Guitar isolation/tracking room

[JimmyS1969]

Ok, I am tired of striking my kit in the drum room in order to record guitars.

I have this open space in my control room/basement that I just shove my kit and have almost never used exercise equipment. I want to close in with wall and fire door to use as guitar or whatever isolation room.

8' X 13' X 7.5' tall at ceiling drywall. Joists are 10" and I plan on opening the ceiling for treatment. I do not care about sound transmission as far as the upstairs is concerned. I am thinking 2 layers of 5/8" drywall on the outside of the new wall. Again, I am not really that concerned about complete silence, though why not spend another $50 if it will keep the volume down in the control room just outside. It is already going to come in a bit from the ceiling, though that dropped beam shown is steel wrapped with wood. I suppose I could block in the space above. The joists run from the back side of the photos (Drum head on that wall) out. There is also going to be one 6" round HVAC duct running through the center of the ceiling for heat on the upper floor.

The 3 existing walls are Concrete. Well, furred out with 1X2" and drywall/paneling-yikes!). So is floor covered with carpet. Thinking wood or laminate floor in here.

What would be recommended to use for the ceiling and new wall that I will build? I have no problem with using cloth as wall/ceiling covering. Worked very well for my drum room, where I filled the whole ceiling with Roxul 80. Finding now that I probably could have saved some money there, but it sure sounds good.

I am thinking of filling the ceiling and new wall (2X6" studs) with pink stuff. Or should I use Rockwool? I am assuming I will still need to add some panels on the other walls for reflections, but wanted to get some insight from others that know what they are doing here.

Also, if I have a full ceiling and wall filled with insulation, what are thoughts as to bass trapping in the back corners for a tracking room this size?

 

[ashcat_lt]

I'm sure somebody who's actually done it will be along soon. I'm thinking that in a room that size you cant really have too much bass trapping. In fact, its bordering on that size where you might should just kill the whole thing dead cause you wont likely get much in the reflection department that actually sounds good.

You've pretty much already got all the wall/ceiling corners trapped. It you build the new wall "inside out" (did you say that?) I think you've got those two corners covered. Get a few extra rolls of pink stuff and pile them in the other wall/walls

I'm sure you're aware that the best for isolation is to build a free standing room inside that space. You'd have to crawl in and out of it

 

[jhbrandt]

Jimmy,

I'm not completely understanding the layout of the room BUT - I do recommend that you do as you had planned; rip out the ceiling & fill with insulation / cover with fabric.. USE the pink stuff. - At ceiling joist depth, you get the best bang for the buck using regular attic blanket instead of anything heavier.

The wall that you'll build; make it 2 X 4 construction on 24" centers. Fill the studs with R13 and cover both sides of the wall with 2 layers of 5/8". This will get you about 48 dB through that wall. ~Not too shabby~
BE SURE to seal the wall perimeter (backer rod and caulk) and install a good, heavy, well-sealed door.
My Recommended Drywall/Plasterboard/Gypsum Board:
Sheetrock® brand Firecode® Core 5/8" Type X Gypsum Panels
Firecode C Core 5/8" Type C Gypsum Panels
Knauf brand Fire Panel 15mm, or Soundshield Plus 15mm.
OR SIMILAR

Recommended Caulk/Sealants:
OSI SC-175
Big Stretch
Soudaflex14LM
Bostik Seal N Flex FC
Non-Hardening Acoustical Sealant by USG or Tremco
any caulk with similar specifications.

Have fun!

Cheers,
John

 

[polarity]

Don't forget to throw my bed in there for when I move up that way. Should help with sound dampening too!

 

[JimmyS1969]

Don't forget to throw my bed in there for when I move up that way. Should help with sound dampening too!

Got a big couch for ya upstairs man.

 

[JimmyS1969]

Guitar/bass only isolation room build

I just started construction of a separate room for recording guitar amps only.

I will be removing the ceiling and interior walls that are existing in photo. -Waiting til I close off the room to keep dust down for demo. My plan is to make this room basically 'dead' and typically only for close mic of loud amps. Isolation from control room (which is the 32'X15'x8' room outside of the pic), is not that big of a deal as long as the amp is not blaring in my face. The isolation room is 15'X8.5'x8'. No reason to soundproof from/to above as that is a vacant room.

My plan at this point is to fill the 10" joist ceiling with fluffy pink or Roxul 80. All walls filled with Ultra Touch Denim 3". 4" Roxul 80 2' framed across all vertical corners with fluffy pink stuff behind them. All covered with only fire retardant/breathable cloth. Wood trim to cover staples. Floor is concrete and will be left exposed or maybe a rug if needed. Likely small crown molding at ceiling and base board trim to finish the room. The three concrete walls existing are concrete with furring strips. The Paneling and drywall are to be removed.

The fire door is already installed and I will be using two or 3 layers of 1/2" drywall on the outside of the room.


Anyone have any good suggestions or corrections to my plan?

I am in no rush really. Took me 4 months to find the time to get this far...


Thanks for any advice guys!

