Drum Booth Construction

[JMCA]

I rent a small commercial office space for use as a project studio. I want to build a drum booth within my office. My office is small, so the booth will also be pretty small. The surrounding office spaces are separated by the normal Drywall--Insulation---Drywall partition wall. I’ve uploaded two jpg’s: Floor plan & Cross-section of the booth wall/floor/ceiling. I’ve read lots of literature over the years on studio construction and have been reading the discussions on this forum for about two years. I understand allot of it, the calculations throw me off a bit. I’m on the smallest of smallest budget (I bet you’ve never heard that before). I sketched out the booth using materials that: I can afford, are locally available, and know how to construct with. I’ve never built with resilient channels or resilient hangers. I know their a little costly and I’m foreign to using them in construction, so I swayed away from them for this project. I’m curious if anybody sees a flaw in my design or if something is redundant or lacking. I’m not too worried about isolating it from me (Because the booth is in my office space), but rather the isolation from the surrounding offices. Because I’ve never been in a room with this drywall/celotex/drwall/floating floor design, I’m curious if this actually will isolate my drums from the other offices.

[sharward]

Welcome to the forum, JMCA...

I rent a small commercial office space for use as a project studio. I want to build a drum booth within my office . ..

Is your office located on the ground floor? Is there any office space above you?

. . . I understand allot of it, the calculations throw me off a bit.

The folks here can probably help with the calc's... But in order to do that, you will probably need to elaborate a bit on how much isolation you are aiming for. How much isolation is "good enough"?

I’m on the smallest of smallest budget (I bet you’ve never heard that before).

We've heard it all... But it would be helpful to get a clearer idea of how smallest of small.

I sketched out the booth using materials that: I can afford, are locally available, and know how to construct with.

Where is "local"? (i.e., you should update your profile to include a location, as per the "Before You Post" Announcement)

I’ve never built with resilient channels or resilient hangers. I know their a little costly and I’m foreign to using them in construction, so I swayed away from them for this project.

You probably won't need them, since you're building a room-within-a-room with double wall construction -- i.e., your booth is a fully contained box without any firm fastening to the existing walls/floor/ceiling of your office.

I’m curious if anybody sees a flaw in my design or if something is redundant or lacking.

At first blush, these drawings look great -- they include a lot of detail for a first go-around. There may be more details needed, though, and I'll leave that to the "real" experts here. At first blush, I have a couple of observations:

• 1. Quoting the expert moderator here, "forget 'sound board' - not nearly the mass as drywall, more expensive, harder to work with." (source)
  
  2. With the drywall on the neighbor's side, plus the drywall on your side, plus the drywall on the inside of the booth, you have a three-leaf system. don't underestimate the detriment of this, especially at the critical low end of the spectrum (think kick drum and toms). You may need to do something similar to what I'll be doing on my project, where I'll be beefing up the outside leaf from the inside between the studs (as discussed in this thread -- although the example pertains to increasing the mass from the underside of a floor, you can use the same technique for a wall).

If you can address the above points, that will give the experts here some more details on which to comment.

[JMCA]

Thanks for the reply and opinions. I’ll try to address some of the missing info.

Is your office located on the ground floor? Is there any office space above you?

It's a 2 floor building. I'm on the top floor. Above me is pretty much the roof (No attic space…I think). Every other office shares the same ceiling only with drop ceiling tiles. My partition walls (The ones that separate the office) go up right to the ceiling. So there is no direct root to the other offices above the drop ceiling. I’m just trying to avoid any vibrations that would travel through the main ceiling and into the other offices. There is a construction tile showroom under me, but it seems that my floor is pretty thick, and that the lower room is spaced down far enough away from me. My floor is granite, but still seems to carry low vibrations when I stamp my foot hard. By the way, my office space surroundings: 2 of the walls are all windows facing the street, one wall is the partition wall to the woman’s bathroom (This is the wall on the left of my Room Layout jpg), and the other wall is a partition wall to an adjacent office (This is the wall at the bottom of my Room Layout jpg).

The folks here can probably help with the calc's... But in order to do that, you will probably need to elaborate a bit on how much isolation you are aiming for. How much isolation is "good enough"?

“Enough Isolation” in this situation would be: the adjacent office space will not be able to hear me at all, or so minimum that it would mix in with the street sounds. The street is a somewhat busy car travel street. Not much honking, but more swiiishing. At night though its super quiet, usually nobody is in the building, but I don’t want to piss off any residential buildings nearby or across the street.

We've heard it all... But it would be helpful to get a clearer idea of how smallest of small.

I know people will laugh at this, but I’ve priced similar things with this much material, so I’m trying for around $600, or if at possible less, just for construction materials and not for treating the room. Some things I can get deals on.

Where is "local"? (i.e., you should update your profile to include a location, as per the "Before You Post" Announcement)

Providence, RI. I’ve updated my profile.


I’ll check out those other threads you gave links to and see if it rises any other questions.

Thanks again