How important are Hardwood floors?

[mybeatsrdope]

I'm going to be moving into a new house in the next few months and want to know how important it has to have a hardwood floor in a studio. I will be making Beats (via midi no mic'd live instruments or vox) and Mixing them in my studio. Ive heard that hardwood floors are better but my family wants to move into a home with carpet. If it is really important I could probably talk them into it. I'm going to get my studio treated acoustically by buying one of the room sets from GIK Acoustics......Kind of a longread lol, Thanks in advance!

[Gdupproductions]

Wel i don't know i think it's more for personal taste off ''Design''.
I have a black velour carpet (soft feets xD). Wel carpets aren't massive off structure but more porious so they don't reflect soundwaves unless like MASSIVE wooden floors.

[Jens Eklund]

Flooring question

[Disjointed]

you should talk them into the fact that carpet traps allergens, dirt, pesticides, and mites, which is bad. off gases toluene, benzene, formaldehyde, ethyl benzene, styrene, acetone, which is bad.

[mybeatsrdope]

^^ OOOOO good points!! I will use them in my argument . They're reasoning is "Hardwood floors will get scrathed/damaged too easy".

[jhbrandt]

Do you have kids?? If so, carpet is a bad idea --- anywhere in the house. Hardwood floors, tile, or cement - haha! EASY to keep clean. Use throw rugs... when they get food stomped into them or milk spilled on them, you can just send them out to be cleaned or simply throw them away.

-- Trust me, I know a little about this.

Oh, back to acoustics... If you are only mixing ITB stuff... a carpet in the CR is fine as long as you plan for it in your 'design'.

Cheers,
John

[Gdupproductions]

Originally Posted by Disjointed

you should talk them into the fact that carpet traps allergens, dirt, pesticides, and mites, which is bad. off gases toluene, benzene, formaldehyde, ethyl benzene, styrene, acetone, which is bad.

I used to smell a ''fabric'' scent when it whas fairly new but afterwards it whas gone/still is.

[Gdupproductions]

Originally Posted by jhbrandt

Do you have kids?? If so, carpet is a bad idea --- anywhere in the house. Hardwood floors, tile, or cement - haha! EASY to keep clean. Use throw rugs... when they get food stomped into them or milk spilled on them, you can just send them out to be cleaned or simply throw them away.

-- Trust me, I know a little about this.

Oh, back to acoustics... If you are only mixing ITB stuff... a carpet in the CR is fine as long as you plan for it in your 'design'.

Cheers,
John

Um not tryng to be a ''i-know-it-better''. But doesn't that reflect sound waves more then a carpet. And take your shoe,s off when you walk on a carpet ! + WTF at kids in the studio are you talking bout his kids ?, or the artists ? xD.

[jhbrandt]

Originally Posted by Gdupproductions

Um not tryng to be a ''i-know-it-better''. But doesn't that reflect sound waves more then a carpet. And take your shoe,s off when you walk on a carpet ! + WTF at kids in the studio are you talking bout his kids ?, or the artists ? xD.

I was simply replying to his question.. He said 'my family'... read again below:

Originally Posted by mybeatsrdope

I'm going to be moving into a new house in the next few months and want to know how important it has to have a hardwood floor in a studio... Ive heard that hardwood floors are better but my family wants to move into a home with carpet. If it is really important I could probably talk them into it....

- So, yes. and I speak from experience with 6 children and 7 grandchildren.

Acoustics: All studio rooms benefit from hard floors. A control room will often have some carpeting, but that carpeting is usually in the form of a thick rug or carpeted paths around the room - the rest is hardwood.

The absorption peak of most carpet is around 2-3kHz. It is undesirable to have a large surface covered with material that absorbs sound only in the higher frequencies when the inverse is needed. In other words; Carpet in a studio is usually a bad idea.

"If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong." - James Moir

Cheers,
John

[Jens Eklund]

Originally Posted by jhbrandt

It is undesirable to have a large surface covered with material that absorbs sound only in the higher frequencies when the inverse is needed. In other words; Carpet in a studio is usually a bad idea.

+1

This cannot be told too many times apparently.

[mhch]

Originally Posted by jhbrandt

The absorption peak of most carpet is around 2-3kHz. It is undesirable to have a large surface covered with material that absorbs sound only in the higher frequencies when the inverse is needed. In other words; Carpet in a studio is usually a bad idea.

Well understood, but now the million dollar question:

If one has a wall-to-wall carpeted room and dear wife won't accept the carpet being removed, is it a good idea to lay down a piece of wood on top of the carpet or part of it ? For instance a piece of plywood or heavier MDF with may be some nice wooden floor board on top of it for aesthetics reason ?

Probably not the whole room, but a part of it say in the part of it which is used for tracking ..

[quadrafunk]

Maybe you can work on it over time. That's what I had to do. My wife was dead set against removing carpet as we were moving into a new house. my buddy that was doing my studio build made it his aim to have my studio look just as nice as the rest of the house.

She agreed once she saw what we were doing with the build, color scheme, and furniture. We put down the wood floors and she loved what it did for the space. She went and bought some framed pictures that I put up. Made her feel like she was part of the process.

