Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

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interstahler
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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#1

Postby interstahler » Sat, 2021-Mar-13, 16:13

Hi! Excited to have joined this forum! :D

So, my fiancé and I live in Oslo, Norway at the top two floors of a seven story brick building in the middle of the capitol. We both work in the music/theatre/entertainment industry and have recently finished remodeling our 75 m2 (807 sq ft) apartment to free up 20 m2 (215 sq ft) for our home office/music room/studio. Picture of our fasade for context: https://www.flickr.com/photos/192466259 ... res/q9G0wj.

About us and our vision
I'm a pianist, musical director, producer, composer and arranger and my fiancé is a singer/actor/artist. I would like to practice on my acoustic piano preferably without my neighbours hearing anything. She needs a vocal booth where she can work seperately from me. A more ambitious goal is to be able to have small band rehearsals at home - even with a small drum kit - kick, snare, hh, tom, cymbal (during appropriate hours of the day) without disturbing our neighbours too much. We don't expect to able to make it completely silent, but we would like to soundproof as much as possible.

Firstly, I'd like to clarify that we're not aiming for a top tier recording studio. Our main concern is soundproofing so we can rehearse/practice at home in good conscience. From what I know and have learned so far this might be challenging, and I have almost given up many times. Finding you guys have given me some new hope. So here goes.

About the apartment
Here's a rough sketchup screenshot of the entire apartment: https://www.flickr.com/photos/192466259 ... res/c9E1g4
The music room is on the top left and I have started sketching out the construction. Concrete floor thickness: 25 cm (9 inches). Two doors, one exit to the building common hall and one on the right to the rest of the apartment.

About the room
Here's a top view of the room: https://www.flickr.com/photos/192466259 ... res/7284Kt
The outer wall dimensions are:
Length: 642 cm (21 feet)
Width: 312 cm (10,2 feet).

All measurements are in the screenshot - I've also marked where we have neighbours - which is only on two sides. The third side is the end of the building - and in the next building there is an art college/university (with music among other programs).

Roof height differs on each side of the barrier in the roof (as depicted in the picture):
Side 1: aprox. 290 cm (9,5 feet)
Side 2: aprox. 272 cm (8,9 feet)

The outer walls of each apartments consists of two layers of gypsym and standard glass fiber insulation. So even though the buidling is an old factory building from 1890, the building was remodeled into an apartment building in 2006 and the soundproofing standard are more or less up to date. In Norway, those standards are pretty high. I barely hear any of my neighbours in a normal day. If someone is having a party and playing loud music I can hear the bass frequencies.

THE Big Question about the floor
My goal is to soundproof the room as much as possible (within reason). My initial plan was to build a floating room resting on the so-called "U-boat floaters". That was until I came across this forum. After reading this post https://www.digistar.cl/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=161 I changed my mind. Now I'm unsure about what to do. I don't think I can build a floating concrete slab like suggested in the mentioned post. Is there an alternative? I feel I need something to soundproof my concrete floor since the whole 7th floor is connected to the same concrete floor. What can I do here? Can I build a floating floor that at least has some effect?

(I know that my floor needs to able to support the weight of a floating room and I'm confident that the high norwegian building standards means the floor will hold. I have teared down the existing roof to make more space upwards and have uncovered additional steel support beams probably installed in the remodeling in 2006.)


All the best,
Christian



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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#2

Postby Soundman2020 » Wed, 2021-Jun-30, 21:03

Ooooopppppsss!!! :oops:

Christian, I am so sorry! I have no idea how your thread slipped through the cracks, and never got approved.... :( I only just saw it now, still awaiting approval... I do hope you see this, and it is still useful for you!

First: WELCOME to the forum! :thu: :)

I'm a pianist, musical director, producer, composer and arranger and my fiancé is a singer/actor/artist. I would like to practice on my acoustic piano preferably without my neighbours hearing anything.
Probably your biggest issue for the piano, is going to be the floor. There will likely be a lot of vibration transmitted through the piano body, down into the floor, where it will be easily transmitted into the building structure.... and thus into your neighbours' apartments. You will probably need to raise the piano on something like Glenn's drum riser, but adapted for a piano... which of course is heavier and has different dimensions.
GLENN-example drum riser 2-Full.jpg
GLENN-example drum riser 2-Exploded.jpg
Also take a look at Jennifer's thread, for ideas on how you could implement that: viewtopic.php?t=8

A more ambitious goal is to be able to have small band rehearsals at home - even with a small drum kit
Even more reason to get ideas from Jennifer's thread, and make your riser modular!

From what I know and have learned so far this might be challenging,
:thu: definitely!

Here's a rough sketchup screenshot of the entire apartment:
You seem to have the basic idea. I would suggest doing some testing or estimating, to first define a goal for isolation: in other words, how many decibels of isolation you would need. That will help you define things like the materials to us to build your studio, and the dimensions of those materials.

