How much is "good enough"

D

ditnoj

New member
Hey guys,

I may be missing it, I may be too busy to read straight.
I have read just about the whole (excellent) Sayers site on the stuff regarding studio construction and though I understand STC ratings, have checked the chart and all that, the only question I have is what kind of STC am I looking for? How much is good enough? There will be a pastoral office on one side, the parking lot on another, and a church sanctuary (for the youth) above, and diagonally (not directly) above a "youth center". The other two sides are fine...a cistern and rocky earth.

BTW Big Kahuna and the other cat that responded to the other thread...

I'm pretty much decided on an outer wall of concrete block, a few inches of insulation and an inner wall of brick.
The separation walls (control room, recording rooms) of plasterboard on each side with insulation. Another question, how does compression of insulation affect it's STC. Like for instance 5 inches compressed to 3 or 4 .

Also, After I did a design (based on a Sayers design) with the control room in between two recording rooms,(and a foyer area that insulated even more AND did the air lock thing as it had separate doors for each room) I was told that I was losing 1.5 meters off the length and gaining .5 on the width, leaving me at 7 x 6 meters. So I did a design keeping the 2 recording rooms but now side by side on one end with the control room facing them both and hardly any foyer room and doors that would have to be real careful how they opened.

So I did another design that was basically the same but with enough foyer room (7 x 7). I then did a summary of the special considerations involved in building the studio (electrics, air conditioning, floors, you know, the Sayers site stuff plus a few other things I got off the picture site here like troughs for the cables and things). A diplomatically worded memo about "do it right now or suffer later"...

AND GOT A METER INCREASE ON EACH SIDE! Making the deal now 7 x 8 which is up from 6 x 7 which was down from 5.5 x 8.5. Now I can use the original design with a little bit more storage/foyer room!

I must admit, I am happy about it. Of course, this is just the outer wall stage. I still have to "insist" my way through the room walls, ventilation, etc. and last but hardly least...the recording gear. But at least I shouldn't have to worry about structural stuff in the future! Thanks for the input.

Back at ya when we start building "in".

D out ITNOJ
 
Wall construction v STC is an exponential curve. I personally think people spend too much worrying about STC and land up with no budget left for internal acoustic treatment. In the early days of recording they used a stereo pair high above the band so any outside noise getting in would be picked up by the mikes. Today we tend to mike a lot closer, a 57, 6” from a guitar amp isn’t going to pick up any noise from outside coming in is it. I think you should look at the trade of between STC and treatment. The treatment is going to effect your sounds more than the STC of your walls in the long term
Cheers
john
 
But if you've got the money...

But if you've got the money I'd say go ahead and make the walls nice and thick and keep the sound out/in. My biggest concern when I started building was he fact that I've got two neighbors, each of them is about 15 feet from my house. One side I'm not worried about, it's all under ground. The side where the studio is though, is only half-way under ground. So the walls that are not underground we made sure to make plenty thick with nice seperation and a good fill on insulation to add a tiny bit to the STC. We were VERY fortunate over the summer, our timing was perfect. We just happened to move into this neighborhood before ANY other houses were built. You wouldn't believe what those builders clasify as garbage and throw away! So we capatilized on LOTS of free wood from the area. Lots of 3/4" particle wood. We pretty much did every wall in the studio twice with particle wood for free. We plan on using the money we saved from getting that free wood to buy the foam treatment to make the rooms sound good once we're done.

John has a point about the micing. I've recorded drums before while my brother was playing his guitar in the next room. When the drums weren't going you could hear the guitar in the mics, as soon as the drums started it was impossible to hear it. But like myself, I think a lot of peoples' concerns while building a home recording studio is keeping the sound from annoying your neighbors.

Did you check out mine and John's studio site ditnoj? The address for that is http://www.greysfiles.com/Studio/Index.htm. Know it, love it, live it... bookmark it. :)

Later,
-Brian

PS - was I the other "cat" you were talking about?
 
Hey Brian! Sorry, in this case the other cat was ausrock.

I feel you on the particle board thing, the studio I was working in Saltillo had all the walls covered with particle board and it did real well at isolation.

Speaking of which Mr. Sayers, thanks for the input! Fortunately, the studio is just part of a bigger building being built with all the walls out of block (standard down here) so I'm just adapting the wall design to that. Brick is really cheap here, too, comparatively (about 10 cents US a brick when you buy one at a time, even cheaper by the truckload). Sound treatment on the inside is going to be a definite interesting stage of the game. Fortunately I have a bit of time to study up on it since the foundation hasn't even been poured yet and the machines are still splitting and moving rock. The studio will be at least 1/3 underground!

And OF COURSE I checked out y'alls studios! And will be checking them out again and again through this whole process!

D out ITNOJ
 
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