Sound insulation..........

[R.O.S.S.I]

Just a general query this, been speccing up some equipment for a youth project i've been working with at the moment to upgrade/update their studios.

Now i'm fine as far as hardware for the PC's and audio hardware etc, but its the sound proofing and insualtion of the rooms which is a bit of a problem to me.

There are currently Wooden beams running down the walls and it all looks a bit dated and bare at the moment, not to mention there are some bare stone walls on show too.

I was thinking of getting some plasterboard and boarding over the wooden beams and filling the cavity with some form of insulation to help with heat and sound, then lining over the plasterboard and papering it to just make it look a lot a bit tidier.

Will the normal insualtion you get from B&Q be good enough to help with the heat and sound in the room? Or is there a more specialised type which would be more useful in a studio environment?

 

[Dr.EM]

Are you trying to soundproof the room, as to stop sound leaving or entering the room from outside? To do this effectively, you either need a lot of mass or decoupling (as in a room suspended inside a room).

You'll get some degree of attenuation of higher frequencies with fibreglass insulation, but thumps or traffic noise from outside, or bass drums etc from in the studio will leak through quite strongly.

The other aspect in treating a room acoustically is reverberations and standing waves inside. These are readily controlled with studio foam and bass traps respectively; sometimes diffusers can be incorporated too.

I don't know exactly what setup you have or how much you are allowed to do with it, but for instance, filling that cavity between the the beams and the plasterboard with something heavy like concrete or sand would have more effect in terms of sound insulation than fibreglass insulation. Once you've tidied up and finished off the room, you can consider some acoustic treatments:

http://www.studiospares.com/Acoustics/icat/shoacoustics

 

[anything I don't mind]

just put some rockwool behind some plaster board should do it. leave gaps if you can. so you will have wall, a gap, some rockwool then some board.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

Are you trying to soundproof the room, as to stop sound leaving or entering the room from outside? To do this effectively, you either need a lot of mass or decoupling (as in a room suspended inside a room).

You'll get some degree of attenuation of higher frequencies with fibreglass insulation, but thumps or traffic noise from outside, or bass drums etc from in the studio will leak through quite strongly.

The other aspect in treating a room acoustically is reverberations and standing waves inside. These are readily controlled with studio foam and bass traps respectively; sometimes diffusers can be incorporated too.

I don't know exactly what setup you have or how much you are allowed to do with it, but for instance, filling that cavity between the the beams and the plasterboard with something heavy like concrete or sand would have more effect in terms of sound insulation than fibreglass insulation. Once you've tidied up and finished off the room, you can consider some acoustic treatments:

http://www.studiospares.com/Acoustics/icat/shoacoustics

Thanks mate, some good info there.

The insulation needs to be in terms of heat and sound as its the top floor of an old mill which is cold. The rooms have all been constructed out of wood, so I guess they are like self contained rooms built inside the big open space.

We have thought of making our own bass traps etc when the room is done hanging them on the wall.

Probably the best we can do is plasterboard up the walls and fill the cavity with some form of insulation. Probably attach some beams to the stone walls and plasterboard over that too and fill with insulation so that there are no more bare walls showing.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that it doesnt have a properly sealed door, which I know is one of the big problems when coming to insulate the room properly. It's got like a large industrial metal door on rollers which you slide back to get into it. So I think this probably needs to be addressed getting a proper sealed entrance way installed.

 

[Dr.EM]

Ok, I think in that case it might be worthwhile to search out a higher density insulation, you can get some made from shredded paper which is supposed to be effective and I imagine quite heavy compared to fibreglass.

I also believe you can obtain a higher density plasterboard designed with acoustic isolation in mind. If it can't be found, mabye just use thick MDF behind the plasterboard (if that is ok by building regs, I don't know), it will add some mass and bonding two different materials together is good for creating sound barriers. Beams as you've suggested should also help, though I think they'll be lighter and there may be gaps between them.

Sounds like the door itself might be quite good, but the sliding mechanism lets it down. It might be as simple as adding some adhesive weather sealing strip/gasket to problem areas, but I can't be sure without seeing it. Otherwise, a double door is an effective solution, though takes up some space and there may be fire safety concerns.


Just in response to other posts, a gap can be useful but is only really effective if sealed very well (as per the gap between glazes in a double glazed window). Egg boxes have a marginal effect as a sound diffuser at high frequencies and less as a sound absorber at very high frequencies.

 

[john_s]

I also believe you can obtain a higher density plasterboard designed with acoustic isolation in mind. If it can't be found, mabye just use thick MDF behind the plasterboard (if that is ok by building regs, I don't know), it will add some mass and bonding two different materials together is good for creating sound barriers. Beams as you've suggested should also help, though I think they'll be lighter and there may be gaps between them.

Yes, you can get plasterboard for acoustic attenuation. Have a look in the plasterboard section of the British Gypsum website. If the local builders merchants don't stock it, they'll be able to order it in.

The company I work for built a hotel extension on a conference centre. We had to get a design carried out to ensure acoustic separation between the hotel rooms. I forget the exact spec, but it involved two different types of plasterboard, which had to be positioned so the joints didn't line up, and isolating the studwork for the walls from the structure with foam to stop sound travelling. I think it included rockwool (or similar) within the walls too.

 

[Maccy]

Rockwool is very cheap and works brilliantly, and is readily available from places like Wickes. Definitely recommend this.

 

[I get around]

Egg boxes/cups, lots of them.

*Facepalm*
Infact
*Double faceplam*

Building a room in a room is the best way on a lower budget to isolate that room, stop it annoying everyone else in the building, stop external sounds ruining your recording. Thats what most of the studios I've recorded in have done.
Apparently it's something to do with the air gap.

 

[Dr.EM]

The room inside the room will be joined by a springy substrate at the floor at least. It is hard for vibrational energy to travel between different mediums, ie, from a solid structure, through a soft/springy one (and air) and into another solid structure. That is key, and it does work well, the studio at my college was built this way.

Acoustic energy is stopped quite readily by sufficient mass and absorbent material. The vibrational and acoustic energy are one of the same really, but at low frequncies acoustic energy is transmitted more readily through structures; there is far more energy at low frequencies and low frequencies tend to excite the resonant frequencies of large structures as well.

 

[Evil-I]

One other thing I forgot to mention is that it doesnt have a properly sealed door, which I know is one of the big problems when coming to insulate the room properly. It's got like a large industrial metal door on rollers which you slide back to get into it. So I think this probably needs to be addressed getting a proper sealed entrance way installed.

A fairly common door sound proofing solution is to use a pair of double glazed patio doors. Quite often used in post production sound studios and edit facilities as they can be fitted in a relatively small space.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

A fairly common door sound proofing solution is to use a pair of double glazed patio doors. Quite often used in post production sound studios and edit facilities as they can be fitted in a relatively small space.

Yes thats what I had in mind, some sort of UPVC set of doors.