door decisions

[archive]

From: rafter@s...
Date: Wed Feb 28, 2001 10:43 pm
Subject: door decisions

hey all
i can't put off the decisions about doors any longer -
they need to go in this week! ha ha ha!

we've got -

1 - Double Doors into the main live room from the other side of the
building
2 - 2 iso booths with 2 doors in each opening - one in the perimiter
wall and one in the interior wall (we've got a double wall system).
3 - door into the reverb chamber
4 - doors into and out of the sound lock that leads to the control
room

that's it.
we've thought a lot about making our own doors, sand filled, etc, but
after pricing that and figuring out how much time it would take to do
it, we're thinking about using regular style solid - core doors, with
no

holes for door-handles, and routed edges that create 2 90 degree
angles
that seal, and a drop down threshold.
i've also read and heard about exterior doors for garages.....

please please -
what is the moderately cheap, sound-tastic, and completely intelligent
way to do the doors?

thanks of course,
i'm interested to hear what people have tried and how it's worked.!

rafter
singing serpent
san diego, ca

[archive]

From: perrault@i...
Date: Thu Mar 1, 2001 12:37 pm
Subject: Re: [acoustics] door decisions

>,,,,,,what is the moderately cheap, sound-tastic, and completely intelligent
>way to do the doors?,,,,,,,,,,
>rafter

Well, I think an airtight seal once the door is closed is really the
biggest part of it. You have one little crack and it's game over.<g>

A good threshold with a gasket and a dropping seal on the door itself
and high quality neoprene (1/2 inch?) aluminum seal on the frame.

I did that and used solid core doors. I think they're made out of
particle board stuff. Anyway, they work very well. Not too pricey.
I lucked out when they shipped maple veneer when I ordered paint
grade!! The guy just laughed and said, "your lucky day"!!

Try to keep your openings wide. And think about the cavity between
doors. How is that space linked to the wall system? In my room the
cavity is open to the wall system cavity via a loose EDPM strip about
six inches wide framing the opening. Inside strip between two doors
one foot apart.

DP

[archive]

From: SRF7@a...
Date: Fri Mar 2, 2001 3:04 am
Subject: Re: [acoustics] door decisions

In a message dated 2/28/01 6:28:57 PM Eastern Standard Time,
rafter@s... writes:

> please please -
> what is the moderately cheap, sound-tastic, and completely intelligent
> way to do the doors?
>
>

Home Depot sells a Stanley steel exterior door with magnetic weather
stripping that seals up pretty good for about $115 .... I'm happy with them (
I doubled them up so every passage has two doors) .... if they don't quite do
it add a few longer screws to the hinges and add a layer of 1/2" of MDF and
seal the edges with more weather stripping (surgucal tubing also works) ..
The threshold of these doors is hollow so I drilled a couple of holes and
filled them with caulk ... you could just fill them with dry wall mud and let
them dry upside down before you install them.

Good Luck

Scott R. Foster

[archive]

From: sjoerd@n...
Date: Fri Mar 2, 2001 6:31 am
Subject: Re: door decisions

10 points! Stanley doors rule! I've clad ours a bit different, on
the inside I've glued a layer of 1/8" mineral loaded vinyl, cut to fit
just inside the door frame, covered with beach veneer. This locks
onto a heavy duty draught strip, so in effect the door has 2 seals.
On the other side I glued a layer of 1/2" soundboard, again covered
with veneer. Did the same as Steve with the sill - drilled a couple
of holes and filled it with caulk, and after that covered the aluminum
sill with a redwood one. Used 2 doors for the entrance from outside
to the tracking room.
Hey Steve! You've been had!! **grin** I paid $98 per door at home
depot!
>

[archive]

From: rafter@s...
Date: Sat Mar 3, 2001 6:21 am
Subject: Re: door decisions

Fellows - thanks you 100%!

i am excited about these doors - they are cheap and sound great -
can you tell me - are they hollow? if so, do you have problems with
resonance? i'm thinking if they are hollow, i might fill them with
sand, or do the mdf thing - a door needs mass as well as a tight seal,
for sure.
thank you so much!
also - what sort of seal goes on at the bottom of the door?

thanks
rafter

[archive]

From: SRF7@a...
Date: Sat Mar 3, 2001 3:33 pm
Subject: Re: [acoustics] Re: door decisions

In a message dated 3/2/01 1:35:37 AM Eastern Standard Time,
sjoerd@n... writes:

> Hey Steve! You've been had!! **grin** I paid $98 per door at home
> depot!
> >

Yeah but you got another $15 bucks in it by the time you put hardware on it
don't cha?

By the way how did you handle the second pre drilled hole .. I installed
brass round cover plates and intend to fill the void with Great Stuff ...
what did you do?

Scott R. Foster

[archive]

From: SRF7@a...
Date: Sat Mar 3, 2001 3:42 pm
Subject: Re: [acoustics] Re: door decisions

In a message dated 3/3/01 1:22:30 AM Eastern Standard Time,
rafter@s... writes:

> Fellows - thanks you 100%!
>
> i am excited about these doors - they are cheap and sound great -
> can you tell me - are they hollow? if so, do you have problems with
> resonance? i'm thinking if they are hollow, i might fill them with
> sand, or do the mdf thing - a door needs mass as well as a tight seal,
> for sure.
> thank you so much!
> also - what sort of seal goes on at the bottom of the door?
>
> thanks
> rafter

The bottom seal is a multi-veined vinyl sweep .. it works fairly well. The
doors have an internal frame but also seem to be hollow in spots.... I
considered cutting one open to map the cavities so I could fill them, but
after hanging one I found they worked well enough without this extra step ...
YMMV.