[Hannes_F]

My wife and me love floors made from tiles, terracotta or wood. Very easy to clean.

Carpet stinks in a way that you only realize when it is finally gone ... and it stinks always. Get down with your nose on it and you'll know. When it's new it stinks like chemistry, and when that is finally gone it gets smelly from all the mites that live in it.

We have two rugs in the house but besides from that we will never go back to carpet again.

[Hannes_F]

Originally Posted by mhch

If one has a wall-to-wall carpeted room and dear wife won't accept the carpet being removed, is it a good idea to lay down a piece of wood on top of the carpet or part of it ? For instance a piece of plywood or heavier MDF with may be some nice wooden floor board on top of it for aesthetics reason ?

Probably not the whole room, but a part of it say in the part of it which is used for tracking ..

That will work for the acoustics. The wood does not necessarily need to be a closed shell (but that does not hurt), and be sure to lift it off after a while or you will not like what you will find.

You could try to buy a mounteable dance floor, that comes in elements, has very nice optics and should be fully wife compatible. The square meter is something like 200 EUR.

Tanzparkett, Mobiles Tanzparkett, Tanzparkettboden, Parkett Tanzboden, Tanzflche

[mhch]

Originally Posted by Hannes_F

That will work for the acoustics. The wood does not necessarily need to be a closed shell (but that does not hurt), and be sure to lift it off after a while or you will not like what you will find.

You could try to buy a mounteable dance floor, that comes in elements, has very nice optics and should be fully wife compatible. The square meter is something like 200 EUR.

Tanzparkett, Mobiles Tanzparkett, Tanzparkettboden, Parkett Tanzboden, Tanzflche

Nice house in the picture, if it's yours

I'm a practiced woodworker so I'll manage to build a piece of wooden floor myself. I realize that my question was whether this extra wood shoud just rest on top of the carpet or be "anchored" one way or the other to avoid vibrations.

What do you mean by "will not like" ? the compression effect, the dirt around ...

Anyway, I'll give it a try using some adequate piece of wood in order to listen to the sound, and then I'll work hard on the WAF if sound is so better.

[Hannes_F]

Originally Posted by mhch

Nice house in the picture, if it's yours

Yep, nice ... but not ours. We found lots of ceramic tiles in our house when we went in, and they are nice, but at some point we might exchange them to terracotta like in this picture.

What do you mean by "will not like" ? the compression effect, the dirt around ...

I meant that especially in older carpet there is sitting much organic material plus all sorts of germs, mites etc. deep down between the fibres. If you cover that with wood for some weeks it will probably get really smelly down there.

I am speculating here a bit but I would either take care to lift off the cover after a few days or, if you plan it for longer, give the carpet a thorough cleaning with such a baby. We rented one for our rugs one time and boy we did not believe how much dirt came out despite they had been vacuumed (sp?) frequently.

[mhch]

Thanks for the tip ! I'll give hardwood floor a try later on when I'm further down the road of reorganizing my music room and home studio
(at this time, I'm working of the furniture, then measurements, then treatment ... what a long winding road).

[jsipich]

Originally Posted by Disjointed

you should talk them into the fact that carpet traps allergens, dirt, pesticides, and mites, which is bad. off gases toluene, benzene, formaldehyde, ethyl benzene, styrene, acetone, which is bad.

If you plan on living in a completely sterile environment, you'd better be prepared NOT to go outside

Amazing how we grew up just fine playing in mud, with bugs, worms, crawling on dirty floors, occasionally licking the wrong item(s).

Now-a-days its: OMG USE HAND SANITIZER!!! OMG!!!!

Bugs, mold, dirt, etc help build our immune system... making us INVINCIMABLENESS!

[vegastheque]

Originally Posted by Disjointed

you should talk them into the fact that carpet traps allergens, dirt, pesticides, and mites, which is bad. off gases toluene, benzene, formaldehyde, ethyl benzene, styrene, acetone, which is bad.

toluene, benzene, formaldehyde, ethyl benzene, styrene, acetone ?? what do you mean by these ?

[mybeatsrdope]

Thanks for all of the Feedback! I forgot to mention that we will be renting and not buying a house so tearing out the carpet in one room (studio) will probably not be an option. We have a "busy house" so there are a lot of spills, things getting dropped, banged into etc. so my family thinks hardwood floors will get damaged in no time

[Disjointed]

vegastheque: those are some of the main chemicals used in the production of the carpet, they will slowly 'gas' into the environment of the carpet as it ages.

mybeatsrdope: i have all hardwood and tile in my house, except for one room, the one room with the carpet is the dirtiest, it holds stains and is much easier damaged then the hardwood. The hardwood does get scratched a little bit, but it is easily recoated. my main room was a water "polyacrylic" finish (the weakest of the bunch) and it still looks good after 4 years if raising a son and a 65 pound doberman. prefinished hardwood floors are even a stronger finish then what i have. you can plan on sanding and refinishing your hardwood every 15-20 years or so under normal conditions.

but in the end there are carpet ppl, and there are hardwood ppl ... i am definitely a hardwood person..