Is decoupling nescessary for REHEARSAL rooms?

crowbar0 · Post by **crowbar0** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 8:00 am

Hi, i'm considering (planning) starting a rehearsal rooms business, and I'm basically wondering if full studio standard isloation is nescessary, as no recording will be taking place in the rooms.

I was planning on contructing the rooms with the 'room within a room' design, apart from the floor, as floating the floors would be too expensive.

But then I was thinking that I could just beef up any existing rooms, and/or build new rooms that would be in contact with the existing structure.

I would be using timber partitions with double layers of plasterboard, and rockwool etc. But would you think that total isolation is needed or not?

Thanks a million, Barry.

Post by **sharward** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:02 am

Back in February 2005, knightfly wrote:. . . one reason for better low frequency isolation . . . is CONFUSION . . . have you ever tried to play in tempo with a group when ANOTHER room had a boom-box or stereo going, and gotten confused when you tried to stay on the beat? This can be a real downer with adjacent practice rooms . . . (source)

Funny how I was able to quickly locate this particular needle in the haystack of this forum -- I happened to remember the word "confusion" that Steve emphasized in his response, so I just searched for all posts by "knightfly" including the word "confusion."

Anyway, there's your answer: investing in room-to-room isolation is good, even if only for rehearsal purposes.

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:20 pm

Thanks Keith, couldna sed it betur meself...

crowbar0 · Post by **crowbar0** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 8:56 pm

The rooms themselves would be decoupled from each other, thats a given.

What i'm wondering about is decoupling from the actual shell structure of the building.

i.e. if I build a fully decoupled room (room within a room), would that be hugely more effective than if I used an existing wall or two and then just section it off with framing, insulation and plasterboard?

crowbar0 · Post by **crowbar0** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:49 pm

I've attached a VERY basic drawing to try and illustrate what I mean! I've never used Smartdraw before!

Which of the two shown would be better, bearing in mind that the second would cost roughly half as much as the first!

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 9:35 am

Barry, this

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231

Is there for a good reason; following ALL the bold points will answer most of your questions... Steve