studios and accoustics

B

brianluce

Carbonite Member
One thing that doesn't get talked about much here is accoustics. my company invested some real money in a warehouse and then converted haphazardly into a tv studio. no one knew what they were doing so now we have soundproofing problems. every time a truck drives by it kills our shot. the director bought a bunch of egg carton foam (which isn't cheap) and spread it out over the walls. but isn't egg carton foam meant for minimizing echo and reverb? it doesn't sound proof does it?

what's the short answer for soundproofing? is MASS and density the best way to soundproof a room? in other words, something like a cement wall?

another question, is the post software so good now that you don't have to worry about controlling reverb and echo?
 
What's the short answer for soundproofing? is MASS and density the best way to soundproof a room? in other words, something like a cement wall?
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First of all, I'm far from an expert. But basically it's mass plus decoupling that soundproofs a room. An excellent site that expounds much better than I can (and that was referenced about a week and a half ago in a thread on building a sound booth in a closet) is

http://www.acoustics101.com/

That site has pretty much everything you need to know.

Another question, is the post software so good now that you don't have to worry about controlling reverb and echo?
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Arggghhh! 2 minute penalty in the audio forum penalty box. :angry:

No, not in the least. Again, I'm not an expert, but getting rid of excess reverb and
echo is one of the hardest things to do in post. Removing constant noises (such as fans) is easier, but you'll still save time (and money!) by eliminating capturing those noises in the first place.
 
www.recording.org has a whole category dedicated to room acoustics. It's a great site to check out, after reading everything on this site first of course. But seriously, it's a good resource for a lot of audio questions out there.

Steve
 
" But basically it's mass plus decoupling that soundproofs a room."

...................

okay what's decoupling? sounds kinda kinky...
is it something like double walling with an inbetween airspace?

thanks

brian
 
Essentially, yes. Remember that Acoustic Foam is not really meant to soundproof (there are some exceptions to this, but they are a very, very expensive combination of foam, lead, bubble wrap). Acoustic foam is just meant to control reflections. If you went into a professional recording studio - a good one - you would find a room within a room - including a decoupled or "floating" floor. For what you're doing you don't have to go through all that, I don't think, but I would certainly add new walls with substantial airspace between them and the outside walls. Some folks would fill the gap with sand...

Matt
 
i got to goto a lighting seminar where they brought in a bunch of hollywood dp's at steiner studios in brooklyn.

they have 5 huge soundstages that they rent out for movies and tv shows.

www.steinerstudios.com

they have 10 inch thick concrete walls and they had their a/c stuff installed on a neighboring building and then had the ducts made three times larger than was neccesary so the sound wouldn't make noise by pushing out through the opening as much as it normally would.

i spent about 8 hours there each day (saturday and sunday) and it was totally silent.

a couple times someone opened a door to the outside world and you would hear tons of noise but when the door would close it was silent.

they are located at the brooklyn shipyard so there is plenty of industrial stuff out there to make noise and vibrations.

taking a regular warehouse and just putting up egg crate foam probably won't do much.

matthew
 
a musician friend of mine made a suggestion that we build a new studio WITHIN our existing studio. a room within a room. initially i thought of doing it with concrete but now i'm thinking, after reading some of the links you guys provided that it could be done with 2x4's with drywall on each side and some type of insulation in the middle of the drywall sheets.

I'm wondering, suppose we made a 6'x6' trial version of this room within a room in the studio and let's say it worked. would it be foolish to assume that extrapolating the idea to a 30'x30' room within a room would therefore also work? or is there some rule of accoustics along the lines of "increasing cash expedentiture creates a corresponding decrease in the project's liklihood of success"?
 
My home studio is built as a semi-room-within-a-room. There are three rooms: Control Room, A large room, and a small room. As mentioned previously, the only thing that stops sound transmission is mass. The walls of my studio are constructed of with double layers of 5/8" sheetrock on each side, with fiberglass insulation inside the walls. The walls between rooms are double-stud walls and for doors between rooms I used 2 sets of sliding glass exterior doors. I also had to re-route the HVAC to prevent noise leakage. The walls and ceiling are designed to be freestanding, and they do not connect to the rest of the house, so prevent sound transmission in or out of the studio. It does a pretty good job, as I was in the studio when a tornado passed over the house, and I didn't know there was a storm outside until the power went out :)

Acoustic foam absorbs very little sound, mostly fairly high frequencies. If you take a room and cover it with foam, it will just sound dead and crappy. The idea is to have balanced absorption, so that all the energy is dissapated at an even rate. A much more effective and cheaper solution for dampening is using sheets of Owens Corning 703 built into a frame and hung on the wall. If you search for plans for wall absorbers you will find lots of information on how to construct them. I have about 10 of the OC 703 absorbers on the walls in various rooms and they work very well, and they are tons cheaper than Auralex or similar stuff.
 
tigeba said:
It does a pretty good job, as I was in the studio when a tornado passed over the house, and I didn't know there was a storm outside until the power went out :)

.
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That's pretty damn funny, Would've been funnier if you walked outside the studio and found the house gone! Okay maybe that wouldn't be that funny. never mind.
 
tigeba said:
As mentioned previously, the only thing that stops sound transmission is mass. f.
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okay, i thought someone here said that decoupling also stops sound?

other thing, is it MASS that stops sound? isn't mass just a measurement of size? in other words a 6' thick piece of foam wouldn't soundproof as well as 6" thick concrete right? mass has nothing to do with density does it?

I know I know, this is basic physics, but I failed algebra so I need someone to spell this out at nursery school level.
 
A common unit of mass is the kilogram, or the pound. Does that help? A concrete wall will decrease sound transmission far more than a stud wall made of wood and drywall.

Yes, decoupling helps reduce transmission, but it is not absorbing sound per se. If a speaker cabinet is thumping away, and you touch it, you are coupled to it, and this enhances transmission, because sound can travel more efficiently thru a solid than thru the air. If you remove your hand, you have "decoupled" yourself from the source.

My studio employs decoupling in that the ceiling and walls of the studio are not attched to the rest of the house, and that the walls between rooms are very lightly connected.
 
usually if you are looking to build large studio try to find old refrigerator wearhouses which have usually very massive walls .
the major problem building the second wall inside the studio is not the wall , but the celling ,the lo fq would penetrate from above ,
 
Again, I'm no expert, but just putting in a drop ceiling won't usually do the trick. Usually you have to put in another layer of sheetrock as well as leave some airspace that you would fill in with insulation. And how you suspend your ceiling also makes a difference. Some connectors conduct sound waves better than others, and are thus less desirable.

Finally, one other thing not mentioned thus far is being meticulous about filling in/taping gaps so that sound can't get thru.
 
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