John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

hello there,

wonderful forum you've got. been poring over it for weeks and have amassed a general understanding of what i'm up against. i've got a small, low-ceilinged basement space in which to carve out a live room and control room before June. the space will be for me and my band and any guerilla recording projects that may come up. my house is attached on both sides, and we make quite a racket, so noise is a big concern and i'm planning to build a room-within-the-room. your advice is very much appreciated. the details:

--floor is very uneven concrete
--walls are brick covered with several inches of cement from the floor to about a foot from the ceiling, just under the joists
--ceiling is the hardwood floor above with no insulation--plus, there are many, many pipes running below the joists that will eat into my ceiling height

i've attached a diagram. when accounting for low pipes, the total ceiling height i have to work with is 7' 4" (and my drummer is 6'5").

my questions:

1) given the limited ceiling height, can i get away with skipping a floating floor and using the concrete as is?

2) what would you recommend for ceiling construction? i don't think i have the height to do a double wood frame ceiling. if i constructed my ceiling with two layers of sheet rock + insulation between wood studs, and then insulated the existing ceiling between joists (so the insulation is up against the bottom of the hardwood floor overhead), would that work? in this scenario the joists above would function as the second frame, and the hardwood floor above would act as the outer leaf of that frame...maybe...sort of...

3) for the walls, i was initially planning double framed wood studs with an air gap (insulated on both sides--double sheet rock on one or both leaves), but given the existing concrete/brick walls, do you think that's overkill? (at bare minimum, i'd use a double framed wall between live room and control room.)

4) any thoughts on using limp mass Sheetblok-like material between layers of sheet rock?

once i settle on wall/ceiling construction i'll figure out my total usable space and submit it to the design forum...

thanks very much for your time,
-lf

When you say "attached", you mean your house and your neighbors' houses on either side are actually SHARING walls, right?

Do you own, rent, lease, ?? What does your homeowners agreement state about modifying common "party" walls?

Basically, with common structure like that you will HAVE to completely decouple your inner room ("room in a room" construction) - otherwise, you will get flanking noise into the rest of YOUR house, your neighbors' houses, and possibly even into THEIR neighbors' houses if conditions are "wrong" enough. Check the REFERENCE section for a couple of links to FLANKING papers for a better understanding of this problem.

Gettin' short on sleep for now, I'll try to get you more in a day or two... Steve

yup, we're sharing walls with the neighbors. they're very thick, brick/cement walls (circa 1887), but yes, they're shared. i own , and i'm not too worried about modifying the party walls as long as i'm not weakening them. will check out the flanking threads in the meantime...
thanks much,
-lf