Control room design - 6th floor

[hisbluness]

Hi guys,

so I've just rented a new studio space since I'm moving away from my current space.

My usual work is mixing and sometimes the occasional "mastering", so there is no need to record anything at all. So this is all about a control room design.

The room is 24m² big and on the 6th floor (which is the top floor. With a view over Munich ) next to me there is nothing but storage room and below me is an apartment.

I attached the floorplan of the room, its currently empty. The floor is bare concrete, as well as the wall with the windows and the ceiling. All other walls are drywall (+ ~60cm insulation).

The room has kind of good dimensions (6m length, 4m wide) and I'm looking for advice on how to design the control room. My current plan would be to add drywall on all sides along with 10cm of insulation for soundproofing as well as for thermic reasons. Currently I wouldnt add drywall to the ceiling for 2 reasons: The room is only 2.5m high and this would further decrease the height, in addition there will also be an absorber cloud. I will choose a wooden floor with an insulation mat underneath it.

So, is there any advice on what to do in terms of drywall/other things in order to prepare this room for the additional acoustic treatment?

Any suggestion is welcome.

Thanks in advance and let me know if I forgot anything important.

chris

[jhbrandt]

Chris,

How much isolation do you require? - You don't need to, and I wouldn't recommend, put any dry wall on the walls or the ceiling unless you had an isolation target.

Your dimensions should be adjusted for better modal distribution. Get my Room Mode Calculator and more on my publications page.

Cheers,
John

[hisbluness]

Hi John,

thanks for the input.

Regarding the insulation: I cant determine how much I need but I would add 10cm + drywall just to make sure my sound leakage is minimal. There are 1-3 artist rooms (painters and such) on the same floor and I dont want to run into any trouble disturbing them with sound from the studio. Thats why I want to add 10cm insulation (there already is some in the existing walls but its not sure how much and I cant change the current walls, at all). In addition this will also help the termic situation. The overall idea is to keep the insulation to a minimum (but still having some) in order to not make the room even smaller.

I checked your calculator but I maybe Im too stupid. I dont see why my room dimensions are not good right now. If understand your file correctly its rather good as it is. Care to enlight me?

Thanks in advance, I appreciate it!

[jhbrandt]

Chris,

With the dimensions of 600cm by 400cm by 250cm we have doubles beginning at 81.6Hz (axial), 110.27Hz (Tangential), 143.51Hz, etc, etc, etc...

This is cause by the dimensions that have common denominators - 600 & 400.

Changing one of these by a few centimeters will make a big difference.
Cheers,
John

[hisbluness]

Okay,

I'm sorry for being stupid but could you highlight that in a screenshot in your calculator just so I know where you take this information from?

I might add that the dimensions will change a bit simply because the insulation will be added. So if I stick with 10cm insulation the dimensions will change to:

590cmx380cmx250cm give or take 1-2cm each.

Would you do anything else to the room?

[I.R.Baboon]

If the floor is concrete, it sounds like it's a modern-ish, substantially constructed building.

Have you actually ran any tests to see what the leakage is? Maybe you don't even need any isolation? If you're only mixing and mastering, perhaps you can keep the volume low enough that you don't disturb anyone, or at least "ration" the amount of time of need to play loud.

To isolate low frequencies will cost you plenty of coin / space and may in any case be impractical.

So first, play some music in there at your typical mixing volume, and see if anyone has a problem with it.

And of course, find out what kind of noise your neighbours make!

2c

[hisbluness]

Hi there,

the concrete floor will be changed to a wooden floor once I move in. I forgot to mention that before. I dont want to stay in a room with a bare concrete floor ;-)

And I will check with the sound leakage, but I still think 10cm of insulation wouldnt hurt, especially because the thermal situation will benefit from it too. The room would only loose 2m² because of that and as John pointed out, a small change in dimensions wouldnt hurt the modal distribution either.

