Control Room Advice

[Hogleg]

I'm in the process of building a control room adjacent to my live room in my house. I've created an opening to look into the live room and my question is- should I use 2 pieces of glass, how thick, how far apart should the 2 pieces of glass be, etc..
I used resilient channel, 2 layers of drywall and that nasty rockwool insulation which has done extremely well for soundproofing.

Drew

[soundsurfr]

Originally posted by Hogleg:
I'm in the process of building a control room adjacent to my live room in my house. I've created an opening to look into the live room and my question is- should I use 2 pieces of glass, how thick, how far apart should the 2 pieces of glass be, etc..
I used resilient channel, 2 layers of drywall and that nasty rockwool insulation which has done extremely well for soundproofing.

Drew

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I had a similar setup to yours. I used two sheets of 1/4 inch thick glass, which worked rather well. I mounted the glass in channels which were pre-loaded with adhesive-backed strip foam insulation (the kind you buy from Home Depot to put around windows that are leaky). I mounted one pane at a slight angle, with the bottom angled inward. Contrary to popular belief, this does not improve sonic insulation, but is done to cut down on glare between the two panes. You have to do a little math (Pythagorean theorem) to get the proper size for the angled pane.

What will cut down quite a bit on your sound propagation between the panes is if you use two different thicknesses of glass - say 1/4 and 5/8. That's because each of the two panes will have different resonant frequencies. If they both resonate at the same frequency, when one vibrates it will tend to set the other in motion, effectively making your window a small speaker. It helps to use different thicknesses of sheet rock on both sides of the wall also, for the same reason. I used 1/2 inch sheet rock on one side and 5/8 on the other. You also don't want the space between the two window panes to be totally airtight, because the vibration of one pane will cause pressure on the other pane, increasing sound transmission.

Another consideration is to make sure that there is an easy way to remove at least one side of the glass to clean periodically between the panes. I used wood molding that was screwed in, and unscrewed it to remove the pane. I don't understand how anything got in there, but every few months there would be dust and an occasional dead bug in between the panes.

Good luck. E-mail me if you have any questions.

[Hogleg]

Great advice soundsurfr, thanks. Not really liking the starving artist thang I got into construction after dropping out of college so I can do just about anything my self. I learned about resilient channel working in tv studios in Atlanta as well as drywall. I can't say enough how effective this combo is in reducing sound.Metal studs are better than wood also. My live room is pretty wild.After I finished it I wanted a warehouse kind of vibe so my wife (who's quite an artist) took a piece of vinyl flooring and made a template to resemble a brick pattern. Then she pinned it to the wall and slapped sheetrock mud on it going all the way around the room.She faux painted the mud a red brick color then painted in the "grout lines". Very,very cool. People can't believe it's not real brick. If anyone is interested maybe I'll post some pics on the space that DaBasstard has graciously given me.(I'm still working on getting new stuff posted Brian) Oh well, enough rambling--back to working on my control room!

Drew

[riesesdad_atwork]

Hi Drew, I'm in the process of building my little studio in my basement, and I would be interested in seeing your room so far. I'm trying to get as many ideas as I can ( before I get too far).

Thanks, Rob

I just finished running all of my electrical cable last night, whoo hoo!

[Hogleg]

I took some pics but I can't login to Dabasstard's server to upload. I think he was having problems here recently, hard drive crash or something.

[Zoolander]

Hey, I just finished building my project studio. I used this web page for some ideas.
www.muse-usa.com/peatures.shtml

Hope this helps!

[riesesdad_atwork]

I will look forward to seeing the pictures whenever you manage to get them up. In the mean time there is a wealth of information at this website also...

http://www.studiocovers.com/articles15.htm

Rob