control room window

[kristian]

how would you go about putting in a control window into a house that is already built? if you knock the part of the wall out, first there would be vertical wood panels every half half-foot or so... can you saw those out? or how would you go about putting one in?

[CMiller]

Whoa Kristian, before you do any remodeling you might want to invite an engineer over to your house to make sure you aren't cutting into any load-bearing walls...that wouldn't be good. If he says everything's ok, then you should be able to cut a window and frame it in (reinforcing the surrounding framing) no problem. I can't emphasize enough the importance of having a qualified person inspect the project before you do anything. The carpentry would be pretty easy to do though.

[kristian]

yea thats why i asked the question, i didnt see how it was possible to cut a big hole in a wall. it sort of baffled me. I was thinking. If you have a closer that was used as a control room you could make a door that has a window in it, a lot cheaper then installing one in the wall. and you could make it on your own.

[Nate Tyler]

Kristian,

I am currently retrofitting a 2500 sf building into my personal recording studio on our property.

I put in a 7'x4' control room window in, and it was in a load bearing wall. This would be the worst-case scenario for you. Chances are, if you're just doing this on a 2x4 interior wall, you'll be fine. I'd still recommend having someone come over and take a look.

But as far as the feasibility of putting in a window, you're fine either way. If it's a load bearing wall, you'll just have to cut the studs ("vertical pieces of wood") up far enough above your window frame to place in a window header. For my window, it was simply 3-7 foot 2x6's glued and nailed together (as opposed to a 6x6 beam) above the window frame.

No problem.

Good luck.

Nate Tyler

[CMiller]

Good advice Nate! One more thing Kristian, if you needed any basic carpentry advice you can get a decent book at any home improvement type place. Or in your case, "flat improvement" store!

[BigKahuna]

Nate
You don't have to go into too many specifics, but how did you design your window? Plate glass? Insulated glass? how many panes? Any special mounting considerations?
Just curious.
Thanks

[kristian]

well a couple of specifics wouldnt hurt! =)

[Nate Tyler]

Hi guys...

Sorry it took me so long to respond...

I haven't been back to the NG in awhile.

Actually, BigKahuna, I haven't placed the glass in yet, but I will be using 2 pieces of glass. It's hard to really give you a good idea of the design without drawings, but let's give it a shot.

First of all, I have two walls at the front of my control room. The control room is actually a "room within a room." So I have the existing wall facing the large tracking room, and the front wall of the CR. There is about a 4 inch gap between the walls. Each is a 2x6 wall, and the CR wall is built with stagerred 2x4 studs with resilliant channell (RC1) mounted 16" OC. Then there's two layers of sheetrock (5/8 and 1/2)on one side, and 5/8 on the other.

There are two seperate panes of glass--one for each wall. Around the window frame is some firring with weather stripping facing where the window will be placed. (the window will press against this all the way around to create a seal) Then the trim will go on the other side of the window after it is placed in the opening. One pane is 1/4" and the other is 3/8".

Let me know if this didn't make sense, or didn't answer your question. And, by the way, from what I understand tempered glass does have a higher STC rating, but not enough to be worth the additional expense.


OH, and let me know how your doors turn out Kahuna. I'm putting in double sliding glass doors in most places, but will need to put in a couple 3-0 6-8 doors and am curious about your steel door idea. Let me know.

Nate

[BigKahuna]

Thanks for the info, Nate!
I asked mainly because I'll probably be putting in another window (either here or another location) at some point ... and I thought that was one of the hardest things to do. Just getting the finished opening nice and square was a pain.

