John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

hello everyone, this is my first post but i've been reading this board for sometime and i've learned a lot.

well, i've made a drawing (is not to scale) with measurements of a design i did and i would like your feedback.

-outside noise is not a problem
-the most important thing to me is the sound of the tracking and iso 1,iso 2 rooms.
-the bathroom can't be moved

some things about the drawing:
-all grey walls are rendered brick
-all cellings 8' 3" high
-yellow areas are filled with 703

and last, yes john i've borrowed the couch and doors from one of your designs, i hope it's not a bad thing.

That looks good mate - I've a couple of thoughts and I'll get back to you.

cheers
john

thank's john!

>>how much isolation could i spect between tracking and control rooms?

i don't know if you noticed that it's not a room within a room construction, all angled walls are just to brake
paralellism (spelling?) between walls and i've not yet decided wich walls should be just cloth covered and
which should have slats.

>>so how much isolation will a single rendered brick wall give?
(celling and floor are concrete)

that's not really a problem but it would be a great bonus to get decent isolation between rooms.


>>what would you do in the celling?

as it's only 8"3" i was thinking i should cover it with 2" or 4" fiberglass and cloth with a 2" air gap.

thanks a lot mate, i really appreciate your help

Firstly - why not have sliding doors to the right booth - saves a sound lock, gives more rear trapping in the control room and better visual.

single brick rendered both sides will give you 45db STC.

I agree with you regarding the ceiling - treat it as open air.

cheers
john

>>Firstly - why not have sliding doors to the right booth - saves a sound
>>lock, gives more rear trapping in the control room and better visual.

great idea john , why i didn't tougth of that?


>>single brick rendered both sides will give you 45db STC.

do you think that would be enough to put a rock drumer in the big room
and be able to listen in the control room trough the monitors?

or i'll still hear a lot of the drums in the control room?

and thinking about "the weakest link" thing in isolation,
do you think i'll be ok with normal 12mm thick glass for the windows?
or will i have to use laminated glass?


so john, i know from what i've read here that you're a big fan of soffit
mounted monitors, i just have a pair of passive alesis monitor one mk2's
right now which have a port in the back, i saw a post some time ago
where barefoot wrote about another alesis model which where also ported
in the back an he said they would not sound good soffited.

so do you think i should soffit them anyway, or i'll end up with
a worst sound than if i let them on stands.

i think i could make the soffit, try them in, and if they don't sound good
simply take them out and cover the hole left with something until i get
another pair of monitors.

i think i could make the soffit, try them in, and if they don't sound good
simply take them out and cover the hole left with something until i get
another pair of monitors.

that's the way to go - i think you'll find you leave them there;);)

cheers
john

"do you think that would be enough to put a rock drumer in the big room
and be able to listen in the control room trough the monitors?"-

Maybe if you put the kit facing the far wall with absorbers in front, and close all the doors except the bathroom (leave it open about 1/2" to 1" for bass trapping) - otherwise, with that STC you'll have only about 30 dB at kick drum frequencies best case. You'll probably hear noticeable kick and low toms at least.

"do you think i'll be ok with normal 12mm thick glass for the windows?
or will i have to use laminated glass?" -

You'll want two DIFFERENT thicknesses of glass regardless - a general rule for glass is, you want the same MASS in the glass as its corresponding wall mass - if you were using gypsum wallboard, it's about 1/3 the mass of glass so you would want about 1/3 the glass thickness of the TOTAL thickness of wallboard on any given side of a wall frame. To clarify, if you had two layers of 5/8" wallboard on one side of one wall frame, its glass should be about 1/3 of the total or 3/8" to 7/16". With brick, I don't have the mass ratio memorized - it would depend on the type of brick.

If you want a few extra dB of isolation on the FIXED glasses and don't have the budget, you can actually laminate your own. I've only heard of this being done, but it sounded like a possibility. They used clear aquarium sealant, applied it to the glass with a large smooth drywall knife, and made sure there were no bubbles or fingerprints in between layers.

The main thing in ALL this is airtight construction - always take the time to find REAL acoustic sealant, and not household caulk, for sealing around edges of glass, walls, door frames, etc... Steve