Ceiling isolation in existing small space

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Kristoffel

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Before I go any further, the brunt of my question is: "Am I really going to need to rip out the existing drywall ceiling?"

Hi, I recently bought a house and plan to turn one of the bedrooms -- 14' x 10' x 7'9" -- into a project studio for some recording of just me doing vocals, guitar and "lightweight" mixing. I live alone in a single-level ranch house in a suburban neighborhood, where principal noise sources are car noise, neighbors and -- this one is currently my concern -- airplanes that fly "somewhat" high overhead but still can be easily heard in the existing house. I feel okay with plans for isolating walls, windows and doors, but for the ceiling, I'm...confused as to what path to follow.

I have Grammy-winning mixing & mastering engineer friends who work out of suburban home studios tell me they've had great success, isolation-wise, by just adding to all walls & ceiling a couple more layers of drywall with green glue in between. No room-within-a-room construction, no ceiling mounts via resilient channels, etc. (also no putty around outlet boxes, no MLV sheets, etc). But their houses are also in different neighborhoods, perhaps not with airplanes overhead. ;-)

A semi-retired pro studio designer friend came and looked and recommended (free advice) ripping out the ceiling and putting QuietRock *above* the joists (i.e. up in the attic under the slanted roof), then stuffing in 4" rockwool below that, then a 1" air gap, and then 2" rockwool, and cover the underside with cheesecloth or somesuch. This would address both the isolation (for the ceiling) and also provide some broadband absorption and might even help a bit with the 0,0,1 axial mode around 70 Hz. I'm sure it would sound great, except that...

*Nobody* else I've been talking to will affirm doing this work, either from a pure-construction standpoint ("that's going to be a total bitch to do, ripping out the ceiling seems drastic") or a home-resale standpoint ("nobody is going to want that in their new home if you were to try to sell the place...although you could just drywall over it if it came to that.").

Ok, so instead I could take the path of installing resilient dampening channels and do DD+GG as my buddies did, but it seems like if I were to do that, I'd have to rip out the drywall ceiling anyway to get at the joists. And I'd be lowering the ceiling even more in doing that. And it wouldn't give me any absorption that my friend's plan had. ...I could hit that 0,0,1 mode by putting in diaphragmatic absorbers elsewhere though.

Can I get any other informed opinions on this?
Thanks.
 
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What's the purpose of the recordings - for casual use, or eventual commercial distribution? Noisy neighborhood - I've got that, and just retrack if outside noise actually is picked up when I'm recording. Your "grammy winning" friends probably didn't win any of their awards from recordings at their home studios, did they? If they did, they might not have been using mics, or they just did the same thing - retrack when needed.
Sure, you can add a layer of greenboard to all walls and ceiling - but outside sound is oging to find its way in - windows, doors, etc. If I were you I'd be more concerned with acoustically treating that (relatively) small room - bass traps in corners, ceiling clouds, traps at first reflection points.
 
Hey Mike, thanks for the response.

- The line between personal and commercial use is so blurred in today's marketplace as to be of little consequence. I'm not sure how to answer re "casual" use, but all this expense is not for nothing.

- Yea, the friends work out of their homes and make gold records, including recording; welcome to Nashville. ;-)

- Acoustically treating the room in the form you recommend (bass traps, clouds, first reflections) will do nothing to reduce exterior noise. Absorption (& diffusion) will go in, for sure, but I can't see the point of doing this without adequate isolation first. Sounds like maybe you're saying, go ahead and add absorption to the interior anyway... Ok, that seems counter-intuitive but I'll consider that...except I don't understand, why bother yet if another layer of drywall is going up anyway?

- As I said, treating the windows and doors --- so sound will NOT "find its way in - windows, doors, etc." --- is pretty straightforward for me, and is underway. I just put in a 2" solid door with weatherstripping around it, and am caulking in thick transparent MLV across one window and solid-filling another window. It's really the ceiling that I'm concerned about.

- Re-recording every time a car or airplane passes is unacceptable, as it these distractions occur too frequently. (Unless I record between midnight and 6am; again, unacceptable). If I were willing to just do that, I would never have found this forum!

Thanks. Any other suggestions?
 
Can you get into the ceiling space without ripping out the existing ceiling?

Alan.
 
I'm with Witz,
get into the ceiling cavity & do the job in there while leaving the ceiling & resale intact.
Probably insulate the entire house for heat while you're there.
 
If outside noise is that much of an issue, I wonder how much isolation you are really going to get with any of these plans. I'd suggest hiring an acoustic engineer.
Bass traps, clouds, etc ARE certainly needed with/without complete isolation. And from everything, I've read in a room that size diffusion is a non-issue.
 
Thanks for the responses everyone.
A couple other friends have given me advice that fits with what I've heard here. Namely, soundproof the windows first, then try some recording and see if any of these external sources actually end up getting picked up in the mic. If they don't, then no need to keep going.
Either way, adding decent absorption inside the room will be necessary (as Mike said), so maybe go ahead and do some of that rather than waiting until isolation work is completed.
Thanks!
 
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