John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I'm currently working on designing a recording studio built into a semi-truck trailer and was wondering if cold storage wall panels would be a possible replacement for the interior wood frame walls. Here is a link for an example product: http://www.kingspanpanels.us/coldstorag ... r-Rib.aspx

There appear to be loads of advantages to using this stuff as far as ease of construction goes but these panels are extremely light and from what I've read about soundproofing walls that is probably a very bad thing. If I do use this material would gluing mass loaded vinyl to it solve any weight and sound dampening issues it might have?

BTW this is my first post here and I did look to see if there was anything about this but came up dry.

To be honest, I don't think those panels would be much use. As you said, they don't have much mass, and also they seem to be made with open cell foam (although I'm not certain about that), which also isn't much use, acoustically.

MLV (mass loaded vinyl) is a really expensive solution! Ordinary drywall does the same job much cheaper. However, I'm not sure that drywall would be a good idea in something that moves all the time, such as a trailer: I suspect it might not stand up very well to the constant flexing and vibration, so maybe something like MDF would be a better solution. Of course, if you have very limited space and lots of money you could use lead sheeting, or steel plate...

Have you looked at the thread on the Spark One container studio?

http://johnlsayers.com/Studio/Mainpage/MP-Mark.htm
http://johnlsayers.com/Pages/Spark_1.htm

That looks very similar to what you are trying to do.


- Stuart -

I like what I saw on the Spark One studio but I plan on having three isolated rooms and a control room built into a 53' moving van(with a drop frame for extra ceiling height). For the project size pre-fabricated walls seem like a good way to go but only if there is a feasible way of making them soundproof. Maybe asphalt roofing as a cheaper alternative to the MLV?

So you can get a better look at what I'm planning I attached a Google SketchUp file with my current layout.