John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

the picture I talk about is : ceiling2.jpg .. you can see a piece of sagex on the left between wall and ceiling

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I’m thinking that about the only way you will be able to block the sound from your upstairs is to build an inner room - this would mean removing ALL the Sagex, and framing walls that are strong enough to support a new ceiling frame which would get filled with rockwool and 2 layers of gypsum under the frame - you need a true mass-air-mass envelope in order to stop the sound, and I’m not sure your concrete ceiling structure can support that. Plus, you’ve said you don’t want to use resilient hangers so you will need separate frames to isolate from the upstairs.

Can you post the height of your studio so I can estimate whether there is enough room to do this? Thanks… Steve

Hi steve !

I have been working all the week-end since friday in order to :
- finishing filling the gaps .. in total I used something like 70 "bootles" of mastic ... Endly I am finished with that

- preparing the room for working ... meaning emptying and protecting the floor

I begin the work tomorrow, so yes it is a bite late for advice from beginning ...

As said I will fix the wood to the ceiling (with "feutre" in between) then between the wood structure I will place glasswool and then the idikell with the farmacell ..

I will do the job with a professional so I hope he knows that my ceiling will support all the stuff ... I will be quite 30 kg per m2 ...

Now it is too late to think about other solutions !!!

the studio height is quite small as it was a double box from start ... it is like 2m 16cm ... so i cant bring too much space with this second ceiling ... something like 7cm in total ...

I really trust idikell and fermacell properties to stop the sound and also the isover glasswool ...

aargh tomorrow is the big first day !

cross the fingers for me
bye

Hi there !

Happy new year 2005 !

I am finished with the new ceiling .. will be posting pictures very soon ... I am currently replacing all my gear inside the stud ...

It has been a really hard and long work ... longer then I thought ...

The main reason was that the man that should work with has broken his arm one day before the work as to begin ... bad luck

I already did the very first tests with a boom boom radio and it seems that "noise" is approx. stopped by 50 % which is good for me cause the room is now empty and acts as a resonator ... So I really want to replace everything and do a real test ...

The weaker point now is the door ... I think I will make a "sas" meaning a second door inside the stud ...

but for the moment I just want to redo music again ... !!!

bye

Yeah, the second door will probably do more for you than almost anything else at this point. Keep us informed on how it goes... Steve

yeah I think it too ! I think I wont do a second door but a big block on wheels that I can put in front of the door (in the outside of the stud) ... I have already design some primary plans ...

I am happy with the new ceiling as more of 50 % of the sound is stopped and the sound inside the stud seems still good !

pictures will be posted here when I will have some time to do it !
bye

okay here are pictures !!! if I dont do it now I will never do

first picture you can see the 1,2 tonnes of material laying on the floor and everything has to be fixed to the ceiling ..

just one point : during the work I had to change the glas wool against rockwool cause the glass wool wasnt able to stay in place ...

you can see one piece of idikell laying on the 30 pieces of Fermacell ... I use 3 idikell on one fermacell, so no need to cut ...
one final piece was : one fermacell, three idikell and ... 50 kg

then you will see one during work with the yellow helpful machine to raise these heavy panels to the ceiling (fix them on piece of wood that were fixed just before to the ceiling)

and the last one to better understand the "system" I used ...
more than 50 % of stopping sound with only 7cm loss of height on the studio .. thanks idikell and fermacell, the heaviest shit I know

All that weight, and no sagging in the ceiling? (I'm REALLY hoping this is true...)

It sounds like you're getting the isolation you need, but I AM concerned with safety using that heavy material... Steve

sorry I dont understand exactly what you mean

the wood is fixed to the old ceiling with screws and the fermacell is fixed on the wood ...

I asked different architect about the kind of ceiling I have (dalle à ourdis) and they all tell me I can put 40 kg per m2 with no probs ...

I put more wood than needed to be sure that everything will stay in place ...

the dalle à ourdis is made with pieces that are heavy ... it is like rails with bricks in between ... I used special tampons for the screw that had to go in the bricks and normal ones for the "rails" ... by rail I mean something named armed beton in french ...

for the fermacell I red that I should put fixation every 63 cm but with the fact I add the idikell I put pieces of wood every 45 cm or less ... so there is no reason it should not stay in place ...

Is it clearer for you ?
bye

to correct myself it is more like 30 kg per m2

idikell is 10 kg per m2
fermacell 1mx 1m50 is 30 kg

so here we are with approx 30 kg per m2

due to the height of my stud 2m10 or so .. it was not really a good solution for me to do a inner room

maybe I will place idikell on the floor above the stud and then stuff for isolating solid noise and then parquet .... but let me do music first

and If had some idikell upstairs maybe it will not stop more the sound ?

it is strange but the more you go into stop noise transmission the more difficult (exigeant) you become

and one last point :

my stud is like 60 m2 but in three pieces

one piece that is a prolongation of the house, so no transmission of sound to the up rooms

one piece of approx 30 m2 above the house

one piece of approx 20 m2 above the house

I explain this separation by the fact I have columns to support the house so maybe it helps to support my new ceiling too ...

if not clear you can go to my site www.pulseconcept.com and look at the construction phase of the studio you will better understand these 3 parts ...

Sounds like you have the weight thing under control; I just tend to be over-cautious and make sure people have considered the "death" thing, so it isn't a shock

Made any noise in there yet? How's it doing for isolation so far? Steve