Using Sylomer or something else?

shutupandshave · Post by **shutupandshave** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 9:27 pm

I was reading Paul's thread on http://forum.studiotips.com/ and he shelled out £1000 for the rubber pads for his floating floor...

Is that really necessary? What are the alternatives, and what are the relative disadvantages of using these alternatives?

z60611 · Post by **z60611** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 3:26 am

Paul Woodlock's concrete over sylomer pads is a well calculated floor that will resonate under 10hz (good).
Where the floor resonates it also amplifies the sound through the structure (bad).
The lower the resonating frequency he better.
Kinetics RIM under concrete would be another alternative with similar performance.
Other materials, such as Auralex U-boats under wood floors would have a higher resonance.
Some floating floors would be resonant around 50hz or higher.
Presumably everybody plays music at 85db(c) or more volume, but the question is what's the lowest frequency note you play -- if it's lower than the floor resonance, then you've spent money building a floating floor that's worse than just ignoring the problem.

AVare · Post by **AVare** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 4:29 am

Is that really necessary?

Acoustics is like most things in life, the more you do outside of the ordinary, the more it costs. Obvioulsy he thinks it is. He knows his music levles, his outside noise levles, the amount of noise he considers acceptable. When you think of how much is spent on electronics that age quickly, that investment for 20 years or so for better acoustics is not unreasonable.

Is it necessary for you? Only you can answer that. What are your noise levels and concerns? What are your neighbours concerns?

Bob answered alternatives very well. Trade offs are cost, and performance, and physical size.

Andre

Paul Woodlock · Post by **Paul Woodlock** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 10:38 am

Greetings

Bobs reply is great.

I opted for a floating floor because my needs require a LOT of SOUNDPROOFING. I Like to compose at high volume levels at 4am, when I've a woman asleep in the house, and neighbours not far away.

I'd already designed a BOMB SHELTER room within a room, but an expert ( Sir Eric Desart!! ) suggested that the floor was now the weak link in the system. As I coudln't really start again after the fact, I need to make sure it was gonna be isolated enough from the start. To avoid years of costly disappointment.

Yes the Sylomer Ealstomer WAS expensive. but the reason it's expensive is because it's tested heavily to make sure it performs as designed, and also to be durable over many years.

I've already heard some of the benefits ( with interim tests ) of my floating floor and the isolation is stunning. Well worth the money for me.

You probably could make a floating floor cheaper, but without proper calculation and the right materials, you could end up makign things worse ( The resonant freqeuncy of the floor being in the audble range, as bob rightly points out ), or the rubber goes off over time and fails to perform anymore. And you can't easily replace the rubber once a concrete slab and room have been built on top of it.

And Avare is right, this is a 20 year investment. A decent mic or mic-pre costs a lot mroe than that Sylomer rubber.

'Is it really necessary"

Only if the rest of the isolation design is upto scratch and you need heavy isolation and/or work at unsociable hours like me.

My dream has always beento have a studio where I could creative without hinderence at any time of day. The flaoting floor, done properly, is realising that dream for me. And although there's plenty more exciting thigns to spend £1,000 on, it was well well worth it

Paul

shutupandshave · Post by **shutupandshave** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 7:32 pm

I am now getting very paranoid about my studio construction.

I am building a "shed" (to the neighbours) from scratch, and I have laid the concrete down already.

I was planning on just making a wooden floating floor on it, however Paul, your wooden floating floor was more like a super-drum (from what you said) than any kind of sound-isolation device.

I am pulling up the row forms today so I am going to take the opportunity to take some photo's of the area, and measure it up properly (we had to change the measurements slightly to account for the row (road?) forms all being 3m in length.

I would Like to be able to play drums 24 hours a day... and I can put in a fair bit of time, but I don't have that much money.

Paul Woodlock · Post by **Paul Woodlock** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 2:09 am

shutupandshave wrote:I am now getting very paranoid about my studio construction.

I am building a "shed" (to the neighbours) from scratch, and I have laid the concrete down already.

I was planning on just making a wooden floating floor on it, however Paul, your wooden floating floor was more like a super-drum (from what you said) than any kind of sound-isolation device.
....

I don't have a wooden floating floor.

Paul

shutupandshave · Post by **shutupandshave** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:10 pm

You did before you poured concrete all over it.

Sen · Post by **Sen** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 8:32 pm

Hi shutupandshave,
Why don't you believe your wooden floating floor will work???Who said it can't???With the right mass and stiffness of the floor, and damping of the space between that and the slab you can (i believe) achieve very acceptable results.
Just slap a few layers of massive materials down and there you go

If Paul could put 6-7 up on the ceiling you can put 10 down on the Floor

cheers

Paul Woodlock · Post by **Paul Woodlock** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:19 am

shutupandshave wrote:You did before you poured concrete all over it.

Ahh I see, you mean the plywood formwork.

Yeah it sounded terrible. Good job I was pouring concrete over it eh?

Paul