My initial plan was to build a floating room resting on the so-called "U-boat floaters". That was until I came across this forum. After reading this post viewtopic.php?f=16&t=161 I changed my mind.
:thu: Right! I'm glad you saw that: saved you a lot of money, and a poor outcome!

Is there an alternative? I feel I need something to soundproof my concrete floor since the whole 7th floor is connected to the same concrete floor. What can I do here? Can I build a floating floor that at least has some effect?
I already answered that above, before I saw this part of your post! So that's the option I would suggest. It won't do much for airborne sound getting into the floor, but it will help a lot with structure-borne sound. What might help a little for airborne sound, is engineered wood flooring, sometimes incorrectly called "floating flooring"(!), laid over a suitable "acoustic" underlay. It won't really isolate in the true acoustic sense, but can help a little. Besides, you have a 25cm concrete slab under you, so that will help quite a bit with isolation. I would look for a good thick flooring, and thick "acoustic" underlay. That's a bit thicker than the ordinary underlay, and isn't really "acoustic" either, but it does help a bit.

and I'm confident that the high norwegian building standards means the floor will hold.
In addition to your confidence, I would suggest that you get a structural engineer to come take a look and give you his professional advice on that. In addition to the construction itself you also have the weight of the piano! That's a LOT of weight. Hopefully you will be OK, but it is always safer to check with a professional, to make sure.

- Stuart -



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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#3

Postby interstahler » Thu, 2021-Aug-05, 19:10

Hi Stuart! No hard feelings for the late reply. These things happen. I'm happy you found my post eventually and took the time to reply :)

An update
In the meantime I have started building my music room, and I have had to make a lot of choices. I actually ended up building a "floating floor" after all - but instead of the U-boats I got in contact with a local acoustics company after my friend who's an acoustic engineer told me about them. They recommended a material called sylodon which has been extensively tested and formally approved by both norwegian and german building standards. If you google Sylodyn Data Sheet you will find documentation. Would be interesting to hear your opinion on this.

Anyways, I asked a lot of critical questions and discussed the matter with several professionals and friends, and ended up taking a chance on the sylodyn blocks and the "floating floor" is now finished. It was built using aprox. 80 sylodyn blocks (each block is cut to 85x45x12,5 mm) spread across my 20m2 floor. Here's a picture of the "sandwich".
IMG_1362.jpg
Skjermbilde 2021-03-21 kl. 11.54.02.png
The cavities are filled with rockwool. The "sandwich" consists of sylodyn blocks, rockwool, 73x48mm wood beams, 22mm standard floor chipboard, two layers of 10mm fiber gypsym - which has more mass than normal gypsym and also isolation properties. I'm also considering the use mass loaded vinyl as an extra safe measure.

Soundman2020 wrote:Source of the post You will probably need to raise the piano on something like Glenn's drum riser, but adapted for a piano... which of course is heavier and has different dimensions.
I have actually considered something like this for the vocal/drum booth and actually I thought about this for the whole floor. I hope that the current floor construction will work for the piano as it is now. I would like to easily transition between my desk and my piano. A platform would be an obstacle in this case - but definitively a plan B if I don't get the desired result from plan A.

Current Status
I have finished the floors and the wood construction for the walls. I'm now about to start building the vocal booth and the wooden construction for the ceiling which is challenging with a lot obstacles, but doable. I have gotten some help from a friend whose both a musician and a carpenter who builds studios.

I have made a sketch of how I think the room will be best utilized. The doors make the placement of the studio challenging and I have more or less made peace with the fact that my mixing position will be sub-optimal - but again, my main focus is not competing with my mix engineer-friends - although I of course would like to improve in this domain too. If you have any suggestions here, feel free to comment :)
Skjermbilde 2021-08-06 kl. 00.31.12.png


Here's a short movie clip with a quick sweep of the room right now:

[ Play Quicktime file ] Quick sweep of the studio.mov [ 7.44 MiB | Viewed 19883 times ]



Fears/Uncertainties
A lot of choices has already been made, and of course there's some hindsight an fear that I might have made some horrendous mistake. I have really tried to ask for advice from the people I know and have gotten in contact with, but there doesn't seem to be many experts on the field of studio building in my city/country.

To conserve as much of the space as possible, especially room width, I've built the floor/walls aprox. 3 cm away from the outer surfaces. My impression/hope has been that the most important thing is that there's an air gap. For my walls I've used 68x48 mm studs. The apartments in the building are quite well isolated from before so my hope is that this will be adequate. I know I should probably have spent a couple of weeks reading up on this topic, but instead I hope someone will ease my fear that this may have been to optimistic.

I'm also wondering about acoustic treatment. Right now I'm considering to cover all of the walls with insulation and fabric, but at the same time I would also like to preserve room width as mentioned above. Any ideas here?

