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Any advice on studio flooring materials for a small basement recording studio?

I recently moved into a house where I can finally have a permanent studio/project space in the basement. I pulled up the carpet to find the infamous vinyl checkered 9x9 floor tiles which almost certainly contain asbestos. My original plan was to encapsulate them with a clear coat sealant. Unfortunately the carpet tack strip was heavily glued down and removal has broken bits of the tile. My new plan is to patch and level the edge where the breakage occurred, seal the floor as planned, and top with a new floor, perhaps laminate.

This space will primarily be used for recording live instruments, does anyone here have a recommendation on a floor best suited for this purpose? So far the studio construction books I am looking at mostly discuss controlling sound leakage and footfall noise. I'm not looking for a hyper-controlled or dead sounding space. I am more interested in keeping things lively with the natural ambient character of the room. The walls are thick plaster with wood panels and the ceilings are exposed wood jousts and wood subfloor. It's something like a 400 square foot L shaped room. There's a concrete and tile bathroom which is serving as a nice little added reverb mic spot.

Any advice on floors and materials would be much appreciated. I always find useful info here and am grateful for resource this forum is!

you can make a good floor out of just about any material and it will work. For years we had a pro studio and the floors were a layer of 3/4" MDF, a layer of 1/2" drywall, and a layer of 1/2" MDF, all of it sitting on a grid of 2x4's that were sitting in rubber isolation dampers. So that's likely overkill for your basement. But a layer of 3/4" MDF with outdoor porch paint will be plenty durable and very cost effective. You say the subfloor is wood under the tile, so just nail the MDF down to the sub through the tile. It will look like a painted floor. It won't be fancy. It will be functional.

djimbe wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 12:13 pm You say the subfloor is wood under the tile

I don't see that in the original post. Since this is a basement, I assume that the (asbestos) tiles are adhered directly to the concrete slab, probably with black mastic.

As long as the existing tiles aren't loose, you could cover them directly with adhesive-backed Luxury Vinyl Tile. Just clean them, apply the appropriate primer, and stick on the new tiles. This is what I plan on doing in my basement at some point. It has the same asbestos tiles, though they're 12x12. LVT will be able to handle a little bit of unevenness in the floor, unlike a floating engineered wood floor, which usually needs to level within 1/4" in a 8 ft radius or so.

Nate Dort wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 12:41 pm

djimbe wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 12:13 pm You say the subfloor is wood under the tile

I don't see that in the original post. Since this is a basement, I assume that the (asbestos) tiles are adhered directly to the concrete slab, probably with black mastic.

As long as the existing tiles aren't loose, you could cover them directly with adhesive-backed Luxury Vinyl Tile. Just clean them, apply the appropriate primer, and stick on the new tiles. This is what I plan on doing in my basement at some point. It has the same asbestos tiles, though they're 12x12. LVT will be able to handle a little bit of unevenness in the floor, unlike a floating engineered wood floor, which usually needs to level within 1/4" in a 8 ft radius or so.

Yes, the current tiles are on top of concrete slab with black mastic adhesive.

Thanks to you both for the advice on this!

djimbe wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 12:13 pm you can make a good floor out of just about any material and it will work. For years we had a pro studio and the floors were a layer of 3/4" MDF, a layer of 1/2" drywall, and a layer of 1/2" MDF, all of it sitting on a grid of 2x4's that were sitting in rubber isolation dampers. So that's likely overkill for your basement. But a layer of 3/4" MDF with outdoor porch paint will be plenty durable and very cost effective. You say the subfloor is wood under the tile, so just nail the MDF down to the sub through the tile. It will look like a painted floor. It won't be fancy. It will be functional.

JIM HOW ARE YOU, BUD!

I don't have specific advice per se but short of living in the desert, I wouldn't put down anything in a basement that couldn't handle a little seepage.

djimbe wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 12:13 pm you can make a good floor out of just about any material and it will work. For years we had a pro studio and the floors were a layer of 3/4" MDF, a layer of 1/2" drywall, and a layer of 1/2" MDF, all of it sitting on a grid of 2x4's that were sitting in rubber isolation dampers. So that's likely overkill for your basement. But a layer of 3/4" MDF with outdoor porch paint will be plenty durable and very cost effective. You say the subfloor is wood under the tile, so just nail the MDF down to the sub through the tile. It will look like a painted floor. It won't be fancy. It will be functional.

I think I remember Warmowski telling me some crazy mishap story about filling the basement with concrete or something at that place.

penningtron wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 6:45 am I don't have specific advice per se but short of living in the desert, I wouldn't put down anything in a basement that couldn't handle a little seepage.

Seconding this. MDF seems like a TERRIBLE idea for a basement floor to me. I know that there are moisture-resistant varieties, but this just seems like a disaster that will just unfold in slow motion over the years.

Is it possible to still just patch the chips on the perimeter, then paint the patches, and seal the whole thing? How bad would that look once you have amps and shelving in, and a couple rugs on the floor?

Kniferide wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 8:27 am I think I remember Warmowski telling me some crazy mishap story about filling the basement with concrete or something at that place.

The space was actually a large garage space that took up most of the first floor of a 3 flat. The floor was WAY unlevel and it was pretty clear we'd never get the kind of floor Deck was looking for without some leveling with extra concrete. It didn't go too well. I didn't see the pour but did see the aftermath. Me and Tim Hurley built the floor subframe and had to build it around this mass of concrete that didn't self level in any meaningful way. Things had to be level though, as the walls and ceiling were all built off that massive floor we assembled. If any of you were ever in Clava Studio, the crappy floor was in the live room kinda opposite the control room window and not far from the door to the amp room the SVT lived in, but you'd never know about the sins under your feet when we were done.

We just redid a bathroom and used this stuff for the floor:

https://www.menards.com/main/flooring-r ... 671&ipos=1

didn't need a super level subfloor and it all locks together and isn't anchored to the subfloor in any way. I had it installed, but it didn't look hard at all.