Wood laminate flooring?

Bubba po said:
I've been giving my (very poor, in principle) recording room a makeover this weekend; I've ripped out the carpet and I'm laying laminate over wood-fibre underlay. In addition, I'm putting up some acoustic foam to break the flutter effect and have the materials to begin constructing my bass traps. If all this doesn't result in better drum recordings, I don't know what I'm going to do. :D

As an aside, I put up a bit of acoustic foam in my mixing area tonight and I was by turns impressed, shocked and disheartened. My best recent mix sounded awful. All the room ring, flutter echo and comb filtering on my drum overheads was really noticeable, and other stuff like my acoustic guitars sounded irritating and generally not "right". Room sound was smoothing out my mix and giving me a false impression of its quality.

Bummed out, but determined to improve.
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Once you get decent bass traps in there, everything will change. Are you also building some first reflection panels? Those make another huge difference.


Sorry for the thread jack MJB. :drunk:
 
rob aylestone said:
I've had a heavy rack on it for about a year, and although the surface is fine, the weight has compressed the underlay, and now you can push the flooring down about 5mm where the castors were.
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Yeah...that too was my concern when I looked at the laminate stuff. I have fairly large/heavy double rack setup on wheels, plus my console desk with side racks is one unit, and also very heavy and also on wheels. They would most certainly leave impressions on or compress down any kind of laminate floor w/underlay...so for now it's either leaving the concrete w/carpet, or going for the hardwood floor at some point when I want to upgrade.

The nice thing about the laminate stuff is that it's easier to install than hardwood, and of course a lot cheaper, so if you can make that work for you, it's a great option.
 
I think it is about what you are using and the grade (I am not using the word quality here as it is more subjective than grade), but on mine, I have an upright piano and a fridge, no issues after a year. But i do think it is the grade level of the flooring that makes the difference.
 
I have just finished re-building my room-studio and I used laminated throughout. Looks great and sound just the right side of lively for recording acoustic instruments.
A smallish rug is at hand for increased deadening and also removable absorbing panels.
Here's a couple of pics for ya!

Pic 1.jpgRecording-Practice Area.jpg
 
Too bad I'm not doing it right now - Lowes had a nice light oak laminate (clearance I assume) for $0.50/sq ft (cheaper x 1/2 than anything at Lumber Liquidators). As I mentioned before, we did our kitchen - 12'x16' in less than a day so I know about leaving a gap at the walls, the ideal way is to pull off your baseboards, so the gap is under them when you put it back up.
The only underlayment they had was the blue foam stuff, though.
 
I put my laminate down today and put the drumkit back in the room. Without any treatment in, the room is as lively as hell! :D

Will report further as things move on.
 
peghead said:
I have just finished re-building my room-studio and I used laminated throughout. Looks great and sound just the right side of lively for recording acoustic instruments.

View attachment 89970
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Nice looking studio space. :thumbs up:


In your case though....it looks like you have some nice ceiling height, which is certainly going to make a difference compared to lower (8') ceilings. I wish I had that much ceiling height (how far up does that go?).

How does the room sound for "non-acoustic stuff....like a guitar amp, or when you want to do vocals...etc?
 
Thank you miro, I was indeed very lucky to find this apartment.
The ceiling is 4.5m high and it is also not flat, but it is devided into 4 small arches along its length.
The walls are about 70cm thick.. mind you, the house is 500 years old. Here's a pic of it.

ceiling.jpg

I've not yet had the chance to record vocals or guitar amps. I'll let you know as soon as I do :)
 
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An apartment...?
Wow!
That's some really nice ceiling height for an apartment...and are the thick walls made of a solid material?
I would have thought it was one of those converted loft deals in some industrial building.
This has to be somewhere in Europe...England...?
They just don't build them like that here in the USA! :D
 
Italy, as a matter of fact. A house built around 1400. And I am on the second floor. Walls are solid. Very solid.
I can play (acoustic) guitar at 3 in the morning and no one hears me.

Sorry if I am highjacking the thread. Didn't mean to... perhaps I'll post pics of my studioroom elsewere, if anyone's interested :)
 
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Well, that's three bass traps made. By the third one I have got the hang of them! This last one's great - 200mm of earthwool thickness. It looks like a bed for a dwarf. I have to say though I've never heard that room sound so tight and good. :D
 
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