[PaulP]

Originally Posted by hisbluness

And I will check with the sound leakage, but I still think 10cm of insulation wouldnt hurt, especially because the thermal situation will benefit from it too.

Insulation will do just about nothing by itself to reduce sound leakage. For that you need isolation and that's quite a bit more work.

[SAC]

Not knowing your quantified isolation requirements prevents the determination of a qualified plan and your notion of a wooden floor on top of padding will do little except deaden impact noise - and it is ineffectual regarding the mitigation of sound transmission. But you can tell us yet again how you imagine it will work if you like.

You might want to let John know when you are ready to listen instead of telling him how things are to be done and help him help you.

[hisbluness]

Originally Posted by SAC

Not knowing your quantified isolation requirements prevents the determination of a qualified plan and your notion of a wooden floor on top of padding will do little except deaden impact noise - and it is ineffectual regarding the mitigation of sound transmission. But you can tell us yet again how you imagine it will work if you like.

You might want to let John know when you are ready to listen instead of telling him how things are to be done and help him help you.

I dont know why you think I dont want to listen to what John says (I did and I asked further questions) and I dont think I've been disrespectful to anyone here.

The wooden floor is just for cosmetic reasons and will not improve the sound leakage, and Im aware of that.

The reason why I wanted to have the additional drywall layer is not only for insulation purposes (which, and this was stated by you, might or might not be needed and needs to be tested beforehand) but also for cosmetic reasons. The room used to be a storage room and the current walls are ugly and new drywall will make a better appearance. In addition it will help to improve the thermal situation because the room is very cold.

I dont really see where I'm "not listening" to John or the others. I will need to check whether or not the current sound leakage is bearable for the "neighbors" and if it is, the additional drywall layer isnt required. The points which count for new drywall that I stated above would still be valid and I dont see why it would hurt to build it.

Therefore what I was asking for, is if the additional dry wall layer will cause problems, what overall dimensions I should go for with the room and if there is anything else I should take care about.

If anyone thinks Im not taking their advice seriously: Im sorry for that and it wasnt intentional. Im very happy to get comments and feedback on my plans and I will try to understand all of it, while constantly broading my knowledge of the subject.

[jhbrandt]

Chris,

On the 6th floor, you may need considerable isolation. This is something you need to determine first before anything else, because it can eat your entire budget.

You need to determine an isolation figure & then we can help you to determine the next step and offer suggestions and options.

Acoustics is counter-intuitive & you can often produce a result that is opposite from what you intended.

Note: If you add padding and a wooden floor, you will actually reduce the Sound Transmission Loss of the floor. (Sound will travel through to below much better)

To answer your earlier questions; There is a big difference between 590cmx380cmx250cm and 620cmx400cmx250cm - modally speaking.

Cheers,
John

[SAC]

You keep going on and on about drywall and the floor....

And all of the that is moot until the basic questions John has commented on are addressed! How about simply focusing on that:

Quantify the amount of additional isolation you need!
Use the modal calculator to determine an optimal distribution of modes.

Until that is done- no more discussion of why you want drywall or a wood floor...

Please follow John's lead - you are in Excellent hands! He will get you where you want to go!

[hisbluness]

Ok guys, now we are getting somewhere :-)

About the isolation figure: I dont really know how to give you a qualified answer here. So here is my shot. Let me know what you need and I will try to deliver.

I measured my average SPL during mixing a while back and it was somewhere between 72 and 80dbSPL (C weightend), measured from my position (~1,75m from the monitors). In an ideal world, the apartment below will not recognize this much, if at all. As far as I know the concrete floor is about 60cm thick so this is between me and "them".

What options are there for keeping the people below sane?

The good thing is, during normal hours it wouldnt hurt anyone if there is sound leakage. Since I dont work alot at night, there is no need to design a room that is dead silent to the outside at 100dBSPL in the inside... And even if it will get late from time to time, there is always a pair of headphones for these kind of situations. But that is just a workaround...