John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi,

I have constructed at 1200sqft structure with over 12 ft ceilings for my personal recording and mixing space. It has a slab on grade. Although I realize that it is not necessary in this situation to float a floor, I have been advised to absolutely not glue down a hardwood floor to the concrete in my region (we deal with variable humidity and there’s only so much the AC can do). Therefore I will need to do a more traditional install of a hardwood floor including a blacktop, subfloor etc. Being nice that is an independent structure many concerns that others have about transmission from the street or to neighbors are not issues. I do however feel that the floor would have been most dampened if glued down but not sure how much I should fixate on this

Thanks

one option to consider - staining, sealing, and polishing the concrete. then some area rugs if desired. you can do patterns, etc with the stain (do some searches on polished concrete floors) including wood patterns, tiles, abstract, etc. and later if you decide to do the "traditional" flooring you can do that. also, some un-attached finished plywood laid on the floor when needed if you're recording acoustic strings or guitars as a nice 4x8 sheet of finished 3/4" ply can help give you some "wood tones" esp if you have double bass or cellos.

+1 Glenns ideas. Variable or varied acoustics are a great boon in studios.
Painted concrete can look great too.