Soundman2020 wrote:Source of the post You seem to have the basic idea. I would suggest doing some testing or estimating, to first define a goal for isolation: in other words, how many decibels of isolation you would need. That will help you define things like the materials to us to build your studio, and the dimensions of those materials.
Yes, I will do some measurements in the near future. Been postponing this part a bit out of fear, hehe.


All the best,
Christian



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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#4

Postby Starlight » Fri, 2021-Aug-06, 06:07

Hello Christian. I fell in love with Norway when the band I was in played a few times in Tønsberg. I stayed in an apartment out on a peninsula east of the town, with fresh air and beautiful views over the fjords on both sides.

Like you, I live in a flat with neighbours below and on the other side of two of the walls. I have been thinking about your situation and the direction you are going with your build and your vision. Having a small band with drums is going to be the biggest challenge to isolate from the neighbours.

You mentioned that there is a plasterboard wall between you and your neighbours. Do you know whether it single or double leaf? That will determine whether addding plasterboard to the wood construction for the walls would make it a 3-leaf wall, something to be avoided. Are you familiar with this picture?
IMG_0425_STC.GIF
IMG_0425_STC.GIF (11.16 KiB) Viewed 19867 times
IMG_0425_STC.GIF
IMG_0425_STC.GIF (11.16 KiB) Viewed 19867 times

What concerns me is that two double-layer plasterboard walls with insulation in the gap can achieve 63dB isolation. The image says STC because it is American, whereas we call it Rw, weighted sound reduction index, in the rest of the world. A small band with drums is going to be producing something like 110-120dB(C) SPL.

I know next to nothing about Norwegian noise regulations but two have stuck with me, both related to Oslo. One is that 23:00 to 01:00 is the quiet zone when everyone has to be quiet, which struck me as rather short as here it is 22:00 to 06:00. That will limit how late in the evening you will be able to play unless you are certain about how little noise is getting through your walls, floor and possibly windows too. The other is that Oslo planned some years back to reduce traffic noise near accommodation to 55dB by the year 2020. I have no idea whether the target was reached or has been changed.

My thinking is that as an average wall blocks around 30dB, people are probably used to having 25dB as intrusive background noise, legally. That will give you a high target for isolation. I could not find a way to stop our neighbours from hearing our instruments so my wife and I went the route of buying a room elsewhere, at ground level in the same building, where we don't have a weight restriction and can build a fully decoupled room in a room. I know Stuart and the other professionals here can guide you, hopefully to achieving your vision. I look forward to reading about it.



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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#5

Postby interstahler » Fri, 2021-Aug-06, 07:02

Hi Starlight! Thanks for your reply!

Starlight wrote:Source of the post Having a small band with drums is going to be the biggest challenge to isolate from the neighbours.
Band rehearsals is sort of a bonus goal and not a main priority. Neither are having drums. In the worst case scenario I will only use drums for sampling and probably just buy an electronic drum kit for drum programming - and in case bandrehearsals will be doable within realistic limits it will only be in the daytime and with heavily dampened drumkit I imagine. I don't imagine that noise levels will exceed 100db, at least not for a prolonged time. Just wildly guessing here. Gonna do some measurements soon.

Starlight wrote:Source of the post You mentioned that there is a plasterboard wall between you and your neighbours. Do you know whether it single or double leaf? That will determine whether addding plasterboard to the wood construction for the walls would make it a 3-leaf wall, something to be avoided. Are you familiar with this picture?
The wall between me and my neighbours is the one labeled "STC 63". So high standard - I barely hear my neighbours as is. The floors are also 25 cm concrete.

Starlight wrote:Source of the post One is that 23:00 to 01:00 is the quiet zone when everyone has to be quiet
This sounds odd. Must be a very local rule. In my building and most others I know of it is from 23:00 to 06:00 (or 07:00 maybe). That being said. We live in the inner city. People that are very sensitive to sound, usually don't move here.

Fiber gypsum is also better at isolating. The product data sheet actually claims that it can be upto twice as good as normal gypsym. So I have the option of using two layers of fiber gypsym. Right now I'm aming for fiber gypsum as the inner layer and normal gypsum on the outer layer since its surface is easier to work with.



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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#6

Postby gullfo » Fri, 2021-Aug-06, 08:16

the fact that you can hear your neighbors means that the STC63 walls are being circumvented - pipes, ducts, bridging, floor (concrete is a great transmitter of sound). also STC does not rate below 125hz (in most cases). so low frequencies - drums, bass, bass vocals, etc are all likely to penetrate the spaces easily, especially if the concrete flooring is shared across units.
one option for drums - electronic kit only on an isolating platform - the kick pedal will be the main issue. if the sound levels are 100db, presume that you'll need at least 50db of isolation across the space - walls, ceiling, ducts, pipes, floor, etc.
best bet - do thorough testing - working with neighbors - assess how much isolation you have - not only using a PA to generate 100db of music (full range) but also using rubber mallet to test impact levels - esp below you. you should also conduct tests using the neighbors floor above you to assess impact from them on your space. much better to do this with neighbors before you get fined because you didn't...



