Basement Room Project

Sadly, long gone. But replaced by a 2009 WL

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Sorry, OP, didn't mean to derail. Working up a room of your own is fun stuff!
Holy chit son……………….I must say no more……..
 
So, as promised, this is my basement studio. It’s a single room, 33x14 with a four foot deep nook in back. The workstation is in the front, the recording area with amps in the back. There’s also a storage room for odds and ends, mic stands, etc.

Workstation:

w5yBVuG.jpg


Recording area:

321xkd1.jpg
 
Wowza, that's impressive!

I call it Studio Craptastic.

The best thing about it is the acoustic treatment by RealTraps. While acoustic foam has its place to control high frequency reflections, it doesn't do anything for bass frequencies, so mixes won't be accurate without good bass traps. These are limp mass membrane traps, and they work. But I needed a lot of them to control bass buildup in the room.

They also act as diffusers, to the degree I need diffusers. If I recorded drums here, I'd get quadratic diffusers, but they're not necessary for the work I do.

The room sounds good; the sound of the room is super-important in my work. I also stuffed the ceiling with additional insulation to deaden the sound that comes through.

However, the room isn't soundproof. That would require construction of a 'room within a room' and isn't necessary here, since no one complains about noise.

The second best thing? The rug. I like the rug, and just put it in over the holiday season. I had a different rug before, this one's bigger. Yes, I'm a Pottery Barn addict! I need a 12-step program.

Hence, craptastic! :p
 
Les, there’s nothing Craptastic about that! Is that Boogie on the right a Lone Star, or a LSS? What’s the Boogie on the far left?
Thanks,
Brad


I call it Studio Craptastic.

The best thing about it is the acoustic treatment by RealTraps. While acoustic foam has its place to control high frequency reflections, it doesn't do anything for bass frequencies, so mixes won't be accurate without good bass traps. These are limp mass membrane traps, and they work. But I needed a lot of them to control bass buildup in the room.

They also act as diffusers, to the degree I need diffusers. If I recorded drums here, I'd get quadratic diffusers, but they're not necessary for the work I do.

The room sounds good; the sound of the room is super-important in my work. I also stuffed the ceiling with additional insulation to deaden the sound that comes through.

However, the room isn't soundproof. That would require construction of a 'room within a room' and isn't necessary here, since no one complains about noise.

The second best thing? The rug. I like the rug, and just put it in over the holiday season. I had a different rug before, this one's bigger. Yes, I'm a Pottery Barn addict! I need a 12-step program.

Hence, craptastic! :p
 
So, as promised, this is my basement studio. It’s a single room, 33x14 with a four foot deep nook in back. The workstation is in the front, the recording area with amps in the back. There’s also a storage room for odds and ends, mic stands, etc.

Workstation:

w5yBVuG.jpg


Recording area:

321xkd1.jpg
Impressive
 
Woof, talk about "pales in comparison"! I'll likely never develop anything like what you guys show.
Yeah, there's a head/cab likely in my future, time will tell (and my wallet haha). Size and weight are definitely factors for me going forward. Still much prefer just summer days/evenings out on the deck or out by the firepit with a small amp and the e-acoustic. That's what tipped me toward the Hollowbody versus another solid. If I really want loud, I can stay inside and not get too many complaints from the neighbors.
 
Les, there’s nothing Craptastic about that! Is that Boogie on the right a Lone Star, or a LSS? What’s the Boogie on the far left?
Thanks,
Brad

The Boogie on the right is a Lone Star 100 W. The one on the left is the Fillmore 50 W. I special-ordered them covered in real leather, because WTF, why not?

Anyway, that's why they're difficult to identify.
 
Not to resurrect an old conversation, but my basement/place my wife fears to tread is unfinished. Anyone have any thoughts on the right insulation to run in between the ceiling joists to best create a sound buffer?

Thanks
 
Not to resurrect an old conversation, but my basement/place my wife fears to tread is unfinished. Anyone have any thoughts on the right insulation to run in between the ceiling joists to best create a sound buffer?

Thanks

I used a sandwich of solid insulation board, in between the joists and then acoustic plasterboard over the top in my outdoor music room.

But @DougUSMC is your man for this project.
 
Not to resurrect an old conversation, but my basement/place my wife fears to tread is unfinished. Anyone have any thoughts on the right insulation to run in between the ceiling joists to best create a sound buffer?

