Building a small rehearsal space.

[Mark]

Hi

We are thinking of rebuilding and as an enticement my wife is saying I can have a music room. The problem is I'd like to know what are the right materials to use on the room rather than get a normal room and then try to add panels inside the room.

In a perfect world I'd like the room to absorb a lot of sound rather than reflect it. The door and ceiling would also be an issue. What works best there?

My current house has very reflective and loud rooms. My Champ clone feels as loud as an AC-30 in this house.

Thanks for your assistance.

[norburybrook]

Mark,

there are 2 issues to address with regards to this , one is sound isolation and the other is sound/acoustic treatment. The isolation part is simple in theory but done well is complex and expensive.

Are you wanting to have a band in there or just your self? Bass frequencies are the hardest to isolate so if you've no bass/drums then it will be easier.

Basically you 've got to cut down how sound travels: so Air and conduction. Simplest way if you already have a room in your house is to build another room inside that using rubber/neoprene isolating pads to put the new floor/ceiling joists on, lay your new floor then do the same with the wall joists. leave a decent air gap and fill it all with rock wool or your choice of insulation then make the door double thickness, 2x fire doors stuck together work, or have two separate doors with a gap and you're done. This will be a pretty much sealed room so work out if you need air con/vents etc.

To tame the acoustics I'd make a set of broad band traps and hang them on the walls all round. They're a simple frame to surround a piece of hard rockwool insulation covered in calico fabric , or a fabric of your choice. Stick a sofa along a wall/corner to act as a bass trap, shelves etc with records/cd's/books act as diffusers and a rug on the floor and you'll have a nice sounding room.




M

[alkuz1961]

Once I had to use this material for big home theater sound insulation. https://www.acoustiblok.com/portfolio-i ... =443%2C444
And I confirm that it works exactly as shown in this video
https://youtu.be/LAQrgNdpq-w

[DenDanger]

If I could design and install my optimum studio acoustically, I would design non-parallel walls and or ceiling.
When I took a tour of the famous Sun Studio in Memphis, I observed that the ceiling was shaped sort of like an accordion.
The ceiling and walls all had perforated acoustical tiles.
If I could, I would use Roxul Safe and Sound (or equivalent) rockwool in the stud spaces, covered with rough sawn boards with slight gap between them. The rockwool provides some isolation, and may provide a bit of absorption.
Also use lots of wood(if you can afford to) rather than drywall.
Good luck with your project.

Regards,
Denny

[stelligan]

Look up Bobby Owsinski - Studio Builder's Handbook. He likely has a few YouTube videos as well. Even though sound isolation is probably what you are after - you want it to sound good, too.

https://bobbyowsinski.com/studio-builders-handbook/

Best of luck with the project!

[NickC]

For sound control inside the room:

http://nickcrosby.net/Studio/photo-album/

[norburybrook]

For sound control inside the room:

http://nickcrosby.net/Studio/photo-album/

that's exactly what I was talking about. A sofa will act as a corner(bass) trap if you don't want to go to the lengths of full corner traps. Unless you're building for a recording studio control room I wouldn't bother going over the top with all that stuff, most control rooms aren't great for recording/playing , they're for mixing. Recording spaces are a lot more live.



M

[ER]

Furniture, rugs, bookshelves, curtains, etc. can all go a long way in making a room sound good. It takes more work to make a room with bad dimensions sound good, a room with good dimensions on the other hand with a high ceiling and some broken up parallel surfaces will need less treatment overall to get rid of problems. Probably the best treatment is to have a bunch of amps in the room , passive speakers can absorb a wide spectrum of frequencies and help break up reflections. A wall of vintage marshall cabs and a variety of combo amps would work better than a bunch of ugly panels!

I'm in the same boat, hoping to get a studio built this summer, I'm going for dimensions based on multiples of the cube root of 2 (1.25992105) this means a 16'x20' room with a vaulted beamed wood ceiling that starts at 8' on one side with a peak of 12' 8" and ending at 10' on the other side. Some people use the golden ratio (1.618) but that makes for a long skinny room with a low ceiling in a normal home. I'm planning on building my studio with earthen plastered straw-bales. That should be plenty sound proof and not too live or dead sounding. Once it's built and furnished, I'll see if I need bass traps or diffusers and build them then. Cube root of 2 was the dimension the Grateful Dead used on their wall of sound speaker cabinets, with the idea to spread out any standing waves an equal distance from from each across the audio spectrum (I'm pretty sure there was LSD involved). It's also very very close to C.P. Boner's 1942 stylized ratio of 1:1.26:1.587 which was calculated on the axial modes guaranteeing the mathematical maximum ratio between x, y and z axis.

Start with known good dimensions, put stuff in the room, and then measure and listen to see what (if anything) the room really needs.