I used two 1" insulated glass panes (1/8" pane - 3/4" airspace - 1/8" pane) in my window and have a simliar wall construction as you (no staggered studs or RC, though ... still kicking myself). One 1" pane per wall with about a 2" gap in between the walls.
I've heard that some folks use 3 panes to get a better STC, but that seemed a little expensive and complicated.
I've also heard that you should mount each pane at a slight angle to avoid resonance between the glass. I didn't follow that advice, but did put foam covered with thick fabric around the perimeter of the window (inside) to help soak it up. So far, haven't noticed any major problems.
Anyway, it works for me.
One thing that caught me by surprise was making sure the glass was clean as it went in. I thought I did a good job ... but it's a little hazy now 3 years later. I'm not removing the glass to clean it, though!
Anyway, thanks again for the info. I'm not looking forward to the next window ... but if I'm ever going to do that again ... I want to avoid as many mistakes as possible.
Also, when I get my doors tweaked ... I'll post here and show you what I did.
Thanks


[This message has been edited by BigKahuna (edited 04-06-2000).]

[Tim Brown]

Hey Kahuna,

Don't know what Glass is going for up in your neck of the woods-but I know some guys who went and bought used Sliding Glass doors; took them apart, and made a wooden frame for them.
Bingo! worked like a charm They had 3 pieces of Glass that they used to make 1 window, and the had offset the glass at different angles, so that they got rid of any glare.

Tim

[John Sayers]

check out my site:
http://www.lis.net.au/~johnsay/Acous...Acoustics3.htm

[rj]

I made a window MISTAKE!!!!
I saw a little slider/doublepane glass at contractors warehouse for 29$. I figured I didnt need to slant any glass since the noise would not be aimed directly at the glass.
R E SONNNN A N C E ! ! ! I SUUUUUUCK!
I coulda spent that 30$ to upgrade my vocal mic!
I ended up cutting foam and thick pad to cover the window I worked do hard to install.
I I get them in soon, you can see the great "closet gone vox booth" pics on the homerec cd coming soon.
p.s. you KNOW I added a/c in, exaust out, and a video camera (monitor sits next to my umm... monitor).
I keep telling my wife those doors always come off the track anyway.

[BigKahuna]

As I remember these panes had to be custom made and were around $100 a piece. They're only 4'x3' though ... so I really like your idea a lot, Tim. The glass in those must be about 4' x 6' ... an extra 3' would be nice. Plus I think I've seen those doors for less that $200 in some places.
I haven't noticed any resonance problems due to my mounting style (maybe because of the foam? ... you should try that, rj) but I never even thought about how that would avoid glare!
I can see 4 reflections because I mounted both panes at 90º. Mounting both with the tops slightly inward = no glare! Doh! ...
I swear, if I had to finish my basement over again ... I would do almost everything differently.
Maybe if I remount this glass at some point, I'll change the angle.
Also ... John S, great web page! Lots of good info. Very easy to understand and to the point. You should repost that as it's own topic.

[John Sayers]

can I do That??

[BigKahuna]

I don't see why not. It's a great site and you've been really generous with the information you share. The best thing about it is all the diagrams you include. Plus your writing style is very easy to understand.
The only thing I can't figure out how to get the other areas to activate too.

[BigKahuna]

there I did it for you ...

[John Sayers]

Thanks mate - the other parts aren't active because they are up for purchase. I've put the studio design site up for free but if you want more of the same you have to buy it for US$30.00. cheap at twice the price - I've just spent allnight making it Netscape friendly (I thought everyone had given netscape away cos it won't do layers etc but my new counter tells me there's still plenty of netscape users around!!)

[kristian]

netscape = yay!

[Brian Grey]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kristian:
how would you go about putting in a control window into a house that is already built? if you knock the part of the wall out, first there would be vertical wood panels every half half-foot or so... can you saw those out? or how would you go about putting one in?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I don't know if this discusion is still going on, but I figure what the hey? If you're going to go so far as to put a window in a wall, why won't you thicken the wall with 2 layers of 5/8" particle wood on each side of the wall, and then mount 2 layers of drywall on resiliant channel on each side of the wall. That way you'll have an 8 inch wall that won't let sound through. And don't just get one window, get two, and make sure they're at least 5/8" thick. And if you do something serious like I said above, don't forget to use silicone cauld on all the seams and boundaries of each peice of wood, and stagger seams as well, as to not let sound through. I hope I helped you... in a small, small way...

