Building a music room. any acoustic suggwtions?

[Jim Kasperson]

This spring I will be building a 4 season music room in a section of my garage. The wife has had enough "deedle deedle deedle, tic ti tic", in her words. The room will be about 12'x16' with 9" ceilings. I am interested in creating good acoustics for my mandolin and small groups of other musicians. Do you have any experience or suggestions to share. I am interested in all surfaces, floor, ceiling and walls. Thanks
Kasper

[JEStanek]

9" ceilings might be a bit low... 9'may work better. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Others have mentioned before, don't have a ceiling fan in there, it will make things sound wonky. Have means of regulating humidity, comfy chairs and softer things on the walls to keep the echos down.

Jamie

[SternART]

Non parallel walls is a good start, and having the ceiling slant wouldn't hurt.
You can buy acoustic tile at Home Depot or other building supply places for the
ceiling. You might want to treat the walls too, too many hard surfaces will be
a bright sounding room, you might want to hang rugs, or old drapes, or something
soft, rug on the floor would be good too.....you need to find a balance between
reflective surfaces and absorptive. If you want to get fancy you could even get
some of those baffles you see in recording studios that absorb sound. I've built
a few rooms in my time & that non parallel walls idea is a good way to go.

[Santiago]

carpet floor, hang tapestry type things, but you can leave one wall bare for some liveliness.

[mandroid]

A friend built a double wall, inner wall framed in, drop ceiling inside his former garage.
2 doors , 2 windows, [more than double glazing] etc. so the Grand Piano practice cannot be heard until you actually open the outer door.

If possible raise the roof so the interior ceiling will still be at a normal height.

a very easy room to Heat stays cool too, with a foot of insulating space, as a result.

. . . . . . .

seems curtains which are movable will soften hard surfaces and be adjustable,

maybe big paintings on Black Velvet http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif

[dmamlep]

u mean like a velvet Elvis.

[Jim Kasperson]

Thanks for the input. #Jamie, you persuaded me. #I think I'll go with 9' ceilings. #And #Mandroid-- I'll be cruising the strip mall lots for that Blsck velvet..Seriously I have picked up some helpful things here. #My wife has been after me to Angle one corner so that we have better access to the stairs that lead to an upstairs storage area. #I have been fighting it #but the suggestion about an angled wall now make it sound like a good idea. #
should I tell her that I'm doing it for acoustics? #No, I'll just make the "sacrifice" for her conveniece. #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[JEStanek]

That's clever. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Good luck with the addition and enjoy it. It's nice to have your own space!

Jamie

[Barry Platnick]

Can anybody comment on heating/AC ducts

we are re-modeling our basement and I get a music room out of the deal. about 12x18 ft.

Its going to have 3 vents and one large return.

how much sound will these carry to the rest of the
house (at 4am which is often when I practice)?
thanks

[BlueMountain]

Wait! All this padding! You seem to be assuming that kasper wants to RECORD in the room. If he wants to use the room as a studio, then sure, carpeted walls and acoustic foam and all will help deaden the room. But maybe he wants an acoustical situation where an autoharp or a dulcimer can be easily heard. In that case, hard surfaces will be better. No carpets or acoustical ceiling tiles or soft stuff on the walls. I have a friend who has a music room in his walk-out basement with drywall walls and ceiling and hardwood floors. It's a pleasure to jam there, as we can hear each other.

[TonyP]

I second Blue's assessment. If I was going to record( and I like mandroid's curtains, closed for record, open to jam)then damped is better. But to just play, I like a live room. Hardwood floors, big open ceilings, even glass windows. It just depends on the room. Ever wonder why folks like to congregate in a kitchen? For me it's all the hard surfaces, tile floors etc.. They are way more live than a typical living room. I also like good tung and groove paneling instead of drywall. Had a room that was all knotty pine with tile floors, throw rugs, some drapes. It was everybody's favorite place to jam. If you start out with a live room is easy to damp it. You start out dead, and that's all you got, period.
As far a a/c vents, that has ALWAYS been a problem, for everybody. I did see a studio a guy built, and he put a separate little a/c with what I would call a baffled vent into the room. The more twists and turns with some kind of material inside the duct, the less noise transfer.
I also like the less parallel walls, the better. So a room can be bright, but not echo. Another thing to stay away from is what I think they call a vaulted ceiling. My buddy has it in his music room, and it does all kinds of weird things. Worst of which makes bass seem a lot louder, which causes problems if you are trying to mix in the room.

