Multiple layers of Mass and Resilient material in a random sandwich is not proven. Use a design from a book or manufacturers data. Some ideas here.
acoustic related technical articles
Resilient Channel is a very cheap proven performer. You can get slightly higher performing versions. Every little detail of the installaion has to be right.
Plug the window by walling over it. If you are doing something removable, thick MDF is good. Fill the void between glass and 'plug' with insulation, this helps.
Back to where I started, i.e. don't do this.....
Drums alone will be lets say a conservative 120dBA
I perfectly built double staggered stud wall with double sheets each side etc. etc. might achieve a Tranmission Loss of with a lot of luck 60dB.
So your neighbours will hear 60dB minus the distance loss.
That was your most insulating feature. Doors, Windows, and I suspect your ceiling/roof
will be nowhere near 60dB TL.
So your neighbours house will be hit by 60-80dBA let's say.
And that's if you do a perfect job.
DD

[Ted White]

Totally agree on the insulation. Fiberglass is a great item for cost / performance.

The resilient channel I would personally never recommend. Way too many variables as its' manufacture is not specified. Other products such as steel studs and drywall furring channel are specified by the SSMA (Steel Stud Manufacturers Association). Resilient channel is not.

I've seen 20 gauge and 25. Open web and solid. Performrated a little or a lot. And performance will vary depending on mass added to this newly created spring.

If the channel is too flimsy, the weight of the drywall will cause a sag, and there goes your spring. Alternately, some channel is way too stiff and there's no spring there either.

Lastly according to the people that actually manufacture the channel. 85% is installed incorrectly, although every contractor that I have ever discussed this with says "not my installs"... Short circuiting and crushing are two big and common installation issues.

I would much prefer that a person decouple with double or at least staggered studs. The slightly deeper air cavity will help with containing lower frequencies also.

[Ted White]

I think your posts are really helpful. Just a quick technical point

Originally Posted by DanDan

Drums alone will be lets say a conservative 120dBA
I perfectly built double staggered stud wall with double sheets each side etc. etc. might achieve a Tranmission Loss of with a lot of luck 60dB.
So your neighbours will hear 60dB minus the distance loss.

A properly built double stud wall can get up high into the STC 60s. A wall with an STC of 60 doesn't mean it will hold back 60dB. It means the tested results best conformed to an existing STC60 contour.

But I'm splitting hairs. Sorry

[BuBoNiCNATE]

Well, we are nearing the end of the main construction phase. I ended up building out the thickness of the walls with 2X4's laid with the flat edges against the original studs. Then I put R-15 insulation in the walls. After that I installed RC-2 on the ceiling and RC-1 on the walls. 5/8ths drywall was hung on the channel for both cielign and wall, taking care to only screw into the channels and to avoid the studs which we marked with chalk lines.

I took a series of photos of the work as it progressed and posted it on facebook - but you would need a facebook account to view them. I really don't know how this site handles links like these - so if there's a problem just let me know... even though it says "Login|Facebook" I think it should still link you to the album once signed on.

Login | Facebook

I also did this same process to the adjacent room which will be my little control room as well. Now both rooms are finished this far. I am going to test it out and see how loud it is outside. If it is still too loud when I have a drummer bashing away inside I will hang another layer of drywall and most likely use Green Glue in between the layers. Or if it seems like I am losing most of the sound through the doors/windows I will attempt to mess with them more first. I will let you all know how it goes!

If it is quiet enough I will start working on acoustically treating the rooms.
Thanks for all the advice!