1) We're in the top floor of an old factory. The douche who lives downstairs doesn't think the soundproofing is adequate. We were told that there was a foot thick slab of concrete between the floors, but that isn't true. Now, before we get all lawlerly with the landlord, we need to know if the foot of concrete is gonna make a difference.

What we were planning to do was lay a frame down around the entire room on a layer of Sonopan, and then fill it with concrete (this is good, because that way we can have the snake pop up out of the middle of the floor along with electrical outlets and headphone amps. Convenient).

Is this gonna do anything in terms of limiting sound transmission?

2) We have four heads, four cabs, a bunch of guitars and synths. Does it make sense to hook them all into a patchbay so we can route guitar A through head B through cab C, for example, and then change that routing just by repatching? Is this gonna work?

mcatheter wrote:2) We have four heads, four cabs, a bunch of guitars and synths. Does it make sense to hook them all into a patchbay so we can route guitar A through head B through cab C, for example, and then change that routing just by repatching? Is this gonna work?

I would not say I am qualified to answer this question decisively, but I would think it'd be a little dangerous, especially if you're using tube amps. It just seems like it'd be too easy for Intern A to turn on head B without it being plugged into cab C or D by mistake. Patchbays aren't exactly fool-proof.

As for question 1), again, I am not qualified to say, but I would think it'd help a great deal. The best way to isolate sound is with pure mass. Maybe, if you wanted to go the whole nine, you could float the floor. Is that what Sonopan is? I'm not familiar with that.


Someone else help!

Also, you should check the rateing of your building and the floor. Your floor may not be strong enough to hold a slab of concrete like that, depending what it was made for. Some warehoues are rated for forklifts....some are not.

Also, I think a floated floor would be the better way. Anyone?

Concrete will help some in the sound transmission loss. Most of our ceiling area is concrete and steel (above the floated rooms) and it does prevent disturbing the folks above us. Having said that...

You should definitely have a qualified structural engineer evaluate your floors for load capacity before even thinking about pouring concrete. It's very heavy material.

Also, on the top floor of a factory suggests to me that you will need to have the concrete pumped, and that don't come cheap. You'll need access outside the building for the pump truck, which is way bigger than a regular cement mixer, and you'll also need access into the space for the boom. If you've ever seen them big mo'fo trucks they use for making highway bridges you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about here...

A solution that might make slightly more sense is installing a traditional wood block floor, like you'd find in a machine shop, then floating your studio floor above that on Auralex pucks, then building a building inside of the regular building for the areas you want to isolate. Again, you'll need a qualified person to evaluate the load capacity of the existing floor, and it's even more construction, but will likely be much more efficient isolation.

I would recommend consulting a book or a studio design website if there is such a thing.

Rodabod wrote:I would recommend consulting a book or a studio design website if there is such a thing.

and if there IS such a thing, let us know.

It's been covered in the Master Handbook of Acoustics, but he confines the subject of construction to one or two chapters, tops.

How about this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/024051 ... 5&v=glance

Lots of good stuff here.
http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewforum ... 1b04a37166

Ethan Winer's acoustic forum is an excellent source of info, although it is more focused on acoustically balancing a room than isolation:

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultimate ... /f/26.html

My studio is in an old building in the basement. I'm guessing the concrete is about 6" thick (there is a ~1.5 ft thick concrete support grid). You can still here drums on the floor above.

Of course, check out

http://johnlsayers.com/