Preparing a Room for Use as a Recording Studio

A Three Part Series

By Jai Hutcherson



Part One - Sound Properties: Explained in a way you can understand!

Most people think about “sound proofing” a room when considering it’s use as a recording studio. Trying to “sound proof” an existing room is almost impossible. A room must literally be designed and built from ground up to be “sound proof.” The floor a room sits on that connects to other rooms in a building must be “floated,” or separated from the others, the ceiling joists or supports must be isolated or separated from the others, and the walls that connect adjoining rooms must be isolated from the rest of the building to truly “sound proof” a room for recording. However, thinking a room needs to be “sound proof” to make it a recording studio is simply untrue.

There are hundreds of recording studios that are built without “sound proofing” in mind. Recording studios are designed to accurately represent the music or sound being played through the speakers in as flat a manor that is possible through out the entire audio frequency range. To better understand this statement think about it this way: If sound is being played in a room that makes it seem like it has too much low end, then the engineer will want to turn down the lows of the sound being played. If the engineer creates a CD of the sound after changes are made to the low end and then taken to another room that is “more accurate” or flat across the frequency range, then the music will sound like it does not have enough low end. Why? Because the room that was not treated correctly represented the music as having too much low end so the engineer turned down the low end to correct for an incorrect room. This is bad. This leads to music mixed or recorded in a one room to never sound the same when listened to in another room. For this reason, studio designers first consider room acoustics before thinking about “sound proofing.”

A recording studio that is being designed to be located in an apartment building, strip mall, or other areas that have close neighbors would need to be designed to minimize the amount of sound going beyond the walls. But even in these situations, “sound proofing” is not needed. The most extreme or loudest sound coming from a recording studio is drums. In this situation only a drum booth needs to be isolated from the rest of the building to stop sound from going through the walls and into other areas of the building. Loud guitars, vocals, and pianos/keyboards can all be controlled through isolation and room acoustic treatment for far less money than trying to “sound proof” an entire room or building.

When it is necessary to place a recording studio in a space that has adjoining neighbors it is important to understand how sound travels to these locations. Most people think sound travels through the air and through walls directly into other spaces. While sound does travel this way, this is typically not the sound that bothers people in adjoining rooms to a recording studio. Sound travels through vibrations in the floor, ceiling joists, and walls. Sound is energy. Once it leaves the speakers and hits a floor, wall, or stud in the ceiling it transforms into another type of energy and travels through these objects as vibrations. These vibrations can travel very far and once they leave the object they are traveling in, and are transformed back to sound energy, they can be as loud as the originally sound in the room containing the speakers the sound originated from. (This is a very simple explanation. To go into the science and actual terms, conditions, and energy property science would take more space, brain power, and understanding then could be printed in this article!)

Let’s break it down further. Think about a train. If you live within a mile of a train track you hear a train every time it travels past your house. But how can you possibly hear a train over a mile away? If you are only hearing the sound traveling in the air and you are a mile away, then think how loud that sound would have to be if you were only a block away. It would be deafening. Each time a train went down the tracks it would leave hundreds of people with serious ear injuries in its wake. But trains leave no ear injuries to folks sitting in cars waiting at crossing guards within 20 feet of a passing train everyday. It does not make sense unless you consider that sound transforms to another type of energy that allows it to travel great distances, as vibrations, that can then be transformed back to original sound energy heard in the air. Now, when you are in your house, no tv on and trying to read a book, a train passes within a mile, and you hear the train rumble by. In fact, you can feel the train rumble. This is the vibrations that carry the sound to your quiet living room where you are trying to read your favorite novel. These vibrations are carried through the ground. The train is actually vibrating the ground carrying the sound energy to every place it vibrates. In most cases you will not hear the high end of the train. This is because high frequency sound energy looses energy much faster than low frequency sound energy. It will not travel as far as low sound energy. But If you lived within an eighth mile of the train tracks you would still hear the squeaks of the wheels moving over the tracks.

Think about the concrete floor your recording studio sits on. It is just as solid as the ground the train tracks lay upon. When sound enters the floor and transforms to energy that vibrates, the sound can be felt and heard in anyplace the floor exists. Now think about the joists that are located in an apartment building. These joists are not only over a single apartment. They travel through out the entire building. Once sound hits the joists and is transformed into energy that creates them to vibrate, that sound can travel through out the entire building and be heard anywhere the joists exist. One more, think about the walls in the room you want to place your recording studio. The sheet rock is nailed to the wood stud and to the wood stud is nailed to the concrete slab and to the ceiling joists. Any sound that is converted to energy that allows the wall to vibrate will be transfered to the concrete slab, ceiling joists, and to the next room on the other side of your wall by means of energy and will be heard anywhere these things exist. Basically, sound travels through solid contact of solid objects through vibrations created by sound energy.

If you understand that sound travels through solid objects and can be transfered to any other object through solid contact, as energy, than you can begin to understand what you will need to treat to stop sound from going to your neighbors without trying to figure out how you are going to “sound proof” an entire room. Understanding how sound travels means you will be able to stop your neighbors from complaining. Understanding how sound travels means you will be able to isolate a drummer from a singer that are performing in the same room at the same time. And understanding how sound travels means you will be able to place your recording studio where you want without fear of the city, police, or neighbors complaining that you are in violation of the cities sound ordinances.

In the next section we will discuss what you need to consider when planning your recording studio, what you will need to build or treat to minimize sound from going beyond your studio walls, and what tools/material you will need to have on hand to do the work required.

Part Two - Preparing a Room to Be Used as a Recording Studio

Good Luck!
Peace,
Jai
“Love the Music in Yourself, Not Yourself in the Music.”