Suggestions for making a sound room

Question

Hello,
I have been an Audition user for 4 years and love this software! I mainly restore old recordings but I am looking at doing some more live recordings.
My ministry has recently been donated some money with which I what to build a sound room. it is in the middle of an appartment building. The sound room dementions are 16'L 11'W and 8'H. I can play a little with these dementions since the length wall is not yet up. Two of the walls are already existing the other two will be built. I don't need the room to be completely sound proof has the building is fairly quiet most of the time. I would just like to reduce sound into and out of the room not completely but enough to minimize unwanted noise. I have been reading a lot on sound rooms, sound proofing, reverberavtion, etc.
My main question is: I heard that a sound room should be at least 1500 cubic feet, since the walls are not yet up I was woundering if I should sacrifice the most room that I can and build a longer sound room as near to 1500 cubic feet as possible or if it really would not make that much difference.
I have attached a photo for your refference.
Any other suggestions you might have would be welcome.
Thank you!

Answer 1

Ishai18 wrote:
 I would just like to reduce sound into and out of the room not completely but enough to minimize unwanted noise. I have been reading a lot on sound rooms, sound proofing, reverberavtion, etc. 
My main question is: I heard that a sound room should be at least 1500 cubic feet, since the walls are not yet up I was woundering if I should sacrifice the most room that I can and build a longer sound room as near to 1500 cubic feet as possible or if it really would not make that much difference.
As an acoustician, I have to tell you that if the rest of the wall construction is like that partially built stud wall, you will have significant sound transmission through all of it - in both directions. You don't want to believe everything you read about how big a room should or shouldn't be - a satisfactory size depends largely on what you want to do with it, and the vast majority of rooms are compromised in this way anyway - but people still get acceptable results in them.
You do, though, appear to have fallen into the classic trap - you've started building a room primarily for acoustic purposes without consulting an acoustician at the outset - in other words, before a single stroke of work is done. Whenever anybody does that, the end result invariably costs them more, because of the amount of work that has to be torn down and redone properly. In your case I'd immediately stop right where I was with that stud wall, because the basic structure of it is just plain wrong in transmission terms.
You have two distinct problems that you need to address with this space - the first is the transmission of sound in and out (what is incorrectly referred to as 'soundproofing'), and the second is the internal treatment of the room in terms of its internal sound dispersion. These two things are only indirectly related, but without a lot more information about the second one, you can't even sensibly work on the first, because you won't have defined what is actually acceptable in terms of sound transmission in and out - it may well not be what you think.
My advice would be to engage a local acousician and get the treatment sorted properly. A lot of people claim that they haven't got the money for this, although in the long run it often saves them money - certainly in rebuild costs. The other thing you should do if you insist on organising this yourself, certainly in terms of sound transmission, is to have a good look at the UK building regs Approved Document E about this in relation to dwellings - it contains a lot of practical advice about actual construction methods to minimise it. Fortunately for you, it's a free download - here is a direct link to it. I'm not aware of another document quite like it anywhere...
Once you've got the structural parts right, the internal treatment is relatively straightforward for most of the things that people do in rooms like this. It invariably involves bass trapping in the corners, and treatment for monitor reflective paths at a bare minimum, and getting the overall reverb time to be acceptable for the applications you have in mind - whatever they are; you haven't said.