952 Studios Construction!

[Starlight]

John Brandt has a PDF where he walks you through making a door. I am not suggesting you start afresh but you may be able to glean something that would help you beef up your existing doors, particularly adding thickness with sand. If you beef up your doors that may reveal the relative weakness of your existing door seals.

https://jhbrandt.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Building-Studio-Doors-1.pdf

Looking at your photos, my thoughts are whether adding a second door to the outside of the live room frame (hinges on the same side as the existing door) would even be possible as it would be an obstacle with the other doorway so close.

My experience of doors is such that I am persuaded that door seals do a great job in creating an airtight seal and increasing isolation such that it justifies the work, but the real reduction in sound getting through is when pressure can be exerted on the door to actively press it up against the frame, compressing the door seal.

Additionally, do your doors have a good seals underneath them? That would involve having a step (a trip hazard) so that the bottom edge of each door closes up against the 4th side of the door frame. I think there might be room for improvement in your existing door thresholds.

[eightamrock]

Thanks, Starlight. I do have both a drop seal and good threshhold seal. The main issue I think is that the door needs more mass. I can clearly hear resonance of the instruments through the center of the door it self. Of course that is absolutely even worse at the perimeter of the doors, but I am thinking if I add sand or even a sheet of 3/4" MDF to the door, I can make a second jam and have added mass. That PDF was a fantastic resource, thank you!

[Starlight]

Steel sheets (7,850 kg/m3) are simpler and thinner than sand and 3.5 times the density of MLV (2,200 kg/m3). Adding a thin sheet to the jamb side of each door, say 3mm (1/8") would add in the region of 40kg (88lbs) to the mass of each door, subject to your doors' dimensions. Check whether your door hinges are up to bearing the extra weight; I suspect (which is not a scientific measurement) that you will need an extra hinge beneath the top one on each door.

[eightamrock]

Wanted to share this fun update. I have been building out the ceiling cloud for my control room. The fabric wrapped panels I had previously built were not great, lots of wrinkles, etc.... I just really struggled with it. I thought there had to be a better way for the ceiling!

So I found a guy on youtube who made standup panels and used a spline to get the fabric nice and tight edge to edge while still revealing some of the wood. I thought it looked really cool, so I decided to try it for the cloud. Here is the progress so far....

Cloud is constructed of 5/4 x 6 select pine. I rabbeted all the joints, then used a 1/4" router bit to mortis a groove all the way around the perimeter. The outside edge is stained the same color as the arms on my desk so its a nice color matching

I then used a 1/4" dowel rod as the spline and used it to pull the fabric tight around the edges and it came out AWESOME.

Ill post some pictures when its completely done, but Im really loving how it came out.

[norg]

Source of the post
IMG_8385.jpeg

Ill post some pictures when its completely done, but Im really loving how it came out.

That looks TIGHT!

Pun entirely intended.

Can't wait to see it all done. Did you happen to snap any pics of the tightening process? I've had good success at pulling fabric tight over frames and stapling but the spline process is confusing to me for some reason. Or I just haven't seen the right example...

[gullfo]

Really nice work!

[eightamrock]

And it’s up!

[ACSlater]

That looks awesome and a big thanks for sharing your build.

[Starlight]

Source of the post
And it’s up!

Woohoo! Congratulations!

[goodwater]

Wow! It's awesome! Bravo!

[eightamrock]

Source of the post

Source of the post
IMG_8385.jpeg

Ill post some pictures when its completely done, but Im really loving how it came out.

That looks TIGHT!

Pun entirely intended.

Can't wait to see it all done. Did you happen to snap any pics of the tightening process? I've had good success at pulling fabric tight over frames and stapling but the spline process is confusing to me for some reason. Or I just haven't seen the right example...

Thank you! No unfortunately I didnt, but it was very straight forward. I laid the fabric across the frame, squared it up nicely, then splined in the opposing sides with a soft flooring mallet. Made sure to apply a little tension as I started. Easy.

