Building a small multi purpose room

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Mikolg

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Hey guys, I'm in the process of building a small multipurpose room for recording drums, vocals, guitars, whatever, in my garage. I want it to be somewhat soundproof but understand that it won't be completely. The room is an odd shape but roughly 9x9x9. We have taken it down to the studs, insulating the walls and will be attaching 5/8 certainteed silentFX (which is two sheets of super heavy dense drywall with green glue manufactured in between)directly to the studs & ceiling. I considered the resilient channels but the guy at the building supply place said the silent FX would be fine on it's own. In addition to the silent FX we will be using green glue sealant to fill in gaps between the drywall before mudding, over screws and anything and everything else that may have an air gap. 3m fire putty pads over electrical boxes and inside the channel we will use for the snake/cables. Solid core birch door. And we will be building our own double pane window using 1/4" glass, also sealed with the green sealant. Finally I think we're going to get a 6pk of the producers choice blankets to put around walls/ceiling by the drums and doors and various other places for reflections. Haven't really considered bass traps but it is inevitable.
Anyways, just wanted to see what u guys think or have any advise. I haven't seen any reviews of people using silentFX in studios so I'll be posting some pics/vids as the project continues to help show/demonstrate the project and it's effectiveness.

Oh, and we are going to need some airflow. I'm going to have to tap into the line from the room next to it which I understand will compromise the soundproofing element, any tips on that?
 
Wait a minute. 9 x 9 x 9? as in 9 feet x 9 feet x 9 feet? A cubic room will be the worst possible for sound. You 'soundproofing' will not be great - sound WILL be transmitted though the studs to that double drywall stuff, you need to build a 'room within a room' for complete soundproofing. No offence to your 'building supply guy' but I doubt he understands anything about acoustics.
Packing blankets may tame some of the flutter echo (high frequency), but you will need tons of bass trapping (your 9x 9 room will barely have enough room for a drum set when you're done).
 
It's not exactly 9x9x9. It's an odd shape actually... There is an overhang in the room we built to accommodate the garage door making that ceiling height only 7' and some abnormality making part of the room (on the other side) only 8' wide. I realize some sound can be transferred through the studs but I am not going for completely soundproof, merely a sound reduction. Also, this room has at least one other room around it so the sound being transferred outside should hopefully be minimal.
I'll try to post some pics of the work in progress
 
image.webp
This is a shot of the overhang & the new wall we built. We have done some work on the bracing for the overhang for more support and already started hanging some of the drywall
 
I am going to build a 16 x 20 room in the corner of a 30x60 shop. I plan on a drum booth and 2 multi purpose booths with the common area as the control room. would love to hear any advice. Thanks
 
I agree, i have a 7 piece kit and it would be tight getting it in a 9 foot space
 
A 7pc kit yeah. But we'd be using a minimal size kit. Kick snare 2 toms.
I can't tell you how well this silentFX works yet but hopefully in a few weeks I'll have some answers. It's great that u have the large space to work with, if I had more
Space is do it the right way, build a room within a room, resilient channels, everything, but I don't have an inch to sacrifice here though.
 
Is lowering the level of sound that is heard outside an actual issue? Or the outside noise in? If not, I would treat that room much differently. Use the extra space you have between the studs for absorption. Cover with cloth. I would not do all of it this way but you are dealing with a very small space. Making it smaller by enclosing it further will just add to the issues you will already have.

Understandably, this may not be an option regarding heat and cool though. Guess your climate/location also comes into play here.

Anyway, just babbling out thoughts. :)
 
Yeah it's mainly to keep the sound in. We've insulated between the studs w some r13 and this silentFX stuff is incredibly dense and heavy. It's probably 2-3 times heavier than your standard drywall and has green glue sandwiched between the two pieces. One thing I can tell aside from the weight is when you knock on this stuff, it doesn't ring out like a regular sheet of drywall. Curious if anyone else has used this stuff before?
 
Also I'm in dallas. Temperature fluctuations are crazy. 85 today, 32 on Monday....
 
image.webp
Getting there. Most of the silentFX is up and this stuff is heavy. The green glue between the pieces isn't quite like I expected. I was thinking that there would be a thin layer throughout but we've found that it's pretty much like you would do yourself, just randomly gooping it on. One piece we cut out barely even had a dot of the stuff.
 
You can check out a short video on YouTube, I could post a link but I have to make 10 posts before I can do that.
 
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