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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#7

Postby Starlight » Fri, 2021-Aug-06, 10:27

gullfo wrote:Source of the post... you should also conduct tests using the neighbors floor above you ...
A minor point, but Christian did say at the start:
interstahler wrote:Source of the post... the top two floors of a seven story brick building ...



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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#8

Postby gullfo » Fri, 2021-Aug-06, 12:23

ok, well then i would check from the roof in case rain or hail could be a concern... :mrgreen:



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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#9

Postby endorka » Fri, 2021-Aug-06, 12:55

gullfo wrote:Source of the postbest bet - do thorough testing - working with neighbors - assess how much isolation you have


Absolutely this.

A friend and I did this for his mix room at his new house, in the middle of a row of terraced houses. He had music through full range monitors at 96 dB. I used a dB meter and made notes as we measured various rooms in the adjacent properties with neighbours present. was very interesting to see their reactions - they were not always what I would have expected. Some quite tolerant of noise I personally would have found intrusive. Being involved in the process some very quite enthusiastic and told us about times it wouldn't bother them because they were usually downstairs at that point, or working, for example.

That they see you making a serious effort to address their comfort can get them on your side rather than against you, and is worth the entire exercise in itself, in my opinion.

Cheers,
Jennifer



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#10

Postby Soundman2020 » Sun, 2021-Aug-08, 20:59

I actually ended up building a "floating floor" after all - but instead of the U-boats ... a material called sylodon
That material would do something useful, if you were using it in the way outlined in the data sheet: to reduce the transmission of impact vibration. For example, if you had a noisy mechanical pump that was causing the floor to vibrate, you could, indeed, use some pads of that material, carefully cut to the correct dimensions for the problematic frequency of the pump vibration, and that really would help to reduce the amount of vibration transmitted into the floor. If that's what you want to achieve, then that will work. But that is not the way you are using it! You are using it to support a "floating floor", and light-weight "floating floors" just do not work, regardless of how you "float" them. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no magical material or method that will cause a light-weight floor deck to float.

I wrote an article about that a couple of years ago: What is a floating floor? How to do it wrong, and how to do it right:

The issue is that a "floating floor" is not related at all to isolating the vibration from a piece of machinery. They are two very different things. With a piece of machinery sitting on an isolation pad, there is no isolation of airborne sound, only "structure-borne" sound, but with a proper floating floor in a studio, the goal is to isolate the airborne sound as well. If you only need to isolate vibration from an instrument, such as a piano, drum kit, or bass guitar amp, then Glenn's "riser" design is excellent! That will, indeed, provide really good vibration isolation, as has been shown by forum members who have actually built them and tested them. But airborne sound is somthing else, and that's the issue I talk about in the article above: you cannot achieve that up to studio standards with a light-weight (low mass) deck resting on resilient pads. That's the problem. Take a look at the graphs and explanations in that article, to get a better idea of why it does not work.

OK, I should clarify that: it's not that it won't work at all, but rather it won't work for low frequencies. If you want to build such a floor to isolate the sound of people speaking or singing, or the sound of an acoustic guitar, or a violin, or even a trumpet, or the sound of someone playing their radio loud, or their TV, or vacuum cleaner, then you could probably do that successfully with the method you mention. But that is not the case for a studio, where you need to isolate low frequencies (drums, bass guitars, keyboards, growling electric guitars, etc.). That's a different scenario, and light-weight floating floor just is not capable of doing it.

The problem, as I mention in that article, is that low frequencies are the hardest to isolate, and the resonant system of the floating floor needs to be tuned low enough to isolate all of those frequencies. Tuning the resonant frequency low enough needs a LOT of mass: More mass than you can get from a few sheets of drywall and MDF. The equations are in that article, so you can calculate for yourself just how many sheets of drywall you would need. I think you'll be surprised!

Here's something else I wrote about floating floors in home studios: Floating your floor: How and why... and why not.

