R
rgraves
New member
Hey guys,
I have a question about having a studio in the basement.
Currently I have a basement studio and it works out great when it's just me and other musicians in the basement, but when others are over that don't care about recording (wife,kids) it's quite a hassle. If they are on the 2nd floor, there is no problem. But when they are on the main floor, walking in the kitchen or going up and down stairs, it's horribly loud and basically ruins any recording I might have been working on.
There are loud thumps from the footsteps, etc.
So, what I was wondering is, when we are ready to move to a new house (in the near future) is there a way to prevent this problem? That is, prevent noise from the upper floors, so that people can go about their business in the upper floors, while I record in the basement.
Cost isn't really an issue, within reason, but I really need to address this because it limits my recording time EXTREMELY.
I have a question about having a studio in the basement.
Currently I have a basement studio and it works out great when it's just me and other musicians in the basement, but when others are over that don't care about recording (wife,kids) it's quite a hassle. If they are on the 2nd floor, there is no problem. But when they are on the main floor, walking in the kitchen or going up and down stairs, it's horribly loud and basically ruins any recording I might have been working on.
There are loud thumps from the footsteps, etc.
So, what I was wondering is, when we are ready to move to a new house (in the near future) is there a way to prevent this problem? That is, prevent noise from the upper floors, so that people can go about their business in the upper floors, while I record in the basement.
Cost isn't really an issue, within reason, but I really need to address this because it limits my recording time EXTREMELY.
...imagine that you had a 1' thick concrete box sealed on all six planes (4 walls, 1 ceiling and 1 floor, and we're pretending here so don't worry about the door, etc in this little scenario). Probably not alot of mid or high frequencies are going to escape from the inside out (though it would seem that low frequency vibrations may as concrete still passes vibrations, I believe only low frequencies...help me if I'm wrong guys 
). Anyway, that "mass" would be a good step in isolating the sound from within to keeping it within. Now introduce the term decoupling, which helps to further isolate your inner environment. So if you built a wood room inside of that concrete box and used the concept of shock absorbing components (rubber pucks seem to be popular talk around here, though I used expansion joint material for my walls and slab connections) that minimize passing of vibration from your inner box (the wood-framed room walls, floor and ceiling) to the inner walls of your outer box (the sealed concrete room I'm hypothetically talking about) and physically separate the two surfaces with only the absorbant medium (rubber pucks) connecting the two rooms. So you have limited the vibrations's abilities to travel through things like walls, floors, and ceilings by separating the surfaces of the vibration-transferring mediums such as wood, drywall, and concrete. So then the sound is isolated in your studio room(s), your "room within a room". Now you need to treat the inside of your room(s) to control all of this sound you wanted not to get out. Now you enter the world of room design (angles of walls and ceiling to channel sound relative to your mix position after you have a decoupling plan in place) and room treatment (medium to absorb or diffuse different sound frequencies...to control them). The above is just a way to describe in practical language (hopefully) what you would ideally want to do to isolate from the inside out and vice-versa so you understand the concept of what it sounds like you are wanting to do. This was hypothetical to explain the concept, but there are several products and methods not so enveloping that you could use to help your situation, but may not give you absolute isolation. Anyway, that's the best stab I could take at explaining the principle of what you are looking to do.
