Building a new studio

C

chewbacaface

New member
Due to some unfortunate flooding, my friends and I are building a new studio. We found a pretty cool space. It is a 15x12' office attached to a 15x20' storage unit. We don't have to worry seriously about the noise because we will only be in there recording bands after normal business hours. That said, we'd like to both lower the outside noise generated by playing and also improve the sound and aesthetics of the inside. We were fortunate in that out last room as done before we got there and was pretty well setup to begin with. So, we know a bit about building stuff but not a ton about noise reduction. Here is our plan...

We are going to build a room inside of the storage unit with 8' walls and a vaulted ceiling. The unit has an insulated roof but there is a 10' door on one side and metal wall on the others. Fortunately, one wall is already drywalled because it is attached to the office. We planned to use 4x8' drywall panels and 4x8' insulation panels and frame these up with 2x6" against the I-beams in the storage unit. My question is this. Will this make a reasonable difference in the volume of the music outside of the building? Are there any other tricks? I've heard that one of the most important things is to make sure that all of the interior edges of the new room are caulked well so that there is no room for the sound to escape. Is drywall the best thing to use? What about soundboard? Is that better than drywall? I've heard mixed opinions.

Any help would be great. We're not looking to spend a ton because this doesn't need to be completely soundproof but we'd like to make an improvement if possible.

Thanks,
Ryan
 
Hey Ryan, It sounds like a nice set up. I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I am in the middle of building my studio as well. I did a lot of research and even hired an acoustatian. If you are really wanting a nice studio and will be building interior walls, I would urge you to take advantage of the situation and look at dimensions (modes). If your going to be tracking drums, height is huge in getting a great drum sound. Length and width need to be formulated to get the best possible sound for tracked instruments. But, to answer your question about sound isolation,...
Typically, 2x6 walls with R19 insulation in-between is the framing. Drywall is doubled on both sides of the wall (but) it is not directly attached to the studs. It should be attached to a system that allows the drywall to float. I have heard it both ways as far as drywall dimensions, 1/2" and 5/8" stacked on top of each other on both sides of the wall. The idea is the two different thicknesses have two different canceling frequencies. I have also heard that doubling 5/8" will give more mass. And if you build two walls as described with a gap between them, that would give a lot more isolation. The room within a room is typically how control rooms are done. I hope this at least helps and good luck with your new studio build.
 
the drywall is one of the best options for price/performance. could you build the room higher? 10' would be better. also, sealing everything is important but also consider air - even musicians need to breathe... so plan on that early on. a split AC unit is fine for cooling (and/or heating if its a heat pump type) but that does not solve the air exchange - you need air (which means holes) to flow between your room and a fresh air source. this is not something to wait on as it's probably the most painful thing to retro fit afterwards.
 
Thanks for the info guys. As it turns out I just found a new place that is finished with drywall and in an industrial area. It is two offices connected to a large warehouse. It totals 1310sf and was only 100$ more. So, we got out of the first one and are moving into this. Thank god we hadn't started building. Now, I just have to build rolling acoustic walls to use as barriers and a double pane slanted control room window. Plus, the new ceiling is 25' high. I can't wait to try it out. I might try making some angled rolling double-walled-drywall-walls (as you had described) and fill them with insulation just so that I could try to setup different lengths of reverbs/reflections. We'll see. That may be a while down the road. We still have to move in and that's always the worst part.
 
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