It was built using aprox. 80 sylodyn blocks (each block is cut to 85x45x12,5 mm)
This might seem like a strange question, but... Why? Why did you cut them to that size? Who did the math for you, to calculate that those specific dimensions will give your floor a resonant frequency below 15 Hz? (I'm just using that as an example frequency, since that's about the upper limit for what would be a usable system in a studio floor: most studios need much lower frequencies...) And what load factor was used to calculate those pad dimensions? In other words, how much must the complete floor weigh in order to produce the correct deflection in those resilient blocks? Did you check that your sandwich of MDF and drywall actually does provide the correct weight? The problem here is that of you put too much weight on those blocks, such that they are defected beyond their operating range, then the floor is not floating any more: it is directly connected to the underlying subfloor. And if you did not put enough weight on them, then they are not floating at all! In that case, they also act as solid connectors between your "floating" deck and the subfloor below. The floor only "floats" properly when the resilient pads are compressed (deflected) just the right amount, to produce the correct resonant conditions. There is a range of possible deflections for most resilient materials, and in general it is better to compress them close to the upper limit of that range (higher mass), but you have to be careful to not exceed the maximum mass. And that's yet another problem for light-weight "floating floors". Assuming someone did the math, and that the pads are deflected correctly from the weight of the floor itself.... what happens when you stand on that floor? You are than adding a lot of extra mass at one point, very likely causing one of the pads to deflect too much, beyond its range, and thus destroying the "float".

Now, maybe the weight of a person really was taken into account for your floor design (ask the person who did the aluclations nad told you to cut the pads to that size), but how about with two people? Or three? Or a desk with gear on it? Or a drum kit? Or a piano? There is no way that a floor using those pads can be designed to handle a wide variation of loads. Either it will "top out" when there is not enough load on it (and thus it will not isolate), or it will "bottom out" when there is too much load on it (and thus it will not isolate). It will only isolate when the deflection of the pads is within the manufacturers' design range. The only way that such a floor can always float, is if the load does not change ever. In other words, you don't ever put in furniture or equipment or instruments or people that would over-deflect the pads, and you don't ever take out furniture or equipment or instruments or people that would get to the point where the pads are "under-deflected". And with a light weight floor deck, such as you show, that is indeed a big problem. There just isn't much mass in the floor deck itself, so adding the weight of a single person can easily cause a large change in the loading on the pads: there is a large percentage increase in the surface mass at the location where the person is standing. With a properly built studio floor, that is not the case, since the deck is extremely massive already, so adding the weight of people or equipment does not change the loading by a substantial amount. But with a light-weight floor deck, that is a problem.

The "sandwich" consists of sylodyn blocks, rockwool, 73x48mm wood beams, 22mm standard floor chipboard, two layers of 10mm fiber gypsym - which has more mass than normal gypsym and also isolation properties.
OK. And what is the total surface density of that sandwich? In other words, how many kilograms per square meter? And what load does that place on the sylodyn blocks? Is that enough to produce the required deflection, as per the data sheet?

I'm also considering the use mass loaded vinyl as an extra safe measure.
If you did that, how much extra mass would it add to the floor? What would the loading on the resilient blocks be then? Would that then go over the limit (putting too much mass on the floor), and cause the blocks to be deflected beyond their useful range? What would the resonant frequency of the floor then be, if you did add the MLV, and it was still in the range?

Please do take a look at those two articles I linked above, so you can better understand the issues.

This is why I recommend Glenn's plan as the best alternative: it is not a true floating floor in the sense of a proper studio floor with high mass and springs, but it DOES do the job of isolating vibration and even reducing airborne sound quote a bit (if you do the entire floor like that). It its also really hard to overload! You would need very huge weight on it to cause defection beyond the range where it usefully isolates vibration. Even with a dozen layers of drywall, it still would do the job that Glenn designed it to do. But it still would not be a floating floor, in the true sense.

So, what you have there will very probably isolate just fine for the mid range and high range of the spectrum, but it will not isolated will for frequencies lower than about twice the resonant frequency, whatever that is. Ask the person who did he calculations to show them to you, so you can see what the real resonant frequency of your floor is. Multiply that number by two, and that is the lowest frequency that you can expect good isolation for. Maybe that is good enough for you, if you don't plan to have drums and bass guitar music in your room, nor other low-frequency sound. Only you can determine that, by testing to see how much isolation you are getting under real conditions: in other words, get a friend to bring along a drum kit, set it up on that floor, and play it at typical performance levels (usually around 115 dBC), then go measure and listen in the rooms down below you, and around you, and see if the isolation you are getting is "enough". As Jennifer pointed out, you might have very tolerant neighbors who really don't mind... or perhaps not!

I hope that the current floor construction will work for the piano as it is now.
How much does the piano weigh? Did the person who did the calculations for your floor take into account the weight of the piano? Does it push the loading too high, beyond the resign range of those resilient blocks? Ask the person who did the calculations to show you where he took that into consideration, to check that the pads are not overloaded.

and I have more or less made peace with the fact that my mixing position will be sub-optimal
Sometimes you just have to do h best you can, within the limitations that are available to you! n your case, the biggest issue will be lack of symmetry. Your desk is not on the room center-line, so your speakers are not the same distance from the side walls (the left speaker is tight up against the left wall, while the right speaker is far away from the right wall), and in addition the acoustic loading on the two speakers will be very different: the left one is in a "tri-corner", created by the two walls and the desk, while the right one is basically out in the open, with just a desk under it (and a small section of front wall, but negligible). As long as you are aware of the phsyco-acoustic issues this asymmetric situation will creats for you, and know how to deal with them in your head, then you should be OK. It might be possible to compensate slightly with very careful digital tuning, but I'm not sure you could get very far with that.

