Whether you are working in a commercial recording studio or practicing your craft in your bedroom, sound isolation is something you will quickly become familiar with.
In a professional studio, the live room (the area where the musicians are recorded) needs to keep out any sounds that shouldn’t be recorded. It’s not uncommon for a recording studio to be near a noisy road but the studio wouldn’t be very good if all the recordings it produces contain engine noise and brakes squealing.
Therefore the studio is designed in such a way as to minimise the amount of undesirable sound that enters the room.
The same principle will be important to a bedroom musician, except that they are more likely to be worried about the sound getting out. It’s nice to be able to work on your music with the speakers turned up every now and again but your neighbours won’t be very happy if you’re stopping them sleeping.
Sound travels out from the source in every direction until it is either reflected or absorbed by what it encounters. If there is nothing in the way then it will keep going until the energy in the sound waves dissipate.
It is therefore important that when aiming to minimise sound leakage in or out of a room, that there are no gaps for the sound to travel through. Open windows or doors are an obvious problem but less obvious is the gap that surrounds a closed door. Using door seals can fill these gaps. Also ensure that you look around the room for any other small holes that the sound could get through and block them with something.
The construction of the walls, floors and ceilings are all important too. Generally the denser the wall, the greater its ability to prevent sound travelling through it.
Some materials are denser than others and are therefore better at isolating the sound. Their surface density is measured in pounds per square foot or kilograms per square metre with a higher number meaning the material is denser.
Here are some examples:
From these numbers you can see that concrete is an excellent sound isolator, however, it needs to be very thick. Lead isn’t as good but it doesn’t need to be as thick to be as effective.
If you have the choice of where to place your recording studio, take a look at what materials have been used to construct the room or building you’ll be in. Of course if you’re lucky enough to build a studio from scratch, then it’s certainly worth designing it with these things in mind.
An underground concrete bunker would make a very well isolated recording studio.
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