Live Tracking Room Studio Doors?

Dr. J · Post by **Dr. J** » Thu May 29, 2003 9:04 am

What kind of doors should I buy, or make, for my live tracking room to my control room, so I can acheive very good sound level reduction?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

I am trying to seal that room off the best that I can, so I don't have noise
sneaking in to my recordings!

Thanx
J

Dr. J · Post by **Dr. J** » Thu May 29, 2003 3:56 pm

Anyone?

Post by **John Sayers** » Thu May 29, 2003 4:21 pm

check out the door/window section at the SAE site.
http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

cheers
john

Dr. J · Post by **Dr. J** » Fri May 30, 2003 4:31 am

Hi John,
thanks for the reply. Very good reading. I will definitly be
reading from there as I plan my studio building.

One last question... In your opinion, with the info I just read,
would using ONLY sliding glass doors in my studio be a bad idea?
I agree the communication factor for the artists would be enhanced
greatly. (My only concern is having good isolation because I tend
to get alot of heavy rock acts to work with.)

If you think a thick sliding glass door can do as good a job as a
solid core, that's good enough for me.

Thanks a ton for your help & repy,
J

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Fri May 30, 2003 6:36 am

Glass doors, especially SLIDING glass doors, will NEVER be as good for isolation as heavy, WELL SEALED, solid core doors.

I don't dis-agree with John's main reason for using the sliders, which is less claustrophobic rooms and better communication between artist and engineer. I don't recall John ever claiming that sliders were as soundproof as solid core -

If you REALLY need as good isolation as you can get, I'd pay really close attention to design, as applied to traffic flow, and put as FEW doors as possible without hampering function.

For a good idea of what works, go to sites like

http://www.overly.com/doorCo/Products/index.cfm

http://www.arach.net.au/~watno/raven.htm

http://www.soundcontrolroom.com/door_details.htm

http://www.overly.com/doorCo/Education/Acoustical.cfm

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/acoustics ... readed%3D1

http://www.doors-ambico.com/s_acoustic.html

http://www.chown.com/help/prd/thresholds.htm

Brouse each of these sites looking at FAQ, diagrams, etc; you should come away with a better idea of what works and how well. A lot of the ideas you find can be adapted to your own DIY construction - if you buy entire door systems from places like Overly, you can spend around 4-6 THOUSAND per door. The upside is you will actually GET what they claim for STC rating. The downside is you'll be broke...

Another possibility for high isolation requirements is inexpensive surveilance camers/monitors going BOTH ways (camera and monitor in each room) - not as "airy" feeling as glass, but easier to sound proof... Steve

Michael Jones · Post by **Michael Jones** » Sat May 31, 2003 9:29 am

I just got in one of my sliders the other day and decided to put it in. First of all, it is extremely heavy! It took 2 people to get one panel in place. Its double glazed, and each glazing is a different thickness.
It also has a "hook" type seal between the two doors, and some kind of low E gas between the panes. Both doors; the sliding panel, and the fixed panel have seals all aournd them, and on both sides.

I have no idea how it works for sound isolation yet because not all of the walls are sheetrocked but my guess is its going to work very well, especially considering that there are 2 of them separating rooms. It looks good too!

I wouldn't be afraid to use sliders, just spend a little extra money and get a really good quality, exterior grade door.

Post by **John Sayers** » Sat May 31, 2003 9:53 am

Did the door manufacturer specify an STC rating Michael??

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Sat May 31, 2003 11:19 am

"Its double glazed, and each glazing is a different thickness.
It also has a "hook" type seal between the two doors, and some kind of low E gas between the panes. Both doors; the sliding panel, and the fixed panel have seals all aournd them, and on both sides. " -

I'd say from that description that the STC should be pretty good. The different thickness glass, etc, at least shows they're trying... Steve

Michael Jones · Post by **Michael Jones** » Sat May 31, 2003 11:55 am

John Sayers wrote:Did the door manufacturer specify an STC rating Michael??

I'll look and see John. I know they specified the "R" values, and some sort of "visibility" or "see-through" value.
I have all their lit. so I'll look through it again, and get back to you here.

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 12:36 pm

I just got back from a "home and garden" show, and saw some doors there that claim STC 40 - they were sliders, really nice looking, with dissimilar glass, etc - the entire door is twice as wide as the slider parts, with glass "lights" on either side, so that the usable opening is about 5" less than the total width of BOTH sliding sections. That way, a 10' door opens to just under 5 feet.

Soon as I win a BIIIIG lottery, I'll buy some - they were $5k EACH; so for only $10 k per door, I could have almost as light and airy feeling in my studio as I would have in my wallet :=)

Also signed up for a "construction school" on "IFC" construction, so I might learn more about the foam concrete construction in a few weeks. You'll be hearing more about it when I do... Steve

JOHNNYGATE · Post by **JOHNNYGATE** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 10:41 am

Where did you get them ? Can you just like go to Home Depot ?

Michael Jones wrote:I just got in one of my sliders the other day and decided to put it in. First of all, it is extremely heavy! It took 2 people to get one panel in place. Its double glazed, and each glazing is a different thickness.
It also has a "hook" type seal between the two doors, and some kind of low E gas between the panes. Both doors; the sliding panel, and the fixed panel have seals all aournd them, and on both sides.

I have no idea how it works for sound isolation yet because not all of the walls are sheetrocked but my guess is its going to work very well, especially considering that there are 2 of them separating rooms. It looks good too!

I wouldn't be afraid to use sliders, just spend a little extra money and get a really good quality, exterior grade door.

Michael Jones · Post by **Michael Jones** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 9:10 am

JOHNNYGATE wrote:Where did you get them ? Can you just like go to Home Depot ?

Well, actually, I did get them at Home Depot, but they were a special order item, not something HD stocks. They're just in ca-hoots with the manufacturer I suppose.
You can special order just about anything from them, as long as they're a distributor. You just need to look carefully through the catalogues.

They're expensive too. About $600 (US) each.
I wouldn't try to use some $179 patio slider. I'm sure the results would be disappointing. John has a detail... somewhere, of what he considers minimal criteria for a slider. Look for those features when choosing a slider.

John - I couldn't find anything re. STC on this door.
The only thing I could find was from the "National Fenestration Council" regarding what's known as "Air Leakage".
Their definition is:
Air Leakage (AL). An energy performance rating that measures the rate at which air moves through the fenestration system as the result of a pressure difference across the product. AL is expressed in cubic feet of air passing through a square foot of window area.
For this product its 0.003 (if installed correctly).
And that rating, as far as I can tell, doesn't specify any time unit. So is that cubic feet per second? per hour?, per century? It doesn't specify.
So, I don't know if that can be translated into an STC rating or not.