New Building VS Basement Studio - which one is easier to soundproof?

[thisisben]

Any advice? Anyone? Please?

Let me put it another way:
1. Is a basement studio the solution for me if I don't want to annoy my neighbours?
2. Are there any disadvantages of a basement studio compared to one in an extra building?
3. If I built an extra building for my studio, was the only way of soundproofing it a room within a room construction? What would that cost? In another thread I read that$110/square fett is realistic. That equals 1000€/m² if I'm not mistaken. Am i right?`

Thanks everybody!

[John White]

Ben it may help if you clarify what you mean by "Extra Building". IOW, what are the specifics. The current description is vague at best.

[thisisben]

Thanks, John, for replying! I'm sorry, not a native speaker but I'll try to put it another way.

I think about building a house for me to live and work in. Basically I have two options where to put my studio:

Option 1: Build a house with basement, move my studio to the basement
Option 2: Build a house without basement and have a separate building built for the studio

My concern: I don't want to annoy the neighbours with noise. So I'd have to soundproof the whole thing if I went for option 2. But soundproofing is really expensive if you do it the "room in room" way so I wondered if there were other reliable but less expensive ways of soundproofing?

If I went for option 1 the studio would be below ground level so it should be already kind of soundproof, right?

Hope I could clear things up a little. Thank you for your help, John!

[John White]

Ben,

Yes it seems to me that an additional structure would be a far greater expense than using a room in an existing building.

Since you are building the property you wouldn't need to convert any existing assemblies since you can have it the way you want.

For sound isolation, basements typically have an advantage over other residential areas since the ceiling is the "only" direct face of transmission.

Financially this strategy seems to be more feasible. If this is for a business, I don't know what type of zoning restrictions you may encounter, however. Furthermore, as a business, a stand alone structure may have more curb appeal.

Good luck with the project. This sounds like a great problem to have!

[thisisben]

Awesome, thank you John! I'll keep you and all the other fellow slutz posted when I put my plan into action.

One more thing: Are there certain factors I should keep in mind when constructing the basement? Besides acoustics and a proper ceiling height of course. Are there often made mistakes I could avoid?

[John White]

Wow, yes- Not sure I know where to begin. It's a huge subject and wouldn't want to assume anything that you might know or not. There are some decent studio construction books on the market.

-John

[jhbrandt]

Originally Posted by thisisben

Any advice? Anyone? Please?

Let me put it another way:
1. Is a basement studio the solution for me if I don't want to annoy my neighbours?
2. Are there any disadvantages of a basement studio compared to one in an extra building?
3. If I built an extra building for my studio, was the only way of soundproofing it a room within a room construction? What would that cost? In another thread I read that$110/square fett is realistic. That equals 1000€/m² if I'm not mistaken. Am i right?`

Thanks everybody!

Ben,

The cost really depends on the design but lets find out what you need exactly before going there.

You can do either basement or separate building as there are pros and cons to both. First you need to figure how much isolation you require.

I was reserving this document, "Isolation Construction for Sound Studios", for my clients only, but I think that I will do everyone more good if I make it available publicly... so here it is attached below and I will add it to my publications page.

Basement with slab on grade and walls covered with earth will be infinitely stiff, therefore when building an interior partition, the resonance of the new partition can be calculated without concern for the resonance of the stiff partition. The ceiling isolation and flanking issues must be addressed.

An isolated building on a separate slab also need not have a floating floor. (oh gawd! I'm talking like Yoda...) The wall/ceiling/roof construction is fairly straight-forward and easy to design for your isolation goal.

Either project will require a room-in-a-room if you intend to play drums, electric bass guitar, rock guitar, etc...

Cheers,
John

[Adhoc]

Great condensed information. Thanks John!

[thisisben]

I read that document at least 3 times. Not sure if I understood everything correctly but even if I only got 50% right this is still extremely helpful and I'd like to thank you very much for your help!

I still got three more questions:

- Does the stiffness of the exterior walls of a basement have any (negative) effect on the acoustics within the room?

- You suggested basement and seperate building both require a room-in-a-room. In case of the basement is this only to avoid sound leakage from one basement room to the other or is this neccessary to avoid sound leakage to the neighbourhood? I always thought a basement should be already kind of soundproof since it's underground but I guess I'm mistaken. Maybe it's not soundproof enough if I intend to rock the drums

- I hope this is not too general: What are the most common mistakes from people building their own basement studio that I should avoid?

I can't thank you enough, John! Cheers, Ben

[jhbrandt]

Ben,

The infinite stiffness will reflect bass waves strongly, which is not necessarily a bad thing. BUT you will need serious trapping and most likely some limp membrane pressure absorbers.

You are correct in that basements are already fairly sound proof, but the 'box' of the house is still a path as is the flooring assembly. Sound can strike the floor above, creating a vibration in the structure that will in turn transmit to the exterior walls and outside. This is call a flanking path.

Rock Drums?... You're gonna need room-in-a-room no matter where you build.. haha!

Cheers,
John