Studio build help

Milk

Ive been given the living room as my studio space. id like to sound proof and acoustic treat the room. the issue is its a rented house to i cant do any construction in it. would making thick canvas pads full or rockwool and some acoustic foam stuff mounted all over the walls be sufficient.?

octatonic

No it would not.

Some things to know.
1. There is a difference between sound isolation and acoustic treatment.
One isolates the room, the other makes the room sound as good as it can.

2. Acoustic foam is mostly useless- it has a narrow frequency band that it affects and it usually makes things sound worse, not better.
What you want are large bass traps, in the corners, on the ceiling and on the walls.
You will never get a great sounding room by commercial studio standards (they need to be properly designed) but they can somewhat mitigate the undesirable boxiness of typical room characteristics.

3. Forget trying to isolate a rented place- I can go into the reasons why if you want but it simply isn't going to be practical to isolate the room unless you are prepared to spend about £20k and even then it will only be 'ok, not great'.

I've been down this road more than once- the only thing that really works for isolation is decoupling and mass.

Milk

i read that the most effective way is the ''room in a room'' unfortunatly thats not a option for me. luckily the house is a 1880s constructed house so it is concrete and stone unlike newer designed houses which are wooden framed and a lot of plasterboard. having a play with loud music not much sound travels through the house. but the bass seems to go through. im guessing the bass traps will assist that? also the door is a crappy new door and not solid so i will try find a way to add mass to the door. would i add the bass traps in all the corners as it is not a square room as it has a fire place so there is 2 alcoves either side. there is also a archway to the kitchen. i was thinking of a thick curtain to stop or at least minimise sound traveling. but its more the bass i need containing.

octatonic

Milk said:

i read that the most effective way is the ''room in a room'' unfortunatly thats not a option for me. luckily the house is a 1880s constructed house so it is concrete and stone unlike newer designed houses which are wooden framed and a lot of plasterboard. having a play with loud music not much sound travels through the house. but the bass seems to go through. im guessing the bass traps will assist that? also the door is a crappy new door and not solid so i will try find a way to add mass to the door. would i add the bass traps in all the corners as it is not a square room as it has a fire place so there is 2 alcoves either side. there is also a archway to the kitchen. i was thinking of a thick curtain to stop or at least minimise sound traveling. but its more the bass i need containing.

Curtains won't work at all and will just act as bass traps but in a frequency range that is usually not helpful.
Bass traps will not assist with sound isolation at all- they are not designed to.
They treat the room, making it sound better, because you have fewer phase issues in the bottom end when done correctly.

There is going to be little to nothing that you will be able to do about sound isolation, except for constructing a room within a room and even then it needs to be done expertly- even a pinhole negatively affects isolation- so think of all the little gaps rooms have, doorways, windows, vents and aircon.

What I did to get around it was buy a house in the countryside and then not worry about sound isolation and concentrated on treating the room as well as I could.
If you are in a rented home and share walls then focus on getting a bunch of bass traps to treat the room and keep your monitoring levels lower.

When I moved to Singapore (and away from my decent sounding room) and into a rented house for a couple of years I invested in some Kii Three monitors which feature 'active cardioid bass'- meaning that bass is focussed in a quasi-directional way.
This doesn't help sound isolation, just helps with bass management and you hear less of the room when monitoring at a decent level as the bass is effectively directional.
These monitors are hellishly expensive though- about £11k.

You won't find anything with this feature set for less though and faced with spending thousands on acoustic treatment in a rental that will be dead money then it was an easy choice for me, but maybe not something most would consider.
The other alternative really is simply keep the levels low and/or use headphones.

If you have some flexibility with where you room is then consider that anyone below you will hear much more than anyone above, especially when it comes to bass, because of how the desk/speaker stands couple to the floor to create a system.
For this reason we rented a low floor in our condo- my studio is above the gym, which is mostly empty, so I annoy fewer people.

Sorry if this seems negative but it really is the truth- you won't be able to isolate the room in any meaningful way without spending a lot of money, which doesn't make sense for a rental.

Look at GIK bass traps, which can be mounted on walls, rather than acoustic foam, which does next to nothing.

Milk

luckily we are in a end terraced house and the only house connected is empty. the room in question is downstairs too. when we are looking to get a house of our own not rented i will probably then look into a dedicated space and i agree that anything in a rental is wasted money. sorry if this was explained all your information is very helpful but a lot to take in but what is the purpose of bass traps in the corners of the room do to bass frequencies

octatonic

Milk said:

luckily we are in a end terraced house and the only house connected is empty. the room in question is downstairs too. when we are looking to get a house of our own not rented i will probably then look into a dedicated space and i agree that anything in a rental is wasted money. sorry if this was explained all your information is very helpful but a lot to take in but what is the purpose of bass traps in the corners of the room do to bass frequencies

It will take longer for me to explain and it will for you to read something like this:

https://www.gikacoustics.com/how-bass-traps-work/

but as a fast explanation where walls meet is where bass needs to be treated, the corner of a room you have two points that are 3 walls all meeting where bass can be particularly problematic.

Milk

thankyou i will read this.

Musicwolf

octatonic said:

Sorry if this seems negative but it really is the truth- you won't be able to isolate the room in any meaningful way without spending a lot of money, which doesn't make sense for a rental.

Octatonic has covered everything quite comprehensively so I will only chip in to re-emphasise the above statement and to say that 'spending a lot of money' means easily 5 figures.  Money spent on treatment (in simple terms, to 'improve the sound') is money well spent.  Money spent on sound attenuation (sound 'proofing'), if not done properly, is invariably money completely wasted.

What is your budget?  Think about spending it on quality, open backed, headphones.

Whistler

I will also concur that octatonic is providing correct advice.

Musicwolf said:

What is your budget?  Think about spending it on quality, open backed, headphones.

Perhaps we should also ask: What so you plan to do in your studio? For example, if you plan to play acoustic instruments or sing then headphones will not avoid sound travelling.