 

[jhbrandt]

Jimmy,

Remember that frequencies below 200 Hz are very hard to isolate and require mass and damping. I know that you were not asking about isolation and said that it is not so important in your situation... But I'd still recommend using double 5/8" on both sides of the booth partition with absorption in the cavity.

A note on my thoughts about Acoustic Denim: I have not seen testing data comparing denim vs lightweight fiberglass for wall cavity fill. However, there IS data on similar materials; cellulose fiber for example, has inferior characteristics when compared to regular building fiberglass insulation in a wall cavity for sound isolation purposes.
-- My thoughts are that Denim will show a similar response. The density tends to 'couple' the wall panels together and reduces sound transmission loss. --
So I would prefer to WAIT for confirmed testing data on any of this 'new' stuff before recommending that anyone use it. - Now, that's MY opinion.

Jim, Roxul 80 is rather dense for trap facing, because is becomes reflective at certain frequencies. And the reflection effect is boundary/proximity dependent. I would recommend a density of 40 to 60 kg/m3 for any trap facing, but only 1" thick/deep. 2" is 'okay', but no more than that.

Trapping in the room: Since you will only be using this booth for amps...true? - You can treat the walls a bit more sparsely. Only follow the rule: 'never let untreated surfaces face each other'
Sometimes, in a guitar tracking room, you might NOT want to trap a corner. You can USE the untreated corner for a bass boost as necessary. It all depends on your project needs.

The ceiling plan is excellent as long as you don't need the isolation.

Cheers,
John

 

[b00n]

Isolation from control room (which is the 32'X15'x8' room outside of the pic), is not that big of a deal as long as the amp is not blaring in my face. The isolation room is 15'X8.5'x8'. No reason to soundproof from/to above as that is a vacant room.

I would seriously reconsider that one.
You won't be able to evaluate the tones you get properly if you have considerable spill.
I recently got me a Grossmann SG Iso-Cab, and I will have to get it out of my room because the box in he corner of my room humming and honking messes with my perception of tone from my monitors. And it is 30db down from normal.
You really want as much isolation as you can get, believe me.
I would go for a complete and proper room in room, if I had the opportunity.

Then you'll probably want to eliminate parallel walls, so you can reduce the obvious wall modes.
I don't have a formula for angling at hands, but you will find advice at the usual DIY studio build resources.
You can't get rid of every mode his way, but you can reduce their impact.

If you're done with the build of the room you can either try to make it as dead as possible, or you can see what you have going and try to make it something cool and special.
I'd probably start with a handful of moveable gobos, to either put in the corners or freely arrange around your cab.

Get wild with it. Try everything, find out, what you like.

 

[jhbrandt]

b00n,

I would disagree on the wall angling. (by the way, IF you do angle walls, they would need to be at least 12 degrees before you will see any benefits)

Almost no one should waste space with angled walls unless it is inside an existing studio.. more on this later. In all my experience, the benefits are questionable. A man whose work that I have followed and who has my greatest respect disdained rectangular cuboids (parallel walls). - Tom Hidley. My 'The Balance' room criteria is based on his NE design criteria.... with a twist. You can read about it in my paper 'Who needs a Haas kicker' on my publications page.

Angled walls LOOK cool. They have become 'fad' with the home studio crowd. BUT... the results are disappointing compared to a calculated, designed space. - Start with a cube, angle it into a diamond shape and there you go! - You've got a box of chocolates. And THAT is what EVERYONE and his brother is doing. Basically ALL of John L Sayers and half of GearSlutz.

Anyway, like I said, IF this is only for amp cabs. You might not want to kill it completely. You might WANT some resonance, depending on where you place your amp and microphone.
But I agree on the isolation issue.. as the Joker said in the move 'Batman', "...better be sure!"

Cheers,
John

 

[mjbphotos]

I'm just jealoius that Jimmy has so much available space!

 

[JimmyS1969]

Yeah, you guys are right. I'll start by quad rocking the wall then add treatment as needed.

Thank you!!!

Yeah, it is a pleasure to have all this space.

 

[b00n]

Angled walls LOOK cool. They have become 'fad' with the home studio crowd. BUT... the results are disappointing compared to a calculated, designed space. - Start with a cube, angle it into a diamond shape and there you go! - You've got a box of chocolates. And THAT is what EVERYONE and his brother is doing. Basically ALL of John L Sayers and half of GearSlutz.

John,
I totally hate flutter echoes, and angled walls are a neat way to get rid of most of the flutter without too much diffusion or trapping, from what I understand and from my limited experience.
And for a tracking room or a glorified iso-cab I'd go for a rather asymmetrical room, than making it diamond-ish, as this leaves more room for messing with placement, so I'd angle two walls, and perhaps the ceiling, if I felt adventurous.
(I am eagerly awaiting my spanking for this, as you surely have more experience and knowledge on this topic than I do... )

I will check out you articles over the next days, though!

