finished flooring

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boogieknight

New member
i am wondering if anyone can help me with my options on finished flooring. i converted my garage to a little home studio. the control room is 8.5'x17' and the studio floor is 13.5'x 20'. the ceilings are 8'. the floor is floating on on concrete and currently finished with floor sheathing and i am decided how to finish the floor. i'm thinking that i might put carpet in the control room and some kind of hardwood in the studio floor.
what are my options when it comes to hardwoods? do different woods sound better then others? can i use laminate and still have the same relative effect as a hardwood floor? I would like to put i nice hardwood floor but i think the cost is going to be a bit high for my budget. if i had to choose between carpet and laminate which would be better?
 
If you're looking at finishing the control room from an acoustic perspective, consider how the different materials will affect your sound. Carpet is going to do a good job of absorbing high frequencies, while hardwood will reflect them easily. If you want carpet flooring, then you should make sure that your ceiling is of a material that will reflect the highs so everything's not getting sucked out. Personally, I'd probably go with the other way - hardwood flooring, non-reflective ceiling. Birch is one of the hardest woods (reflecting the sound easier, making everything brighter, but you'd need a good high absorber on the other side). I don't know much about laminates - but it's the same concept. The harder the material, the more it will reflect high frequencies.
 
I'm a hardwood floor guy, and my home studio is no exception. I'd use beech, oak, maple, whatever you like, then treat the rest of the room accordingly.

I prefer the "liveness" below me, rather than through complicated reflections off the ceiling and walls.
 
For what it's worth, I'm currently installing laminate flooring in my little one-room studio. I decided on laminate because it looks great, is cheaper than hardwood, and I can install it myself, thus saving even more money for gear.

Also, I just can't imagine that laminate's acoustic properties are any different than hardwood's. It seems to me that a sound wave, at whatever frequency, isn't going to know the difference between a laminate floor with a hard protective surface and a hardwood floor with a hard protective surface. It's going to bounce either way.
 
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