Studio floor

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spottydog10

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Hi I'm in the process of turning a brick built outbuilding (17'3 x 8.1) into a studio.
A new cement floor is down, a stud wall filled with rockwool and plasterboard finished on ceiling and walls.

I was automatically going to put carpet down but after looking around there seems to be a couple of sides to the argument - carpet vs hard floor.
The room will be for mixing and vocals, no other live instruments and the ceilings, walls and corners will be sound treated. Any views on this please?
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Absolutely carpet, in fact, in my studios concrete floors always get timber strips with insulation between then a sheet floor. Cables can be easily pulled through when you need to add them, which you always do, and unless you put trunking behind the wall studs, makes wall gap add-ons difficult. Chipboard or one of the usual cheaper than ply works OK. Then the carpet. The trouble with hard walls but parallel surfaces is that they don't sound nice. They sound boxy due to the reflections. You can treat the walls, but ceiling and floor can produce some odd results. If you put laminate flooring down, you'd end up with a big rug or two, I bet!
 
Yeah, the plasterer is in at the moment (nice lad but he doesnt half drink tea...) it was like a big drum in there yesterday, reflections all over the place.
I'm gonna bung up some cloud panels for the ceiling as well as the wall treatments.
Can I get away with carpet direct onto the concrete Rob?
 
Papanate said:
I would say the Brick wall would serve you better than that Drywall.
Click to expand...
I half agree with you Papanate but I need to soundproof a bit with the neighbours quite close and me chick in her home office about 15 feet away hence the insulation in the walls.
 
spottydog10 said:
I half agree with you Papanate but I need to soundproof a bit with the neighbours quite close and me chick in her home office about 15 feet away hence the insulation in the walls.
Click to expand...
You could of Built on the outside - and kept the brick walls.
 
I have carpet laid directly on concrete and seems to help deaden the room compared to bare concrete. If it were me though I would try it first and if you don't like the barefloor try some area rugs before committing to carpet.
 
It's OK, but always cold. It does of course not creak - like the occasional ones I get!
 
You have a nice room to work with. I'd put down some sonopan, and then click lock flooring, with a couple nice big decorative rugs. I've never used sonopan, but I've heard good stuff about it. It's typically used between floors and inside walls for sound proofing, but I'd give it a shot for a floor barrier, instead of the typical backing material you can buy for click lock floors. It might absorb a bit of vibration.

I find wood / fake wood floors much easier to clean / vacuum etc. You never know, you might want to liven the room up a little.

Just my 2 cents.

EL
 
I like the wood floors in my studio.....but have to "baby powder" every year or they squeak to the point of being audible in a vocal recording.
 
Great info, I didn't even have to ask my question as it was already subject above
 
If you want a rolling office chair, they don't like thick carpet.
Harder carpet tiles might be better. You can get that on rolls too.
My recording spaces have thick underlay and thick carpet, but I sit on drum thrones.
 
I'm afraid, that my advices are too late for following them. However for the future Studio building (hope, this is not last for you :-)) it is very useful to have the preliminary measurement result of low frequencies room response with the same position of the stereo speakers system at seating point. This really makes the work of future peaks&dips neutralization easier to be done. Of course, it needs to measure noise level first.
 
25x25mm (or thicker if you can) wooden battens on the concrete. Modern "No Nails" type glues are way quicker than screws but a Hilti-gun is even faster!
Then 19mm flooring grade chipboard but be creative! you can put cables in there and use "dips", mains and audio connectors in trays in the floor. Yes, stick carpet on top but have lift out panels for access. With a bit of planning you can have a 6+ XLR output just where the drum kit sits, a couple of XLRs and a headphone jack plus juice where the guitar/bass/kbds be. CAT 5e/6 shielded cable is a cheap way to get 4 mic lines down one 6mm cable. Put in at least twice as much cable as you think you will need...then a bit more!

"Live v dead"? With some of the flooring board cover some with carpet but seal the other side, varnish say. These can be flipped as absorbers or reflectors. Acoustic guitars often sound better if the player is seated on 4+sqr m of a hard surface. Drums often benefit from being raise a few cms.

Make some "GOBOs" vertical panels you can put around drums and amps to control sound. Get clever. Put acrylic windows in them. Put a row of power outlets and XLRs on it and an IEC socket to a dip. Wheels! ...***T! I wish I was 50 and doing this again!

www.cmd-ltd.com

Features and Benefits of Floor Boxes - CMD

We explain how you might use floor boxes in your business, including features such as compartments, size options, power and audiovisual options.
www.cmd-ltd.com

Dave.
 
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