VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[HeatherMasters]

Due to the fact that I have an airstrip in my neighborhood and my first live directed session left me begging God not to let a plane take off for ten freaking minutes, I have decided that a soundproofing upgrade is a must. Going to do insulation, green glue and drywall for the walls, but am stumped about the ceiling. Have looked through some ceiling threads here, but am wondering, is there a way to add a decoupled ceiling to my booth without tearing out the existing ceiling? I built my booth with four walls which go all the way to the existing ceiling, but I'm short so there's plenty of headroom. The booth is made so that it can come apart and be taken down easily, and I'd rather not permanently alter the room. Could I just potentially screw in joists to my existing wall studs in my booth, fill them in with insulation, and then add the new decoupled ceiling? Since most of my sound frequencies are low, it seems like this would give me the space to add as much mass as I need, or am I missing something?
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Heather

www.heathermastersvo.com

[Lee Gordon]

[vkuehn]

The acoustics of small, small recording spaces is often guided by this strange mixture of "what appears to be science" mixed liberally with "what appears to be voodoo acoustics religion".

Consider doing to the ceiling what you are proposing to do to your walls. Slather on a layer of Green Glue followed by a fresh layer of drywall below that. You would probably need some kind of mechanical fasteners to help hold the layer of drywall in place.... not depending totally on the Green Glue to hold the new ceiling layer in place.

You are dealing with the same "logic gap" that I am wrestling with in the thread where I asked about a layer of something to make the floor more soundproof. I have no scientific evidence that sound will be coming up from my floor, and you probably have no measured scientific evidence that enough of the airplane sound is coming through the ceiling to worry about it.

How much of the airplane noise is coming through the wallls, and how much is coming through your ceiling? Would it be practical to do the construction of adding a layer to the walls and then stop construction and go back to recording to see if that has given the amount of improvement you need, and then tackle the ceiling construction ONLY if still needed..... or does construction do disrupt your recording life that you feel you MUST do it all in one step while things are torn up?

Then consider this "escape hatch" in case the layer of Green Glue and the added layer of drywall do not adequately reduce the noise: You haven't told us how large your room is. You may not need "joists" in order to create a floating, isolated ceiling. Lay some 2x4 or 2x6 material on it side, or rip the 2x4s into 2x2 and below the layer of Green Glue and drywall, create the shallow frame that would be suspended below the existing ceiling by an inch or less, and construct a truly FLOATING ceiling capped with another layer of drywall material.

Since I asked questions about isolating a floor, and some questioned how I would know if the floor was even a problem, I am working on a system to measure and compare the amount of noise that comes through each surface of a room. In involves a thin square of craft-wood on which I am mounting a "Contact Microphone" and the square will be placed on each wall, the ceiling and the floor with masking tape one after the other and comparing the noise levels of each surface. It may be a waste of time, but it could also be GOLDEN. Since I won't occupy the new location for a few weeks I won't have results to share before you tackle your project. (Not that my room would have the same results your room would, but at least I could share whether it is worth the time and trouble to use the concept.)

[HeatherMasters]

Thanks guys. I spoke with my husband and I guess it should be pretty easy to just chop the existing walls and add the ceiling to that.

[JohnV]

at he risk of becoming redundant... the GERVAIS book on practical home modification construction and EXPLANATION is incontrovertibly perfect as the bible. You MUST A)- aquire it... and B) - read and digest it... if you wish to save money/time/effort as to doing what mkes sense for your particular issue...

[vkuehn]

[JohnV]

The whole benefit of green glue is isolation. You really don;t want to destroy all that work and expense by running screws through the new wall surface right back into the studs you are trying to isolate from! I wasn;t clear about wether this is a separate booth-in-a-room or actually a booth/room built into the house like any other room/closet (only better!) .
My thought would be, if the ceiling is attached to overhead joists, to go ahead and lower the wall tops a bit (good advice) and remove the existing ceiling so the new ceiling base is safely mounted right to the joists, apply RSC channels overhead to the joists bottoms to isolate the new ceiling, maybe using foam strips on teh channels and a masonite(or drywall)/greenglue/drywall sandwich up there, making sure all screws go into the channel and NOT into joists.
I have pix for this sort of thing but don;t know about rules and how to post pix here...
The counsel to figure out ACTUALLY where the sound is getting in is real! That's a tough one as conduction could be happening from anywhere and transmitted along a stud to seemingly somewhere else.

[JohnV]

"There is ALWAYS more than one way to skin a cat.
But no matter how you choose to do it,
The cat ain't gonna like it! "

Great one, worthy of Mr Heinlein!

[Monk]

I second Gervais book. It can save you a lot of $$ and wasted energy.

for airplane noise, it can depend on what kind of air traffic. A small GA airport has a lot of piston powered planes, with low frequency thump. A larger commercial airport is dealing with higher frequency dialed in with a lot more amplitude depending on how close to the runway you are. (Commercial air traffic climbs out a lot faster than GA)

There are iso hangers https://acousticalsolutions.com/product/mason-industries-isolation-hanger/ that can help de-couple a ceiling from the joists/rafters.

But this is all getting very specific without knowing the level of reduction needed. Noise gets in through cracks, vibration in walls and ceilings and big gaps like doors. How much mass you need to quiet a jet engine depends on how close that engine is.

I'm not a fan of booths, but one may be called for.

Monk
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Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me...

www.monksvoice.com

[DenaliDave]

I vote Dynamat and non-expanding spray foam for mass loading.

People use Dynamat to cut out road and engine noise in cars. Never understood why people don't use it for studio applications.
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"The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve." - Buddha
www.alaskamic.com

[Monk]

dynamat is expensive, I can barely afford it for my car!


_________________
Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me...

www.monksvoice.com

[DenaliDave]

This stuff is a clone of Dynamat and cheaper:

http://www.b-quiet.com/



Looks like you can get 50 sq. ft of the best stuff for $119,

Also, non-expanding spray foam works well too for nooks and crannies. People also have used it to deaden hollow core interior doors...this stuff:


_________________
"The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve." - Buddha
www.alaskamic.com

[HeatherMasters]

Thanks so much guys. This is great info, and I will be looking into all of it. The air traffic is mostly small private planes like supercubs and cessnas, but there is occasional noise from the airport with big planes. My sound right now is actually pretty good, and if I use my RX4 I can usually filter out most of it in post, but I'd really like to feel more confident in live directed sessions, so I'm hoping I won't have to go to extreme lengths to make the improvements I need. I am definitely taking it one improvement at a time, starting with the least expensive, so we'll see how far I need to go.
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Heather

www.heathermastersvo.com

[Monk]

Ya, with Cubs and Pipers your dealing with engines with big pistons and not much in the way of mufflers. That's a lot of low end energy, so mass is your friend, to keep walls and ceilings from passing the vibration through.
_________________
Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me...

www.monksvoice.com