Studio building questions

thundercage

thundercage

New member
Hello,
Thanks in advance.. I'm having a studio built and I've been reading a decent book on the subject. The book gets very intricate with sound isolation. One thing I have not heard about is electric recepticles. Has anyone mentioned sound leaking through recepticles? If so, what insights does anyone have?

Oh.. here's some pics..
http://www.thundercage.com/studio.htm
 
Rod Gervias, of recording.org mentioned a product... I forget what its called, that you can "mould" around the backside of the outlet.
Its fire rated, and has a fairly high STC. It basically seals the backside of the recepticle.
I'll have to search it out....
 
That would be fireproof ductseal. Very expensive.

Regular ductseal might work. They sell it in flat/square pads you wrap around the J-box.
 
craigmatic said:
*patiently waiting, with a smirk on his face, for someone to mention all the parallel walls.......*
Click to expand...

It's not the number of parallel walls you have, it's what you do with them that counts.
;)
 
thundercage said:
It's not the number of parallel walls you have, it's what you do with them that counts.
;)
Click to expand...

So what are you going to do with them???

Inquiring minds wanna know...........
 
c7sus said:
So what are you going to do with them???

Inquiring minds wanna know...........
Click to expand...

It's a rock studio. There may not be any problems with the parallel walls. If there is, I'll diffuse the sound. Baffles, 1/4 rounds in corners, 1/2 rounds on walls. Objects placed in the room can defeat parallel walls too. You don't want it completely dead anyway.
 
c7sus said:
That would be fireproof ductseal. Very expensive.

Regular ductseal might work. They sell it in flat/square pads you wrap around the J-box.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. Should I even be concerned about the issue with RC channel mounted drywall on both sides of the console room wall, fiberglass insulation, and 5/8'' on one side and 1/2'' on the other?
 
If your main plan of attack is diffusion, then I'd say air gaps around electrical outlets are gonna be the least of your problems.

You need absorbsion to knock down the standing waves. Pure diffusion will just bounce them around the room.

And a double-stud wall between the live room and control room would be advisable as well. Put your outlets in a double-stud wall with a well-sealed void behind it, wrap the J-box with ductseal, and that should take care of it.

Use an RT60 calculator and figure out your room nodes before you get to the treatment stage. Ideally you want RT60 times of less than a 1/2 second across the audio spectrum. Pure diffusion isn't gonna do that for you.
 
c7sus said:

Use an RT60 calculator and figure out your room nodes before you get to the treatment stage. Ideally you want RT60 times of less than a 1/2 second across the audio spectrum. Pure diffusion isn't gonna do that for you.
Click to expand...

The numbers come out pretty good. At 4000 Hz I got .51 and all ther rest were below .5 wihout any treatment. The double studs didn't make sense to do. RC channel elevates the drywall from the studs providing a shock absorber (this is done on the ceiling as well). With this being done on both sides of the wall and using different thicknesses of drywall to eliminate frequencies being passed through the wall. We should get an STC-60 or better.
 
Okay, I should know better by now than to spout this stuff off the top of my head..............

Try using this calculator from Ethan Winer's site.

http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

Scroll down to the section titled "Sidebar: Room Modes and ModeCalc" and download the calculator.

I plugged in 25'L x 12'W x 7.5'H and came up with modes at 226-235HZ and 377HZ.

When I used an RT60 calc I come up with .7 seconds at 250Hz. Not unacceptable, but you're gonna want some low broadband freq treatment to help attenuate that mode.

What are the exact dimensions of your live room and control room??? If your control room is 25'L x 9'H you'll get better results putting your monitors along the short wall and having most of the room behind you. The scale drawing is a bit hard to read, so I'm assuming from the pics you're orienting your mix position directly in front of the window..............

When I plug in 8' for the height the modes even out a bit, but you have multiple modes below about 350HZ that you'll want to deal with.

http://soundproofing.org/infopages/soundwalls.html

Your getting 10 more points than these guys are estimating for the control room wall as I understand it.

But hey, I'm having to make a lot of guesses over here, and you know exactly what you have in mind!

I'm not trying to bust your balls, either. Just trying to understand as best I can and help if possible.:)
 
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I don't recall if you mentioned it in your posts at all or maybe I missed it. You called them ductpads. I spent some time as an electrician's apprentice.

We called them sound pads or fire pads.

Anyways, I was at the home depot a couple of days ago. And wouldn't you know it they had none to speak of nor did they sell anything of the sort.

My suggestion would be to seek out a residentional electrician. Maybe he would be willing to let some go at a price!

This company has them but they are rated for fire. If memory serves me correct they are just a little thinner than the regular pads.

http://firestop.com/products.htm
 
I appreciate all the help I can get. I have the book 'Sound Studio Construction on a Budget by F. Alton Everest' because I wanted to educate myself on this before building. There is still a lot that the author explains that is obviously on a budget much richer than mine.

The live room is 25' x 12' and 7' high. The end walls (12') are unpainted concrete as is the floor. The ceiling and other 2 walls are Gypsum. The control room wall has a door and a window. The opposite wall also has a door (36'' x 81'').

The console room is 25' x 9' and 7' high. I'm planning to face the window. Looking at the ModeCalc, I can see that the colors mean reflections at certain frequencies. How do these translate to treatment? How do I know where to treat in the room, and how much is enough?
 
The stuff I was talking about is similar to those "Putty Pads" Caseinpoint has a link to.

So, you think "Duct Seal" will work around the electrical boxes??
 
Michael Jones said:
The stuff I was talking about is similar to those "Putty Pads" Caseinpoint has a link to.

So, you think "Duct Seal" will work around the electrical boxes??
Click to expand...

That looks easy enough to deal with. I'll see if I can find prices. Thanks eveyone.
 
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