[crunch]

If you have two panes of glass you might want to mount one of them so that it is angled out from the other pane(about 30 degrees). This way any sound in the void between the panes decays into the wall wheras if they are mounted perpendicular to one another the sound will resonate longer and louder because the reflection has know where to go but back into the other pane of glass.

[Brian Grey]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by crunch:
If you have two panes of glass you might want to mount one of them so that it is angled out from the other pane(about 30 degrees). This way any sound in the void between the panes decays into the wall wheras if they are mounted perpendicular to one another the sound will resonate longer and louder because the reflection has know where to go but back into the other pane of glass.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Where did you hear this? Did you do this yourself and have success with it? What I've heard is this... Since glass is going to get more sound through than the rest of your wall, you should space the windows AS FAR APART AS POSSIBLE. I never really heard anything about angling one. If you could angle the window, that means that one side of the angled glass could be further away from the other piece of glass. Get what I'm saying? I'd like... I'd LOVE to hear from people who have put windows in their studio and what they did, as I am putting 3 windows in my studio and I'm nearing that part of construction.

[Tim Brown]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Brian Grey:
I never really heard anything about angling one. If you could angle the window, that means that one side of the angled glass could be further away from the other piece of glass. Get what I'm saying? I'd like... I'd LOVE to hear from people who have put windows in their studio and what they did, as I am putting 3 windows in my studio and I'm nearing that part of construction.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I was always told that Angling the Glass (and there is a specific Angle for each piece of glass, but I'm not sure what it is...) anyway, the reason that The glass being placed at angles has NOTHING to do with sound transmission-it's so that both parties can see each other though the window without the Glare of the lights in each room causing a "spot" on the glass.
Let me dig out one of my books on studios, and see if I can find the Angle. The book that I'm thinking of was printed in the late 80's or early 90's, and was the text from my Audio courses in college.


The way that you made the window was this:
You made the frame from 2"x8" or 2"x10" HARDWOOD (Like Mahogany or Oak).
You put a smaller board (say a 2x6 for the 2x8 window)in the middle on the inside. Then you Finish all this.
Then, you would glue Foam to the TOP of the board in the middle. You put a bead of silicone all the way around the edge of this piece of wood-and place your glass against it.
Then on the outside-you have a piece of wood that acts as a trim that fits against the glass-which screws into the Frame-and holds the glass in place from the outside.
This is done on every edge of the window.(Top, bottom, left, and right.

Tim

[crunch]

This is how we built the studio for the college I went to, we had two control rooms and two large rooms that that peered into the control rooms. The reason I gave was the the way I always understood the window situation or at least this is how it was explained in my theory of sound propagation class by my audio instructor. I hope he did not pack my head full of twisted ideas because I have enough of my own.

[Brian Grey]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tim Brown:
I was always told that Angling the Glass (and there is a specific Angle for each piece of glass, but I'm not sure what it is...) anyway, the reason that The glass being placed at angles has NOTHING to do with sound transmission-it's so that both parties can see each other though the window without the Glare of the lights in each room causing a "spot" on the glass.
Let me dig out one of my books on studios, and see if I can find the Angle. The book that I'm thinking of was printed in the late 80's or early 90's, and was the text from my Audio courses in college.


<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Whether or not you think angling the glass has something to do with sound trasmision or not doesn't matter, if you angle a peice of glass that means that the bottom (or top, whatever side you have closer to the other peice) could be further away, thus creating more dead air space in between the two peices of glass.
The reflection thing still isn't enough proof to make me think I need to angle my windows. I am going to put studio foam in between the windows around each side to cut down the sound on the inside of the windows.
What I REALLY want to know is, will angling the two peices of glass REALLY make a difference in their effectivness as far as sound is concerned? I don't care much about light reflecting because even if you angle the glass you'll still see reflections if you're at the right angle to see them.

[ola]

Angled control room windows look really cool and professional. That should be argument enough for anyone to angle their windows.

As for a "real" reason. I'm a firm believer in the less resonance reason.

/Ola