[endorka]

Source of the post Steel sheets (7,850 kg/m3) are simpler and thinner than sand and 3.5 times the density of MLV (2,200 kg/m3). Adding a thin sheet to the jamb side of each door, say 3mm (1/8") would add in the region of 40kg (88lbs) to the mass of each door, subject to your doors' dimensions. Check whether your door hinges are up to bearing the extra weight; I suspect (which is not a scientific measurement) that you will need an extra hinge beneath the top one on each door.

I concur. I beefed my 30kg solid core door up to 80kg and the improvement was significant. Adding insulation to one side of the door can also improve the attenuation of lower midrange and higher frequencies:

[eightamrock]

Source of the post Steel sheets (7,850 kg/m3) are simpler and thinner than sand and 3.5 times the density of MLV (2,200 kg/m3). Adding a thin sheet to the jamb side of each door, say 3mm (1/8") would add in the region of 40kg (88lbs) to the mass of each door, subject to your doors' dimensions. Check whether your door hinges are up to bearing the extra weight; I suspect (which is not a scientific measurement) that you will need an extra hinge beneath the top one on each door.

I concur. I beefed my 30kg solid core door up to 80kg and the improvement was significant. Adding insulation to one side of the door can also improve the attenuation of lower midrange and higher frequencies: graph.png

Thank you, this is definitely my next project, the question is do I have to do both doors in the communicating door system or just one, and if its just one which one would be most effective? My gut tells me to beef up the door to the live room and not the control room. I'm considering tearing the whole thing out and rebuilding it from the frame up.

[endorka]

Source of the post the question is do I have to do both doors in the communicating door system or just one, and if its just one which one would be most effective? My gut tells me to beef up the door to the live room and not the control room. I'm considering tearing the whole thing out and rebuilding it from the frame up.

Both doors operate as a system, and sound travelling though them one way will be attenuated the same as sound going the other. Unless the vestibule between them has a requirement for more attenuation from either the live room or the control room?

It might be helpful to determine if your seals really are at fault before ripping them out and rebuilding. Here's one method I used to test mine. Play some loud white noise through your speakers in the control room. Stand outside the control room with the door closed and cast you ear around the door perimeter. High frequency hiss from the white noise has a way of making it through leaky parts of the seal such that you can hear it quite obviously. When fine tuning my door seal, I noticed that manually pulling the door against the seal with substantial force stopped the high frequency hiss coming through these leaky areas. When this force was released the hiss came back. I adjusted the seal until this stopped happening.

Cheers!
Jennifer

[eightamrock]

Source of the post

Source of the post the question is do I have to do both doors in the communicating door system or just one, and if its just one which one would be most effective? My gut tells me to beef up the door to the live room and not the control room. I'm considering tearing the whole thing out and rebuilding it from the frame up.

Both doors operate as a system, and sound travelling though them one way will be attenuated the same as sound going the other. Unless the vestibule between them has a requirement for more attenuation from either the live room or the control room?

It might be helpful to determine if your seals really are at fault before ripping them out and rebuilding. Here's one method I used to test mine. Play some loud white noise through your speakers in the control room. Stand outside the control room with the door closed and cast you ear around the door perimeter. High frequency hiss from the white noise has a way of making it through leaky parts of the seal such that you can hear it quite obviously. When fine tuning my door seal, I noticed that manually pulling the door against the seal with substantial force stopped the high frequency hiss coming through these leaky areas. When this force was released the hiss came back. I adjusted the seal until this stopped happening.

Cheers!
Jennifer

Thanks for this tip! I did the method described and Im not really getting the high's through edges of the door, but definitely hearing a tremendous amount of upper mids. If I move my ear to the center of the door, it definitely changes to much more of the lows. I think the seals are tight, the jam itself is of inferior construction. I will have to figure this out.

Another quick update, please don't judge me, but I just this week finally finished my duct silencer boxes for the live room. I can now hook up my ERV for fresh air. I had been reluctant/nervous to punch holes in my liveroom walls to put these in because I feel like my isolation to the outside world has been more than I had hoped for. Last session got pretty stuffy in there, so I know its time.... At any rate, Im going to rip off the bandaid. I have access through the attic where these will be mounted. Wish me luck.