The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I moved in October from a rural, island envrionment where I had lived on for 12 years. I had a small, 15 x 12 Inside Dimension jam room. I had my drums miked up at all times, and I could make noise at ANY HOUR at ANY volume. It was bloody beautiful...problem is.. properties over there are 100,000 - 500,000 grand more expensive than Campbell River. It's nuts. Now, I'm in a subburb... I do have a 21' 9" x 25 ' (ID) building, seperate from the house building. I have come up with a studio design that works for me... I made a goofy 3-d design using floorplan

Here's my idea...in the floorplan program...It's the one called studio.bmf ...and when I test downloaded it it went to a weird looking page.. I think that one is a right-clicker-save-as.

Here's a folder of "photos" of it. tour the virtual studio with furniture instead of instruments

So, I'm looking for opinions or advise. If it amuses you, take a look. If you use that program (which is free.. seems ok, but super limited) you can mess with it.

But really, wha' think? I bet many of you would do different things and have different priorities...

I want the jam room at the back cause my neighbours are at the front.
On top of the existing drywall, I want to add rubber sheets ( I can get them cheap) , a layer of durock ( a concrete sheet similar to drywall is size that is used in bathrooms for tiling I think), a rubber hanger off the durock (it'd be nice to have hangers with 3" of extension) and mount drywall sheets to the hangers. Then, I'd like to treat the room with accoustic foam.
for the floor, I currently have 4" poured concrete, but I am going to lay down a floor of some type. I haven't decided on the floor yet. If you have any suggestions for floor material..

Anway... if you got thoughts think em. or type em.

if you have the time and money, pergo is great for flooring. i can't highly enough recommend looking around for free used futons as inner wall filler. there's nothing like 4" of heavy stuffing to keep the neighbors happy.

you probably don't want walls that are several layers of dense material (even rubber), because that seems like it'd transmit a lot of bass. i dunno.. depends on the density of the rubber, i guess. neoprene is a favored soundproofing material, so i guess if it's like that, you're in good shape.

also, cover your windows and any extra wall outlets, they let a lot of noise out.

First and foremost, get familiar with this place: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

Specifically, the Studio Design Forum. There are professionals on there (e.g. Knightfly, John Sayers, and Ethan Winer,) who'll basically give you their expertise for free.

The considersations for soundproofing and recording/mixing are somewhat different. Soundproofing is about preventing leaks. Acoustic treatment for recording and mixing is about controlling reflections. The perfect recording environment is one with no reflections, one in which ALL the incident sound leaks out. A field or meadow, if you will. Not so great from a soundproofing perspective.

High-end studios usually build an acoustically treated room within a sound-proofing shell. That is, the room floats. That's probably extreme for your case, but you might at least consider decoupling your drum kit from the floor.

a picture

please tell me you'll have a plant and photo just like those ones.

Ethan Winer is great. His site has a lot of good info as well. They say the best way to sound proof is sheet rock and r13 insulation. After that, you may want to look into diffusion rather than absorbtion.

Ken

yeah, that's what the "durock" is for, it's sheet rock. The rubber, I'm using cause I have a friend who is a roofer, and he can basically give me his scraps, that are unusable for him. Rubber works like neoprene, but it's not good for floors and gasket support because it compresses over time, and looses it's absorbtion qualities. If I have to build a floating floor, I'll use neoprene for that, but I'm HOPING that I'll get away with out the floating floor.. we'll see. Rubber on the wall apparently will do the same job though, as it isn't under constant downward compression, or some such thing.


Dan: I'm getting the plant, but the picture will probably be Bob Marley or Metallica or some such thing. Maybe It'll be thisone though!

That message board looks awesome Des.. I'm gonna scope that out this weekend.

The toughest decisions were the sizes and shapes of the room... the back wall of the jam room is 1/3 poured, six inch thick concrete topped with studded, drywalled and isulated walls.

Ken, that dude you mention, Ethan, I googled him.. I got a computer program guy.. are you referring to him in regards to the program I used (I'm at work, can't check the program) or does he have good sound proof ing info or something, or did I just llook up teh wrong ethan!


My wife wants to make the jam room our bedroom. hahaha. nice try Dana.

Leaf wrote:Ken, that dude you mention, Ethan, I googled him.. I got a computer program guy..

Yeah, this guy: http://www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html

But also this guy: http://www.realtraps.com/

(He's also a regular on the John Sayers message forum I mentioned above.)

Leaf wrote:My wife wants to make the jam room our bedroom. hahaha. nice try Dana.

I dunno dude ... That suggests some interesting possibilities.

Leaf wrote:Dan: I'm getting the plant, but the picture will probably be Bob Marley or Metallica or some such thing. Maybe It'll be thisone though!

that would look goooood. 8)