[steve V. johnson]

Kasper, check your email for my take on your project. #Feel free to email me with any questions.

I'm glad to learn that the ceiling height has been increased! #The previous number was pretty tough to work with... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

Acoustically, tall ceilings are good. #Less good for cleaning... #

As for the angled wall... It probably won't make a huge difference, except in how you can place folks around the room. Maybe it'll be a good place to stand instrument cases so they don't take up too much floor space.

As folks have noted, this is a playing room, not a specific recording room, and so the goal is for folks to be comfortable and
be able to hear each other without the intrusion of the worst characteristics of a shoebox room. # And, by the way, when folks
can hear each other well acoustically and are comfortable, good recordings are very easy. #In my experience, anyway...

No, deadening the room is not really the goal, tho soft materials can make a room look and feel nice and comfortable. Desks, tables, chairs, cases, people, all the usual stuff in a room absorb &/or reflect sound, and often folks like to play in kitchens and living rooms and that feels and sounds good, so we know that ordinary life can give us good-sounding rooms for playing.

When we're starting with a bare, drywall rectangle (even with the angled wall) there are things that can be done to filter out the ugly reflections, but they're not really architectural, and are often solved by the accoutrements of real life, furniture and folks in a room.

It's nice not to have a shoebox, tho. #Those are the worst sounding rooms in most of creation, but the problems they have
are simpler to address than doing the necessary math to get the angles to the optimum for audio reflections. #Don't worry
about the wall math. #Please your mate with her angle, tho, that's always a good policy! :-)

The ducting question is a good one. #Usually, if the music is acoustic (even lots of folks) and there are 90º turns
in the ducting between the music and the people who want to be away from the music, there isn't much transmission.
If there are straight runs of big rectangular ducting that go right from the music room to the bedroom... woops. :-P
But I think that might be rare, structurally speaking.

Mechanical transmissions can happen if the house framing is light and the ducts are big and fastened hard to the floor joists
without any isolating material. # If that's the case, wrapping the ductwork in fiberglas insulation strips (which will do well to
save some thermal energy for the house, too) helps, as would adding some density to the hangers &/or stuffing the space between the floor and the ducts with insulation (or old towels or t-shirts... ;-) )

For a while we had a house guest who was highly allergic to airborne particles and so, as an extra measure (we did other stuff too) we wrapped #our small ducts in some HEPA screening, so that the air coming out of the furnace/AC was filtered one last time before coming out into the rooms. #We were surprised at how much it cut down on the sound of the HVAC fan, so we
checked the whole route of the ducting and we could tell that the final filters made a great difference. #And, yeah, we did check
with the techs to make sure that there wasn't a significant increase in back-pressure on the fans/furnace/AC.

Of course, there are the simple, mechanical measures you can take: #Use electric space heaters to warm the room before your music mates get there, and then put pillows over the vents when you start to play. #Bodies provide pretty good heat once the
room is full of players. #In the summer... try the reverse, chill the room before folks arrive, and then take breaks when it heats up and crank up the coolers when the music's not on...

If the ducting is round or the rectangular metal is small, and especially if it has turns in it (other angles than 90º help, too)
it probably won't transmit very much. #Of course the folks on the other end can stack towels or furniture on the vents, too. #;-)

I hope this is useful,

stv

[Gutbucket]

Watch out for fluorescent lighting if you are using any amplification or recording devices. I was tearing my hair out trying to track down an annoying humming noise that was caused by the room lighting.

[GRW3]

If you root through the Taylor Guitar site you will find a listing of technical support sheets. Most are about guitars but there is one on setting up a music room.

[MandoBen]

A string of xmas tree lights around the perimeter #of the ceiling # http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[Jim Kasperson]

Thank you all for the thoughtful responses to my question.. Bluemountain and Tonyp are right-- I am designing this room for playing music alone and with others.. I am lucky enough to have access to another studio for recording. Steve, I really appreciate the in depth advice that you gave me, both in the poast and in the lengthy cosiderations of the pm you sent. I appreciate your offer to contact you again if I have questions when the project begins. I don't beleive that I have access to your e-mail address an the smessage that I recieved so I would apreciate it if you would e-mail me that adress. This is the first time I have started a topic here and I am very happy with the results Thanks all.