Soundman2020 - Studio Design Forum

hi,

my name is Paul, here in the UK!
Ive been planning a while to rent an small industrial unit and build a sound proof and sound treated rehearsal space for local bands: Most local bands in this area hire halls and rooms in community centres, church halls etc and aside from the fact that they are over priced, are always fully booked by yoga classes and meditation groups etc etc, they also sound bloody aweful, being not much more than hard resonant boxes, and as soon as the whole band get going, the sound pretty much dissolves into an acoustic mess!

so, im looking at design, and costing it, materials etc... which leads onto financial, and practical viability: if i see a prospective space to rent, will it be possible to soundproof it from neighbouring units enough to avoid problems, and the cost of doing that sound proofing, and how much i will be able to charge to use it.

im glad ive found my way here... im glad that you ( Soundman) have dispelled many of the myths that seem so prevalent on the internet!

for example, there is a light industrial unit ive seen to rent recently with solid concrete floor and block walls, joined to neighbouring units:

https://lc.zoocdn.com/bca729c76fbadc4de2061d5379bd219b92a62362.jpg

After reading the myths around suspended floors, i wonder about the walls - the accepted 'wisdom' has always been to build a 'room within a room', with the inner room not touching/ isolated from the outer room.... can the floor be excluded from this with a solid concrete floor as in the above example? so the next question would be the walls and ceiling... more research to do!!

many thanks to all here, and especially to soundman for the amazing forum!!

paul

there aren't too many "myths" about floating floors - it's just whether or not the investment in a properly designed one will benefit you. if you're building multiple concrete pads on the ground 20km from the nearest possible noise source. no floating floors would not be a benefit. building a small studio inside of a metropolitan area, say in a large rental storage room which not only shares the floor with everyone else in the building and you can track the comings and goings of trucks, busses, and trains oh my! a floating floor could be a good choice, but it will increase your budget. some shortcuts might be less costly and meet your isolation needs like a sleeper box filled with sand and the walls decoupled from the sleeper frame and using isolation sway bracing to stabilize.
but if you're not recording with microphones or delicate things with microphones, then less isolation may be ok. so decouple the room walls from the floor, isolation sway braces to stabilize, and some MLV+plywood+finished floor may do it.
of course all of this is silly to consider because you forgot the need for HVAC. which in a storage unit is not likely something you have much control over. unless you're exchanging air with the storage room and getting all the oxygen and cooling needed, a hyper-insulated and sealed room will not be comfortable. so definitely look for a space where you can control the HVAC aspects. and/or consider something a short train ride outside the city (a large barn for example) and set that up (holes and all) to be the rehearsal/fun room.

Hi Paul, and welcome!

I'm agreeing with Glenn on everything he said: The problem with floating floors is that doing one right costs a lot of money, and they are usually not necessary, except in the types of cases Glenn mentioned. If you have a good solid concrete slab on grade, that isn't shared by anything else, then you very likely do not need a floating floor.

Here's a couple of articles I wrote a while back about this subject, that might be helpful:

Floating your floor: How and why... and why not.

What is a floating floor? How to do it wrong, and how to do it right:

You mentioned that you plan to rent an industrial unit: Do check what else might be sharing your concrete slab! If it is just storage, for example, then you are probably good. But if there's a mechanical workshop on the same slab, with machinery bolted to it, then you would need to investigate further, and see how much of a problem that is. Also, think about sound going the other way: if you have drums
kts and bass amps sitting directly on the slab, a lot of the impact noise and vibration from those could get into the slab, and therefore into other rooms within your own facility, or other people's facilities. That might be a problem. If that is the only issue, then Glenn has a rally nice design for a "drum riser" platform that can decouple your noisy stuff from the floor, without needing to float the entire floor.

if i see a prospective space to rent, will it be possible to soundproof it from neighbouring units enough to avoid problems, and the cost of doing that sound proofing, and how much i will be able to charge to use it.

That depends on the situation! Glenn outlined some possible issues, I added a few more. You would need to do a careful analysis of each property that you are considering, to decide if it is feasible to use it as a studio. Ideally, you would have a unit where your slab is all alone, not shared with anything else.

im glad that you ( Soundman) have dispelled many of the myths that seem so prevalent on the internet!

There's quite a few more I plan to deal with, at some point.... Stay tuned!

for example, there is a light industrial unit ive seen to rent recently with solid concrete floor and block walls, joined to neighbouring units:

Check what's going on in the other units... Also, that ceiling is going to need isolating, both to stop your sound getting out, and to stop the sounds from outside getting in.

- Stuart -

hi stuart and glen,
thank you so much for your replies. much to think about!

Upon reflection i think a garden room for personal use only is a better option. the location will be roughly 30 feet from nearest houses.

At the moment, in my head at least, im thinking of the following:

the outer 'room': a row of bricks on conrete footing, on which will stand a wooden structure consisting of framework of 2" x 2" wood, infilled filled with 50mm rockwool rwa45. An outer layer of 12mm OSB, then waterproof membrane, and then an outer layer of tongue and groove. Hermetically sealed outer door. no windows. Roof similar except roofing felt instead of tongue and groove as the outer layer.

Inner 'room' :walls and ceiling : 2" x 2" wood framework infilled with 50mm rockwool RWA45. floor - the same framework/ insulation with 18mm plywood and then carpet. Double layer of plasterboard on walls and ceiling . Hermetically sealed room/ inner door. The whole inner room will be sat on a bed of sand which completely fills the space created by the row of bricks that the outer room sits on.

Im thinking a minimal gap (1" ?) between inner and outer rooms.

Ill need to build a sound proof air feed/ extractor system for fresh air.

Is this going to be enough?

Im thinking 110db inside dropping to 60 db a few meters from the outside wall.

Will green glue between the plasterboard layers add enough extra dampening to be worth the cost?

any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

thanks

paul