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Sound proof studio building help.

D

Doug_Forbes

New Member
Hi everyone.
I am planning on building a drum studio of sorts in my garden, but I don't really know what materials to use to get the best sound proofing. One guy at my local drum shop suggested using two layers of high density concrete blocks, but another suggested two layers of thermalite blocks with rockwool insulation in between the layers. As it stands I'm leaning towards the thermalite and rockwool as it would be ~£5,000 cheaper but I'm not sure it would be as effective at keeping sound in as the high density concrete. Anyone here with more experience than me have any suggestions?
 
Doug_Forbes said:
Hi everyone.
I am planning on building a drum studio of sorts in my garden, but I don't really know what materials to use to get the best sound proofing. One guy at my local drum shop suggested using two layers of high density concrete blocks, but another suggested two layers of thermalite blocks with rockwool insulation in between the layers. As it stands I'm leaning towards the thermalite and rockwool as it would be ~£5,000 cheaper but I'm not sure it would be as effective at keeping sound in as the high density concrete. Anyone here with more experience than me have any suggestions?
Click to expand...
While two layers of concrete blocks might work - it probably won't work as well as more conventional studio building techniques - and would, I believe, be way more expensive. I don't know enough about thermalite blocks to comment there.

What I do know - is that building something like this - right or wrong - is absurdly expensive. So someone involved must absolutely know for sure (from training, knowledge and hopefully experience) exactly how whatever is built will turn out. You really don't do this based on anything like... "it should work". Folks that know how to do this - know how it will work... and not just sort of, but exactly.

And that's not one size fits all - there's no such thing as total sound-proofing. There's the needs we are trying to meet vs. the budget we have to realize them.

If you're going to be the one to decide what to build and how, then you need to take on the task of learning what you need to know (which I can tell you is quite the task). Or you absolutely need to hire someone that really knows what they are talking about.

I know that my seem like something that's unaffordable.... but IMO if you're going to spend the bucks to build something.... you can't afford not to. Because it is possible to do a whole bunch of common sense things that absolutely seem like they should work - but will drastically compromise your level of sound proofing.

Lots of folks sometimes feel that even if they are building "just a drum room" that the complexities of building a recording studio don't apply. And when looking at the interior acoustic design that can certainly be true. But when it comes to sound proofing - they are basically same. Because the "drums bothering the neighbors" part is exactly the same issue - and can only be remedied through the same methods.

Obvious there are a number of books on building studios - the Ron Gervais book is excellent.... if you can find it, I love the Jeff Cooper book as an great introduction. There's lots of great info on the website - www.gearspace.com

Good luck - you are in for quite a journey!!!
 
I think the first order is to determine whether you want "Sound reduction" or true "Sound Proofing" which are not necessarily the same beast and they can take on very different project scope and cost.
 
River19 said:
I think the first order is to determine whether you want "Sound reduction" or true "Sound Proofing" which are not necessarily the same beast and they can take on very different project scope and cost.
Click to expand...
Agree - except that it is not either/or.... those two terms "sound reduction" and "sound proofing" mean exactly the same thing. They describe a state of a making a structure more resistive to sound escaping from it and entering into it. And to make it more complicated it is frequency dependent as well.

The sound treatment that knock 20db off the transmission of cymbal sound might have zero effect on the low end of a bass drum. Same with sounds coming in - just closing all of the air gaps with about anything will stop the sound of birds from entering, but a trash truck rolling by? No effect.

But any good plan would start with figuring out the needs... we already know we're dealing with drums.... but how close are the neighbors? Are we taking daytime/evening playing or 24/7? (the world gets quieter at night - so our sound reduction would need to be even more effective).

Then with that info - it wouldn't be that hard to figure out what would be necessary. As there just aren't that many ways of doing this. In a close neighborhood setting - and a desire to simply not bother the neighbors at all. We're probably looking at some sort of double wall construction - outer block wall, inner wood frame wall and ceiling (and possibly floating floor). But depending on where the OP lives, then building a new structure is going invariably involve permits, plans, etc....unless we're talking about something very small.
 
Perhaps I should have said there is a difference in "sound reduction" and "sound proof"....... to me there is a vast difference between those two.
 
Thanks all.

Yes my dad is a star. He almost single handedly kick started my career with this.
 
I ran into the same low-end sound leakage problems with my space and ended up bringing in help from https://emersonproservices.com/carrollton/. They got the decoupling and insulation setup dialed in way better than what I tried on my own. Floating floor plus double drywall with green glue made a huge difference. They're local to me, so having them walk the site helped smooth everything out.
 
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