Thanks
My entire basement is insulated with R40 fiberglass batts between the TJ's with textured drywall over it. My room has the foam acoustic panels on three walls, but not a whole lot of coverage. If I get silly with the amps/volume it will resonate upstairs in the den some directly above, but not ridiculously so. I don't need to get into ear bleeding range because of the size of the room anyway.
 
Not to resurrect an old conversation, but my basement/place my wife fears to tread is unfinished. Anyone have any thoughts on the right insulation to run in between the ceiling joists to best create a sound buffer?

Thanks
Yes.

Insulation between the ceiling joists works best in the room itself as a sound absorber for mid and high frequency reflections, or, if dense enough, lower frequencies, but only if there's fabric to allow sound to pass through for the ceiling insulation to absorb.

Good for your recording room, however, that does very little for the rest of the house. You won't solve much, if anything with insulation. Maybe a couple of db.

If, however, you want minimum transmission into the rest of the house, you're better off with an air pocket and double-thickness drywall, separated from the joists themselves with vibration absorbing rubber mounts, such as the ones available from ASC. Plan on float-mounting a floor as well, and isolating the walls with the same rubber mounts.

There's no real way around this. It's purely physics.

You want to prevent the upstairs floor, and the frame of the house, from vibrating and transmitting sound. That takes mass and isolation.

The structure-borne vibrations are the worst culprit, and need to be isolated. That is, the pressure on the ceiling, walls, floor, etc., that vibrates the rest of the house needs to be controlled. Soundproofing is based mostly on mass and isolation, not absorption behind ceiling panels or drywall. Air is an effective barrier, provided there is enough mass in the noisy room, plus isolation.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.

There's a lot of information in the F. Alton Everest handbook on acoustics. Trust me, you'll be depressed once you read it, unless you plan on spending a lot of money.

Incidentally, foam does nothing for lower frequencies, and those frequencies are the thing that vibrates walls, floor and ceiling, and creates the boom-boom-boom you hear when someone upstairs is listening to music at high volume.

On the cheap, you can reduce the amount of bass transmitted to the structure with something like the isolation platforms like the Gramma 2 offered by companies like Auralex, but they will only reduce structure-borne vibration, not eliminate it.

This is my 32 years of experience in the studio business talking. True soundproofing isn't only an art, it's a very, very expensive art. ;)
 
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I used a sandwich of solid insulation board, in between the joists and then acoustic plasterboard over the top in my outdoor music room.

But @DougUSMC is your man for this project.
Hey Alnus, thanks for the callout.

I think (as always) Les made some really great comments and covered much of what I'd say. I'll try to make a bulletized list of what I'd say needs to be considered, so you can try to research real numbers to go w/his thoughts:
- Insulate all walls and ceiling. This is the easiest but least impactful. IMO it deadens footsteps from upstairs, and maybe cuts a couple of DB
- Hang a ceiling as Les described, keeping it separated from the floor joists above, and disconnected from the side walls (which are attached to the slab). This is serious work and cost, but has a LOT of impact.
- DD+GG: This stands for double drywall plus green glue. Two layers of drywall start giving you mass, green glue adds more reduction between them
- Additional mass between the layers. I've seen heavy rubber sheeting, horse mats, and other things used to add mass
- Dead vents and HVAC routing: This keeps the sound from just ignoring all of the above and traveling up the HVAC vent
- "Room in a room": This means that there's a wall that separates the room from the rest of the basement (like normal) AND you build another box of the room inside that. Add an air gap between the two, DD+GG, (or even better) clips and channels. Clips and channels separate the DD+GG from the walls similar to the "hang a ceiling" above.
- Floating floor: There are multiple ways to do this, from cutting the concrete, to building a raised floor
- Putty, etc: Once you build the perfect box, you want to avoid cutting holes for lights, outlets, etc. Putty is something that's used on the inside of the wall when you *have* to make perforations in your perfect box.

This is all just talk about construction. Once you decide on which route you want to take ther, we can start talking about things like "no parallel walls, room modes, standing waves, etc". :D

IMO, decide on what's important. Is it to keep noise in? Is it to keep noise out? (Two different things) Is it to optimize listening (like for a studio/mixing room)? It's possible to do all of those, but it's cheaper to focus on one.
 
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