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Jam Room

Guitar Whiskey

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Aug 10, 2006
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I'm building a room to jam/practice in above my house that will be about 20' X 25' with a pitched roof about 15' tall. The floor will be built using plywood. The wall will be drywall. I'm asking for advise on what to surface the floor with for the best sound. Not planning to use for recording. So carpet, wood, tile, combinations of these, etc? What do you guys have and like the best?
 
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Texas Blues

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Apr 13, 2008
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Wood floors.

No carpet.

But I like to be liking cheapass rugs to throw down.

Like a Black Crowes concert.
 

Ed Driscoll

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Apr 24, 2002
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I have wood on my project studio's floor. You can always use an area rug to tone things down, but that's also impacted by what you have on your walls. You might want to run your room dimensions by a professional acoustician, who can always suggest ways of treating the room to reduce reflections, bass waves, etc. A pro like Gavin Haverstick isn't that expensive when used as a consultant to exchange emails or phone calls with, and can prevent some nasty surprises (both sonic-ly and fiscally). Also, companies that make pre-fab acoustic treatment such as Primacoustic and GIK have services where you can email in the dimensions of your room, and they'll recommend treatments. The green panels on the wall are GIK's diffusors, and the black towers in the corner are their bass traps.

i-phWqGWm-L.jpg


Sweetwater's Mitch Gallagher did a video on how he built his project studio, that I must have watched about 132,322 times before, during and after building my own.


Mitch also wrote a very easy to read primer on acoustics about a decade ago.

Some of this may be overkill if you don't want a DAW, outboard gear etc. But the better your room sounds, the more you'll want to rock out there. Also, his advice on soundproofing (which is very different than room acoustics) may be an issue if you have close neighbors or a spouse and want to keep the peace while cranking things to 11. :hank
 

Guitar Whiskey

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Wow. Super detail and informative from a recording standpoint. I'm just looking for an environment to play music. Got some insight though. Thanks...
 

Ed Driscoll

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Apr 24, 2002
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Wow. Super detail and informative from a recording standpoint. I'm just looking for an environment to play music. Got some insight though. Thanks...

Thanks! Good luck with it; keep us posted on how it turns out. :hank
 

Triburst

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Feb 12, 2006
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4,353
You want to take extra steps on the floor so your upstairs jams don't become downstairs jams. They're making a lot of reasonably cheap products now to help soundproof upstairs floors. Obviously, you can substitute real hardwood for the laminate, or go with carpet.

1420700199535.jpeg


Link: Soundproofing a floor (DIY Network)
 

Guitar Whiskey

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Aug 10, 2006
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2,757
You want to take extra steps on the floor so your upstairs jams don't become downstairs jams. They're making a lot of reasonably cheap products now to help soundproof upstairs floors. Obviously, you can substitute real hardwood for the laminate, or go with carpet.

Link: Soundproofing a floor (DIY Network)

Fantastic. That's exactly what I was concerned about was sound penetrating downstairs. The other thing I'm wondering about is the entry door from stairwell. I ordered the acoustics book Ed recommended. Hopefully something in there. What about windows and French doors for outside views? Going with double pane but is there something better? So I'm thinking now hard surface (wood or laminate) for floors but rugs to tone down reflections. thanks guys...
 

zacknorton

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Aug 26, 2011
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That diy example is a great drawing but is in practical terms: rubbish.

Having spent 10+ years working in an acoustic testing lab and 10+ more years designing and building isolated spaces, I can tell you that with a fair amount of confidence.

Floor isolation is possibly the most involved isolation project you can undertake. Ground floor or basement isolation scenarios are much easier as far as high sound isolation goes.

The reason the upstairs isolation is so much more difficult is that you’re dealing with not only airborne sound transmission but physical and structural borne transmissions. Vibrations from the floor throughout the entire home structure. In order to achieve any decent amount of isolation you will need to factor in some physical decoupling at some stage.

Most often this is done with iso-clips and hat channel or REselient channel to physically decouple the ceiling of the lower room from the structural joists of the flor above. There are methods to isolate upper from lower structure using vibration iso pads to physically decouple the above structure from the below.

Insulation in the joist cavities or any stud cavity etc is an absolutely KEY ingredient to any successful sound isolation project. That’s the first clue that the diy example is severely lacking. As far as underlayments go....short of flooding the above subfloor with 2” of gypcrete i would strongly recommend forgoing any “purpose” driven acoustic mats. They are the sound proofing equivalent of snake oil.

If if you’re serious about isolating the above floor, very often what is done is to install 2” of rigid fiberglass board (814 Johns mannville or 703 Owens Corning) as a layer above the sub floor . On top of that you lay 3/4” plywood then another layer of 3/4” plywood which is screwed in an over lapping fashion to the floating first layer. It would be a good idea to use a damping layer like green glue between the layers of plywood. To be clear there are a variety of ways to achieve a goal. This formula is simply an effective example and a starting point.

It is crucial that you realize that any sound isolation construction project is only as effective as it’s weakest link. Instead of “soundproofing” a floor...you need to isolate the spaces from each other . This can only effectively be accomplished by operating system wide. So your doors and windows into the isolated space and the walls will also need to be dealt with in a similarly purposeful manner.

Feel free to pm me if you have any specific questions etc.
 

corpse

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Jun 9, 2007
Messages
4,876
CBRMatt built a basement studio and it absolutely milks every last ounce of tone out of amps and guitars and speakers. He went hyper-ocd with baffles and green glue, and it is really the tits. Can't make my Deluxe sound like his because of all the crappy acoustics and absorption going on in my basement.
 
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