One alternative might be to turn the room orientation around: Put the speakers at the other end of the room, with the desk centered left-to-right: There's the problem of the door, of course, but you might consider replacing that inner-leaf hinged door with a sliding door: That would be the best possible situation, I think. Considerably better than the layout you show.

I have really tried to ask for advice from the people I know and have gotten in contact with, but there doesn't seem to be many experts on the field of studio building in my city/country.
You are not alone! Unfortunately, that is very common in many cities and countries. That's one of the reasons I created this forum: to give ordinary musicians and engineers the information that can help them build their own rooms. But even then, it often isn't enough. Designing a studio is much more than just reading about it, as you already discovered! It's not as simple as it looks, and there are quite a few websites on the internet that talk about it, but actually give terrible advice, that makes no sense and has no basis in acoustic theory. So you are not alone at all in that sense. Fortunately, you did find the forum, and hopefully it has helped you!

To conserve as much of the space as possible, especially room width, I've built the floor/walls aprox. 3 cm away from the outer surfaces. My impression/hope has been that the most important thing is that there's an air gap.
For isolation, what matters is the resonant frequency of he wall system, which is governed by the air gap and also by the mass (surface density) of the two leaves. There are equations for calculating that, to find out if your resonant frequency is low enough. The basic rule is that more mass = lower resonant frequency, and more air gap = lower resonant frequency. It's important to understand that the term "air gap" refers to the entire cavity between the outer leaf and inner leaf, not just the distance between the frames. In other words, if you were small enough t stand inside the wall, and could stretch out a tape measure across the cavity, you would measure the distance between actual drywall surface on one side, and the drywall surface on the other side, ignoring any framing or insulation. That's the number you need. And that needs to be at least 10cm. More is better, and ideally that should be 15cm or even 20 (if you need high isolation for low-frequency sounds), but 10cm is the minimum. If the gap is smaller than that, then the resonant frequency will likely be too high, no matter how much mass you put on the leaves. It is important to do the math.

Right now I'm considering to cover all of the walls with insulation and fabric, but at the same time I would also like to preserve room width as mentioned above. Any ideas here?
Your room is very small, so it will need a lot of treatment. Much more then a larger room would need. In any control room, the most critical wall is the "back" wall (at the opposite end from the speakers): That will need very deep treatment. You will need abundant bass trapping in there, but you have to be careful to also account for the high end: Bass traps also "suck out" way too much of the high end, so you need to take precautions to prevent that. One common option is to cover the front surface of the bass traps with something reflective, such as thick plastic sheeting, wood slats, panels, etc. But once again, that has to be done in the right way, to affect the right frequencies.

A common mistake in home studios is treat all the walls exactly the same, but that always ends up making the room sound terrible: because it only affects one frequency range! Instead, each wall and each part of the ceiling needs to have the correct treatment for that location. So the ceiling above the mix position will need a cloud, and in your case it will need to be very thick, and very steeply angled: perhaps even hard-backed. Your rear wall will need 100% deep, thick absorption all the all across it, combined with bass trapping in the corners, and the side walls will need broadband absorbers at the first reflection points. In your case, that's a major challenge, because of he asymmetric mix position. That is going to be tough to figure out!

But that's the basic approach you wold need. However, before you do any of that, you should first test the response of the empty room, like this: How to calibrate and use REW to test and tune your room acoustics

...I would suggest doing some testing or estimating, to first define a goal for isolation: in other words, how many decibels of isolation you would need. That will help you define things like the materials to us to build your studio, and the dimensions of those materials.
Yes, I will do some measurements in the near future.

It's a it late for that now! You already built the room, so there's no need to define the goals any more. Your isolation will be whatever it is from the construction you already did, and cannot be changed at this point. You can't change that, unless you modify the floor and walls that you already built. The best you can do now, is to just test it to see if it is enough for your purposes. As I mentioned above, you could do that by getting someone to play the drums in your room at normal levels (around 115 dBC), then listen and measure how loud that is in the other locations around your studio. That way, at least you will know loud your neighbors will be hearing your sessions. It would be good to do that anyway, so you are aware of it, and can plan your sessions for the times of day when you would be least annoying: hopefully, when the neighbors are not even at home!

Here's one other article that you might find interesting, adding to what Glenn, Starlight, and Jennifer said about isolation and STC ratings: Why STC is not a good way of measuring studio isolation.