 

[jhbrandt]

b00n,

LOL. No problem, no spanking.
I really do understand where you are coming from... the only thing is: Your comment about too much diffusion or trapping. There is no such thing. You can not have too much trapping.
Really.
This usually comes from folks that trap too THIN or not enough. - And they think they have trapped too much when in fact they have only skewed the response of the room in favor of boomy bass and very muddy mids and zero highs.
It is my beef with most DIY designed rooms. See my paper 'Room Acoustics Design and the Frequency-Power Spectrum'.

Go to my publications page and get a copy of my room mode calculator, either Imperial or Metric. Yes, it's complicated, but bear with me. ALL the information that you could possibly need is there. Below the graphs on the first tab there is a section showing the ideal RT60 of the room size that you entered in the yellow cells. [be sure to cntrl/shift-S and cntrl/shift-C to copy and sort] You can see that for a control room of 3700 cubic feet (105 cubic meters) the RT60 should be flat @ .25 Seconds, with a permissible rise from 200 Hz down to 63 Hz band to a max of 0.32 seconds.
Now that's pretty tight. But it's right.
I recently posted on my FB, a visit that I made to the SAE Institute that I designed here in Jakarta. That CR spec'd out at 0.15 seconds RT60 and it is about 5500 cubic feet (158 cubic meters).. now THAT is tight.
The thing is, you HAVE to have some energy retention in the mids and highs to maintain balance. I do that with a combination of reflection, diffraction, and diffusion. Here's a photo of us at SAE after the testing.https://homerecording.com/bbs/asset.php?fid=85338&uid=89104&d=1412266627
Sorry for the HUGE photo. LOL

Cheers,
John

 

[JimmyS1969]

Ok, I am finally to treatment stage.

I have the new wall built with 2x4's on 16" centers. Filled with pick stuff with 2 layers of 5/8" drywall on interior and two layers 1/2" on exterior. Caulking at perimeter at first layer. Haven't caulked or taped the second layers yet.

Man that room is very quiet. With PA cranked in the control room, the volume difference is huge when the fire door is shut.

I plan to frame out 3 of the corners for 3' wide floor to ceiling bass traps filled with loose pink stuff. Leaving one corner open in case I might want to throw a cabinet over there for a bass boost.

Now, I have plenty of attic blanket to fill the ceiling. What I am curious about is the existing 2" pink stuff on the exposed walls.

Should I leave the paper on and just cover with fire retardant cloth? Or remove the paper first? Or fur out the walls to allow for 4" pink stuff? Right now even without the ceiling filled, there seems to be very little flutter echo. Though there is a ringing sound around 1200kHZ. The room is only 12'x7.5'x 8' tall so...


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

And again Mr. Brandt, you have been awesome in your support here man! I commend you sir!



Thanks guys!

Jimmy

 

[kidkage]

Looks awesome Jimmy!

Also, I'm so happy to see those guitars in that first picture. I hope you're enjoying them.

 

[bongoboy]

How's the Bowflex working for ya? I have one in a similar state.

 

[JimmyS1969]

Looks awesome Jimmy!

Also, I'm so happy to see those guitars in that first picture. I hope you're enjoying them.

Yep. My boy has one for his college classes. The Dean I keep around for my personal amusement.

 

[JimmyS1969]

How's the Bowflex working for ya? I have one in a similar state.

Gave it away long ago. It was getting no use at all...

 

[JimmyS1969]

By the way, the remote control mic stand prototype (robot) will be here tomorrow. Thanks Webby McWeber! LINK

I need to finish this thing soon so I can properly run it through the motions on a project starting next Monday.

 

[jhbrandt]

Ok, I am finally to treatment stage.

I have the new wall built with 2x4's on 16" centers. Filled with pick stuff with 2 layers of 5/8" drywall on interior and two layers 1/2" on exterior. Caulking at perimeter at first layer. Haven't caulked or taped the second layers yet.

Man that room is very quiet. With PA cranked in the control room, the volume difference is huge when the fire door is shut.

I plan to frame out 3 of the corners for 3' wide floor to ceiling bass traps filled with loose pink stuff. Leaving one corner open in case I might want to throw a cabinet over there for a bass boost.

Now, I have plenty of attic blanket to fill the ceiling. What I am curious about is the existing 2" pink stuff on the exposed walls.

Should I leave the paper on and just cover with fire retardant cloth? Or remove the paper first? Or fur out the walls to allow for 4" pink stuff? Right now even without the ceiling filled, there seems to be very little flutter echo. Though there is a ringing sound around 1200kHZ. The room is only 12'x7.5'x 8' tall so...


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

And again Mr. Brandt, you have been awesome in your support here man! I commend you sir!



Thanks guys!

Jimmy

Jimmy,
Take the paper off if you plan to use that as trapping. I would highly recommend going deeper than 3 1/2 inches. But it depends on room use and what other treatment you have planned.
Ceiling: If the trusses/joists are over 96 inches high, you can install a dropped ceiling grid system about 2" below the joists. Use a ceiling tile that is rated NRC 0.8 or better (higher). Fill the joists above with attic blanket. Fill it full.

Cheers,
John