Advice on studio build

Crying Wolf

New member
Here is the layout of the space I am using.
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My question relates to the vocal room. I have a few salvage items that I have repurposed in this build. Here is one item
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What these are, are metal panels with 2 inch foam sandwiched between two 1/32 thick metal plates. This was used in between the wood framing to add mass. On top of that is 1/2 inch plywood.

I also have a whole lot of this left over
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Its Johns-Manville r28 2x4 and 6 in thick
So here is the question.....
I want to use the insulation for bass traps and could go the traditional route and build out the corners but how well would it work if I just built the whole back wall as a large bass trap. Ceiling to floor 8 ft long bass trap?
Do you think its over kill or would it be a better bass trap? I am open for suggestions and appriciate any input you guys may have.
By the way the room has acoustical ceiling tiles with 12inch insulation above it.



Oh yeah, any advice on resizing the pics on an iPad? Sorry those came out so big but Im not by a computer at the moment.
 
Building the whole back wall as a bass trap would work, as would the corners - it very much depends on what problem you are trying to solve. Having the entire back wall as a trap would make the room quite dead sounding - could be good, could be a bit much depending on how it sounds at present.
Are you noticing anything in particular that you are trying to treat the room for or is this a general 'room is too lively' situation?

Not sure what you're going to do with the foam panels - they look like polystyrene foam, in which case they're non-porous so they wont 'absorb' sound.
 
Is this space already built out? If not, rethink it - your 'live' room is almost square, which makes for lousy acoustics.

The insulation pictures - the metal sandwich will be no good for sound absorption - the metal will reflect. The JM stuff is looks to be regular insulation (I couldn't find anythign googling 'spinsulation'), not dense rockwool like OC703 or 705, so you'd need to have it 12" (and more) thick to do any decent absorption.
 
Thanks guys. No the room is not complete so at this point I can change anything. The metal and foam was added as mass to the walls to try and muffle some of the sound between rooms. I thought about building the room out with irregular walls but honestly I dont think I can just thow a bunch of angles willy nilly. There is a science to it, I presume. I have never used acoustical software before but will use it if need be to control the room, but Im not sure that will help me to build the room with different angle walls. I planned on using REW Software after the build to analyze my trouble spots.
I will go back to the Master Handbook of Acoustics by F. Alton Everest and see what else I can find.
I wish I had the funding to hire an acoustics tech and pay someone to build it but thats not possible right now. The space was given to me rent free with the stipulation I build a recording studio within that space. Why do they want a recording studio you ask? I really dont know other than the guy offering said he liked what I do and wants me to build out a studio within the building( which also houses other artist like a photography studio and paint studio) Of course, building cost is on me for the exchange of free rent. We do have a 3 year contract so I suppose free rent for three years is good. After 3 years the rent can only go up to a max of $400 dollars for the whole building. There are 3 other artists so thats $100 a month.
So any advice on changing the diminsions of the room?
 
More rectangular is a good start - having the walls non-parallel (maybe a sloping ceiling from one end to the other, or having one end wall shorter than the rest can help to reduce room modes) is a good place to start.

The metal/foam board should work well in preventing sound travelling between rooms, but the rockwool/fibreglass wool needs to be higher density to be of much use or, as mentioned above youll need a hell of a lot of it.
 
To 'soundproof' the rooms, you need to decouple walls - i.e. have two walls of 2x4s not touching each other, otherwise the vibrations will conduct right through - I think those metal sandwiches would do that.
What's the purpose of the 'Vox' and 'Lesson' rooms? Do you anticipate people doing things in those at the same time someone is using the 'Live' room? Are you planning on mixing in the 'control' room? If so its too small.
If it was myself, I'd make the control room about 10'x16', with the Iso room beside it being 6'x10' - leaving a 6'x6' corner that could be storage or a bathroom (if needed). That would make your live room about 24'x16' - note all these dimensions are nominal - double walls and rockwool traps are going to reduce all of them in size. A 16' overall width doesn't really give you the option of non-parallel walls in the live room.
 
Great advice thank you. I realized I would have to decouple the rooms to try and soundproof but the metal slabs make it quiet enough for me. The purpose of the vox lesson rooms are two fold. The vox room also doubles as a 2nd lesson room when needed. See, giving guitar,piano,bass, and drum lessons are a staple that really pay the bills. The live room is used but the iso room...well, probably not so much. I realize the control room is smaller than what I would like and i am looking into that now. Im really more interested on controlling the rooms sound more than soundproofing per say. If I wanted to sound proof I would have gone a different route and Im not sure the effort would have been worth it. Soundproofing is hard to do without some major specialty construction. I have read different thoughts on bass traps and was all set on oc 703 but then I read somewhere that using regular fluffy insulation gave the same results. I had plenty of it so I thought maybe that might be a way to go. I really dont have a particular view on either way. Im sure 703 vs fluffy would be a thread all unto its own. So what i am taking away from this thread is slope the vocal room ceiling front to back and add 703 or 705 in the corners as bass traps. Im going to re read the advice you guys have given and re-evaluate the other rooms. Thank you for the input. Any advice is much appreciated.
 
Fluffly insulation is ok for in-wall insulation. For traps it's got be loads thicker.
How about a lesson room 8'x16', control room 10'x16' and live room 19' x16' (could make the live room a little narrower, say 19'x14' by building storage along one long wall)? This would mean only making two cross-walls - and you do want your control room to be as sound-isolated from the live room as possible (not so much the lesson room, I guess).
 
Fluffly insulation is ok for in-wall insulation. For traps it's got be loads thicker.

I can't back it up right now, because it's been a few years since I've done research on it. But I remember that the guys that know what they're talking about, like Ethan Winer, said that the pink fluffy stuff is actually better for corner bass traps. I remember them saying that there's a mis-conception that it's not good, but it's actually better for corners....but not for other things like first reflection points, etc...I can't remember the reasoning, but I do remember that being mentioned.
 
It's on page 4 of that thread if you want to find it! :) 8" fluffy is 2X as good as 4" OC703 at lower frequencies. But that does not address corner superchunks.
 
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