- Stuart -



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Pritand
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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#11

Postby Pritand » Tue, 2023-Sep-26, 17:40

interstahler wrote:Source of the post Hi! Excited to have joined this forum! :D

So, my fiancé and I live in Oslo, Norway at the top two floors of a seven story brick building in the middle of the capitol. We both work in the music/theatre/entertainment industry and have recently finished remodeling our 75 m2 (807 sq ft) apartment to free up 20 m2 (215 sq ft) for our home office/music room/studio. Picture of our fasade for context: https://www.flickr.com/photos/192466259 ... res/q9G0wj.

About us and our vision
I'm a pianist, musical director, producer, composer and arranger and my fiancé is a singer/actor/artist. I would like to practice on my acoustic piano preferably without my neighbours hearing anything. She needs a vocal booth where she can work seperately from me. A more ambitious goal is to be able to have small band rehearsals at home - even with a small drum kit - kick, snare, hh, tom, cymbal (during appropriate hours of the day) without disturbing our neighbours too much. We don't expect to able to make it completely silent, but we would like to soundproof as much as possible.

Firstly, I'd like to clarify that we're not aiming for a top tier recording studio. Our main concern is soundproofing so we can rehearse/practice at home in good conscience. From what I know and have learned so far this might be challenging, and I have almost given up many times. Finding you guys have given me some new hope. So here goes.

About the apartment
Here's a rough sketchup screenshot of the entire apartment: https://www.flickr.com/photos/192466259 ... res/c9E1g4
The music room is on the top left and I have started sketching out the construction. Concrete floor thickness: 25 cm (9 inches). Two doors, one exit to the building common hall and one on the right to the rest of the apartment.

About the room
Here's a top view of the room: https://www.flickr.com/photos/192466259 ... res/7284Kt
The outer wall dimensions are:
Length: 642 cm (21 feet)
Width: 312 cm (10,2 feet).

All measurements are in the screenshot - I've also marked where we have neighbours - which is only on two sides. The third side is the end of the building - and in the next building there is an art college/university (with music among other programs).

Roof height differs on each side of the barrier in the roof (as depicted in the picture):
Side 1: aprox. 290 cm (9,5 feet)
Side 2: aprox. 272 cm (8,9 feet)

The outer walls of each apartments consists of two layers of gypsym and standard glass fiber insulation. So even though the buidling is an old factory building from 1890, the building was remodeled into an apartment building in 2006 and the soundproofing standard are more or less up to date. In Norway, those standards are pretty high. I barely hear any of my neighbours in a normal day. If someone is having a party and playing loud music I can hear the bass frequencies.

THE Big Question about the floor
My goal is to soundproof the room as much as possible (within reason). My initial plan was to build a floating room resting on the so-called "U-boat floaters". That was until I came across this forum. After reading this post https://www.digistar.cl/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=161 I changed my mind. Now I'm unsure about what to do. I don't think I can build a floating concrete slab like suggested in the mentioned post. Is there an alternative? I feel I need something to soundproof my concrete floor since the whole 7th floor is connected to the same concrete floor. What can I do here? Can I build a floating floor that at least has some effect?

(I know that my floor needs to able to support the weight of a floating room and I'm confident that the high norwegian building standards means the floor will hold. I have teared down the existing roof to make more space upwards and have uncovered additional steel support beams probably installed in the remodeling in 2006.)


All the best,
Christian

Your project sounds very interesting and I understand that you want to do everything possible to soundproof your music room.

Regarding your question about the floor, I think there are a few things you can do to improve soundproofing.

First, you can add a layer of soundproofing material between the concrete floor and any hard surfaces that will be in the music room. This can include furniture, equipment and even walls. There are many different soundproofing materials you can use, so be sure to consult a professional to choose the right one for your needs. As for the walls, you can simply cover them with soundproofing material, and then cover the wall itself [SPAM LINK REMOVED: SPAMMER BANNED]. It will look cool.

Secondly, you can install a floating floor. A floating floor is a floor that is not attached to a concrete base. This allows sound to travel through the floor rather than bounce off it. Floating floors are usually made of wood or plywood that are laid over a layer of soundproofing material.

If you don't want to build a floating concrete floor as suggested in the mentioned post, you may want to consider using a floating floor made of wood or plywood. This will give you some soundproofing, but not as much as a floating concrete floor.



eightamrock
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Posts: 127
Joined: Thu, 2022-Jan-20, 13:47
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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#12

Postby eightamrock » Wed, 2023-Sep-27, 12:38

Pritand wrote:Source of the post
interstahler wrote:Source of the post Hi! Excited to have joined this forum! :D

So, my fiancé and I live in Oslo, Norway at the top two floors of a seven story brick building in the middle of the capitol. We both work in the music/theatre/entertainment industry and have recently finished remodeling our 75 m2 (807 sq ft) apartment to free up 20 m2 (215 sq ft) for our home office/music room/studio. Picture of our fasade for context: https://www.flickr.com/photos/192466259 ... res/q9G0wj.

