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Cheddatom's Studio


cheddatom

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then why say insulting the floor would only make the room warmer??

 

Probably because I know what I'm talking about maybe? You're talking about insulating the floor, not isolation.

 

I was making a point that 100mm insulation (which is normally a roll of fibreglass) is mostly just good for thermal insulation. It has very low mass per m2, so it is not really suitable for the purposes outlined previously. Quilt between layers of rubber is there to provide damping, it won't give you a noticeable reduction in SPL compared to rubber alone.

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i was talking about 100mm rockwool slab actually, which is really compacted and dense. I've done a fair bit of sound treatment on clubs in the past as well as the studio stuff at the college so i've got first hand experience with a lot of the lower end materials rather than what a pro studio would typically use.

Obviously a bit of loft roll isn't going to sound proof anything...

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Tom, don't go looking at expensive specialist materials. Get the best building you can and make it better.

I know that there are a lot of specialist materials out there that will claim to give you xx amound of dB reduction, but you need to weigh up their benefits against the cost of using standard materials.

For example, you can find heavyweight plasterboard replacements that are claimed to give greater isolation, however these are usually 3-4 times the cost of plasterboard sheets. So just double up your 12.5mm plasterboard, maybe stick a damper between them and you'll be sorted for 1/2 the price.

Like I said though, if you find the right building first, you'll spend a lot less money getting the rooms right.

The materials Phil mentioned are very effective, I misunderstood what he was referring to because I was on my Iphone and didn't follow his link. If I was condescending, I apologise I was just making a little joke. Regardless, the problem with rigid fiberglass boards is two-fold really.

Firstly, they suck at low frequency isolation. Anything that's going to generate rumble at 250Hz and below (trucks, trains etc) is going to penetrate right through. This usually isn't that big a deal, most of the time you're high-pass filtering your mic's anyway, but it's something to be aware of.

The major problem with rigid fiberglass, is that it's easy to leave gaps, which massively reduces transmission loss. I'm doing some work simulating gaps in sealed enclosures, small gaps let a lot more sound through than you would think. If you're actually interested, i'll look out my notes and give you some figures ;)

Fwiw, Rockwool produce semi-rigid mineral wool to sidestep this issue.

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Well I definitely need to do it on the cheap

 

Any notes and/or more advice would be most appreciated. My email is my username @hotmail.com

 

I've just been to see an old chinese restaurant. It's right in the middle of town, quite close to a ring road and very close to a big Tesco, but inside it's seriously quiet. I mean the meter isn't picking up anything on the 60db setting and I can only hear the strip lights, nothing else. It looks promising but would take a fuck load of work to make it nice.

 

In that sort of scenario I'd have to treat a control room, which I know you can do pretty cheaply, but also create isolation in the door ways. If you just double up fire doors is that effective? Or do you have to go for the flashy studio jobbies?

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Well I definitely need to do it on the cheap

 

Any notes and/or more advice would be most appreciated. My email is my username @hotmail.com

 

I've just been to see an old chinese restaurant. It's right in the middle of town, quite close to a ring road and very close to a big Tesco, but inside it's seriously quiet. I mean the meter isn't picking up anything on the 60db setting and I can only hear the strip lights, nothing else. It looks promising but would take a fuck load of work to make it nice.

 

In that sort of scenario I'd have to treat a control room, which I know you can do pretty cheaply, but also create isolation in the door ways. If you just double up fire doors is that effective? Or do you have to go for the flashy studio jobbies?

 

Treating the control room would be more important than the studio itself.

 

If you get another chance for a look at this place, take a mic and set it up to see if theres any low end resonance from outside as its not something you may hear or pick up on a decibel meter, but will pass through mic stands and so on.

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I did do a pretty in depth acoustics module at uni, but it was mainly concerned with room treatment, as opposed to sound proofing/isolation (if you get my distinction)

 

I'm fairly confident with treating my control/mixing room

 

Keeping background noise out of my recordings is really the main concern for me at the moment. A studio in the middle of nowhere would be ideal, but even then you have problems with weather noise, depending on the construction of the place

 

Anyhoo, I'll keep looking

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  • 3 months later...

OK dewds, I finally have the keys!! This is the layout

 

 

studio.jpg

 

 

There's almost no noise from outside at all. Nothing showing on my meter. There is a chav with a scooter nearby that would come through on quiet vocals very, very occasionally. I think the main leak into the live room are the three windows shown at the top of the picture. I am planning to stuff these full of acoustic rockwool and cover that with some fabric or maybe plasterboard. Any thoughts on that?

 

Then, the control room and something room are not well separated from the live room. There are small air gaps at the top of the dividing walls and around the doors. Any suggestions on that?

 

I'm thinking that for now, while tracking I can have the monitors turned quite low, or just use headphones in the control room. I've seen other studios doing this but do you guys think it'd be unprofessional?

 

I've ordered one of these acoustic treatment kits with some diffusers and bass traps for the live room, as getting that to sound great is my absolute priority.

 

any other thoughts?

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  • 2 weeks later...
OK dewds, I finally have the keys!! This is the layout

 

 

studio.jpg

 

 

There's almost no noise from outside at all. Nothing showing on my meter. There is a chav with a scooter nearby that would come through on quiet vocals very, very occasionally. I think the main leak into the live room are the three windows shown at the top of the picture. I am planning to stuff these full of acoustic rockwool and cover that with some fabric or maybe plasterboard. Any thoughts on that?

 

Then, the control room and something room are not well separated from the live room. There are small air gaps at the top of the dividing walls and around the doors. Any suggestions on that?

 

I'm thinking that for now, while tracking I can have the monitors turned quite low, or just use headphones in the control room. I've seen other studios doing this but do you guys think it'd be unprofessional?

 

I've ordered one of these acoustic treatment kits with some diffusers and bass traps for the live room, as getting that to sound great is my absolute priority.

 

any other thoughts?

 

just bumping in case anyone (jaicen?) can help

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Hey Tom, feeling the love ;)

Had no internetz for two weeks, but now I'm back with fibre optic (45MB/s)!

Currently at work, but I will look it over and type something tip when I get home.

Can you show us what the current layout is like before you add any walls?

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The walls are in, I'm not adding anything on top of what's in the layout.

 

I built my desk yesterday. Going back tonight to see if it's still holding up my allen&heath and monitors... nerve wracking as my carpentry is not excellent.

 

The live room is sounding great now, I have some of those grey acoustic tiles on the walls which have dealt with some nasty reflections in the high frequencies. I could do with a bass trap but I kinda like it boomy for the kick drum so may not both. I still have the air gaps above the dividing walls which I plan to fix with regular coving. I've put some draft excluder tape around the doors which helps a little.

 

I've still not heard the control room properly but have some diffusers for that if I need them.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

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