iso booth

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:36 pm

Hi, I'm building a studio 2 rooms. One for recording and the other for monitoring. I want to build and Iso booth in the recording room. Should I build it like it was another room adding another wall around the booth or what should I do? thanks

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:44 pm

You should wait for Max.

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 1:57 am

Yeah, I agree with Space. I'd tell you but Max will anyways.

Code, show him your sig? Razz

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 1:26 pm

What sig?

Oh,THAT (look down now) sig!

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 2:02 pm

what are you guys talking about?

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 2:07 pm

My signature. See the bold bit, it's a link. Click it, read it, and execute the instructions within. If you don't do it now, MadMax will come along and slap it in front of you, and if he doesn't, Rod will.

If, after such times, you still haven't READ THIS STICKY AT THE TOP OF THE FORUM then Rod will not see fit to answer.

Rod being the master of acoustics who wrote a book on acoustics and is highly recommended by just about everybody.

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 3:23 pm

Ok... so I read the sticky. I live in Guatemala, in the suburbs so there's no noise in here (just the sound of birds and kids playing).

The room where I'm building the iso booth is 4 meters in depth, 2.60 m in width, and 2.50 in height. In one corner(where I plan to place the isobooth) there is a space that is outside the 4X2.60 rectangle. This space is 1.10 in depth, .6 in width and 2.30 in height.

This is a sketch of the top view of the room.

________
l _l
l l
l l
l l
l_______l

The outside walls are made out 8" concrete bricks. I plan to isolate this rooms with inside walls that will probably will be made out of wood studs and isolation material (probably fiber glass). Inside this "new" room I want to build and isolation booth (this probably will be used for recording vocals). To build this booth what should I do? should I build it the same way I'm going to build the inside walls? should I approch this differently? thanks.

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 3:40 pm

it didn't put the spaces... in my sketch ... i'll try it again... ignore the letters... the room is just the horizontal and vertical lines

__________
lAAAAAAA_l
lAAAAAAAl
lAAAAAAAl
lAAAAAAAl
lAAAAAAAl
------------

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 4:08 pm

Man, I haven't seen ascii art for freakin' YEARS!!!!

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:26 pm

OK. Great so far.
But can you click "profile" at the top of the page and put Guatemala as your location?

Try a

Code:

[code] [/code]

block.

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:32 pm

Is that anything like a
[codemonkey] [/codemonkey]
block?

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:42 pm

mwacoustic wrote:

Is that anything like a
[codemonkey] [/codemonkey]
block?

Sorry... the [/codemonkey] command don't work.

no matter how much you try it.... Confused

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:50 pm

Man CM I need that good laugh, it's been a rough week.

Oh and Dresso, eventhough your ascii art is great why not try MS paint, it's at least better than trying to use charactors as a schematic.

Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 5:28 am

Of course CM thinks I, along with others are a bit too anal about having details. However, the details are capable of having far reaching effects that a mere child would not be capable of fully comprehending.

In many states (and some country's) even casual advice given by a licensed professional engineer constitutes a legally binding obligation. As such, a licensed professional engineer could be held liable for certain advice. The laws are vague in some states, and very explicit in others.

The problem is that when you are discussing acoustics and soundproofing, it almost always involves heavy mass. Whether it's a wall, a floor or a ceiling. These mass values involve taking many structures right up to the border line of their load capacities... especially when done wrong.

So, two things can potentially happen... without the proper details, people could be killed, and people could be sued.

Which brings up a 3rd point... Why should a licensed engineer, who is highly respected in his/her field, risk their career for free?

In Rod's case, I believe its because he is indeed very passionate about wanting to see people create good, safe rooms and facilities.

If you were to call any professional engineer on the phone, you pay for a phone consultation rate. Go into the office and you will pay another rate. But you come here (or any number of forums) and you get some pretty damn good (and relatively the same exact) advice for free.

So, many posters come here with little to no understanding of what it really takes to build a studio or room. For some reason, there is a misconception that its just some foam slapped up on the walls... which is what happens in many cases, and the room still sounds like poo. So they come here seeking solid answers to their questions.

Unfortunately, a simple question usually does not have a simple answer. That's because the scope of the question is too broad to answer with any details.

If you come here expecting to get the (FREE) advice of a professional, you need to realize that if you're wanting accurate answers, you must supply enough detail to get that accurate answer.

I'm all for having fun. However, the seriousness of someone being killed because of your advice is very sobering and I would think warrant a bit more respect from some of the posters here who obviously don't have a thorough understanding of the gravity of the situation.

If you don't like Rod's policy, then bail out and stop stirring crap up. If you don't like the fact that I post Rod's sticky, to help folks realize what I've just said above.... tough shit.... Put on your big girl panties and deal with it or again, get out of the forum.

dresso,

If I'm understanding your question and "drawing" correctly, you want this to be a one room studio and you are hoping to use the "bump out corner" as an isolation booth. Is this correct?

If it is, my guess is that the closet sized corner is going to be a bit too small to use as an iso booth as is. You may want to consider adding to that space so that it's a bit bigger... Or you might think about using the corner as a bass trap/equipment area.

Do you have a budget?

What kind of music will you be doing??

How loud will it be in there?

I remember when I was looking at using an existing building to build a studio in. By the time I got done with building a room within a room wall structure, (I had neighbors very close), I would have had an area that only one person could barely stand in. They wouldn't have had the room to sit down in a chair.

My point is that your decision to build Room within a Room will eat up a lot of floor space... A LOT more than you would think.

I have no idea about material availability in your country, so for that advice, it will take the knowledge of someone who has either worked in your country or is a fellow countryman. However, in small rooms, the one thing you will need to plan on is bass trapping. That's because small rooms have excessive bass build up... primarily in the corners of the room.

Rigid insulation such as Owens Corning 703 and Roxul are products commonly used for this bass trapping - that have known properties. There is generic mineral wool that can be used, but as to it being a specifically known/tested material... it just isn't. It might be fine, or it might not. I don't feel I'm qualified to make that call. But, if it's all you can get, it's what you can get and you'll have to make do with it.

Another thing to consider/watch out for is what is known as triple leaf assemblies. I would suggest looking up Mass-Air-Mass (MAM) assemblies and principles.

The condensed version is that if you want/need to build room within a room, you will need to remove the gypsum from the inside of the room and have the two walls face the open stud walls to each other from the inside void.

If you can supply a bit more detail as to your existing structure's construction... even a photo or two, it would go a long way towards getting you an accurate solution to suit your needs.

Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 8:26 am

And that is why waiting for Max is a good thing.

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