About us and our vision
I'm a pianist, musical director, producer, composer and arranger and my fiancé is a singer/actor/artist. I would like to practice on my acoustic piano preferably without my neighbours hearing anything. She needs a vocal booth where she can work seperately from me. A more ambitious goal is to be able to have small band rehearsals at home - even with a small drum kit - kick, snare, hh, tom, cymbal (during appropriate hours of the day) without disturbing our neighbours too much. We don't expect to able to make it completely silent, but we would like to soundproof as much as possible.

Firstly, I'd like to clarify that we're not aiming for a top tier recording studio. Our main concern is soundproofing so we can rehearse/practice at home in good conscience. From what I know and have learned so far this might be challenging, and I have almost given up many times. Finding you guys have given me some new hope. So here goes.

About the apartment
Here's a rough sketchup screenshot of the entire apartment: https://www.flickr.com/photos/192466259 ... res/c9E1g4
The music room is on the top left and I have started sketching out the construction. Concrete floor thickness: 25 cm (9 inches). Two doors, one exit to the building common hall and one on the right to the rest of the apartment.

About the room
Here's a top view of the room: https://www.flickr.com/photos/192466259 ... res/7284Kt
The outer wall dimensions are:
Length: 642 cm (21 feet)
Width: 312 cm (10,2 feet).

All measurements are in the screenshot - I've also marked where we have neighbours - which is only on two sides. The third side is the end of the building - and in the next building there is an art college/university (with music among other programs).

Roof height differs on each side of the barrier in the roof (as depicted in the picture):
Side 1: aprox. 290 cm (9,5 feet)
Side 2: aprox. 272 cm (8,9 feet)

The outer walls of each apartments consists of two layers of gypsym and standard glass fiber insulation. So even though the buidling is an old factory building from 1890, the building was remodeled into an apartment building in 2006 and the soundproofing standard are more or less up to date. In Norway, those standards are pretty high. I barely hear any of my neighbours in a normal day. If someone is having a party and playing loud music I can hear the bass frequencies.

THE Big Question about the floor
My goal is to soundproof the room as much as possible (within reason). My initial plan was to build a floating room resting on the so-called "U-boat floaters". That was until I came across this forum. After reading this post https://www.digistar.cl/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=161 I changed my mind. Now I'm unsure about what to do. I don't think I can build a floating concrete slab like suggested in the mentioned post. Is there an alternative? I feel I need something to soundproof my concrete floor since the whole 7th floor is connected to the same concrete floor. What can I do here? Can I build a floating floor that at least has some effect?

(I know that my floor needs to able to support the weight of a floating room and I'm confident that the high norwegian building standards means the floor will hold. I have teared down the existing roof to make more space upwards and have uncovered additional steel support beams probably installed in the remodeling in 2006.)


All the best,
Christian

Your project sounds very interesting and I understand that you want to do everything possible to soundproof your music room.

Regarding your question about the floor, I think there are a few things you can do to improve soundproofing.

First, you can add a layer of soundproofing material between the concrete floor and any hard surfaces that will be in the music room. This can include furniture, equipment and even walls. There are many different soundproofing materials you can use, so be sure to consult a professional to choose the right one for your needs. As for the walls, you can simply cover them with soundproofing material, and then cover the wall itself stick on wall murals. It will look cool.

Secondly, you can install a floating floor. A floating floor is a floor that is not attached to a concrete base. This allows sound to travel through the floor rather than bounce off it. Floating floors are usually made of wood or plywood that are laid over a layer of soundproofing material.

If you don't want to build a floating concrete floor as suggested in the mentioned post, you may want to consider using a floating floor made of wood or plywood. This will give you some soundproofing, but not as much as a floating concrete floor.


Spammers using chatGPT prompts to post on forums. Brilliant and infuriating. It almost seemed authentic until you hit the spam link.



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gullfo
Senior Member
Posts: 567
Joined: Fri, 2021-Jun-25, 14:50
Location: Panama City Beach, FL USA

Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#13

Postby gullfo » Wed, 2023-Sep-27, 14:42

when you see "one-post wonders" regurgitating search engine results, it's usually a bot of some kind.

in reference for the OP though - if the general isolation is decent - use the platform approach and/or things like MetaWx, KIP, RIM products on a mass layer over the floor. update the windows mass (sound does like to traverse the outside walls via windows), and buy or build a small iso booth with some quiet fans to move air in and out for times when it's needed.



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Soundman2020
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Soundproofing a music room on the 7th floor in the middle of Oslo

#14

Postby Soundman2020 » Wed, 2023-Sep-27, 19:55

Thanks guys! I should have seen that myself. Another key give-away was posting on a thread that's had no activity in 2 years, and that had already been answered.

Idiots using AI to spam... that's all we needed!

Sigh!


- Stuart -




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