Good Luck

Scott R. Foster

[archive]

From: rafter@s...
Date: Sun Mar 4, 2001 12:28 am
Subject: Re: door decisions

thanks so much for good responses scott -
one more question for you if that's ok about these doors -
we've got the good ole double wall, 3 layers of sheetrock on each side
(5/8, 5/8, RC, 1/2). will one of these doors in each wall be .... how
do you say - up to par with the wall construction? what is your
studios construction detail? do you know what sort of STC you're
getting between rooms? or can you just give me real life examples -
i.e. - i can't hear the drumset from 5 feet away, or "when the guitar
is cranked it bleeds pretty badly" or etc etc etc. these doors DO
sound like the best idea for me, seeing as how $ is getting tighter
for us (how about that black hole of studio spending, huh guys?).
i'd just like to be able to imagine what to expect....
thanks
one million bazillion
this is so fun!

rafter

[archive]

From: sjoerd@n...
Date: Sun Mar 4, 2001 9:46 am
Subject: Re: door decisions

--- In acoustics@y..., rafter@s... wrote:
> Fellows - thanks you 100%!
>
> i am excited about these doors - they are cheap and sound great -
> can you tell me - are they hollow? if so, do you have problems with
> resonance? i'm thinking if they are hollow, i might fill them with
> sand, or do the mdf thing - a door needs mass as well as a tight seal,
> for sure.
> thank you so much!
> also - what sort of seal goes on at the bottom of the door?
>
> thanks
> rafter

Jeez rafter!! If you fill them with sand you'll need a reinforced
concrete frame around it to hold it in place!!
Inside the doors have a timber frame, the rest is foam filled. Useless
for sound, you have to clad them with something in order to get a good
STC rating. No worries about resonance. Resonance is GOOD!! A
misunderstood thing .... resonance = absorbsion

[archive]

From: sjoerd@n...
Date: Sun Mar 4, 2001 9:53 am
Subject: Re: door decisions

--- In acoustics@y..., SRF7@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 3/2/01 1:35:37 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> sjoerd@n... writes:
>
>
> > Hey Steve! You've been had!! **grin** I paid $98 per door at home
> > depot!
> > >
>
> Yeah but you got another $15 bucks in it by the time you put
hardware on it
> don't cha?
>
> By the way how did you handle the second pre drilled hole .. I
installed
> brass round cover plates and intend to fill the void with Great
Stuff ...
> what did you do?
>
> Scott R. Foster

I covered the doors with mineral loaded vinyl and veneer, so you can't
see the holes anymore. I had just cut some rounds for wiring duct,
and the resulting "rounds" fitted nicely into the holes, with a
liberal application of caulk.
Now Scott ............... I'm really worried about your version of
Great Stuff!!!??????
sjoko

[archive]

From: SRF7@a...
Date: Sun Mar 4, 2001 4:26 pm
Subject: Re: [acoustics] Re: door decisions

In a message dated 3/3/01 7:29:25 PM Eastern Standard Time,
rafter@s... writes:

> thanks so much for good responses scott -
> one more question for you if that's ok about these doors -
> we've got the good ole double wall, 3 layers of sheetrock on each side
> (5/8, 5/8, RC, 1/2). will one of these doors in each wall be .... how
> do you say - up to par with the wall construction?

That's a nice wall design ... you should be pleased with the results ... but
that said it deserves a pretty hefy door system.

Will you be happy with a single unaltered Stanley metal door?

No probably not ... I used a "sound lock" strategy for most openings .. there
is for instance a bathroom / vocal booth between my tracking room and my
control room. This gives me two doors between the rooms .. I doubt one of
these doors would satisfy without additional mass and sealing ... you could
however can hang two doors in a single opening if your counterpose the door
swings ... I did this on my front door(s).

what is your

> studios construction detail? do you know what sort of STC you're
> getting between rooms? or can you just give me real life examples -
> i.e. - i can't hear the drumset from 5 feet away, or "when the guitar
> is cranked it bleeds pretty badly" or etc etc etc. these doors DO
> sound like the best idea for me, seeing as how $ is getting tighter
> for us (how about that black hole of studio spending, huh guys?).
> i'd just like to be able to imagine what to expect....
> thanks
> one million bazillion
> this is so fun!
>
>

My wall between tracking room and studio is groutfilled cc block ... I'd
reckon the STC is (+/-) 75 .... as I said there are two doors between the two
rooms, mounted at 90 degrees from each other in a long thin bathroom /
hallway / vocal booth which connects the two. Also the system contains
large (36" x 111") double glass panes in the wall (made from two panes of
5/8" tempered glass wall panel) and a pair of 3" conduits in the floor for
pulling snakes back and forth ... the whole system achieves about a 55/60 dB
attenuation currently. The weak link is the stuffing in the ends of the
conduits (I just have pieces of upholstery foam stuffed in the ends right
now) ... When I settle on a wiring scheme I'll effect a more perfect seal and
I reckon the overall permformance will get to about 65 to 70 dB ... suffice
to say headphone leakage to recording mics is more often of a troublesome
noise source than anything getting through the wall system.

As to a pragmatic description of the results ... when a loud drummer starts
playing, those in the control room can tell he's playing, but just barely ...
quiet conversation continues un-interupted .... tracking an acoustic guitar
in the control room while tracking loud drums in the studio is not a problem
... and until the musician gets the control room channel talkback channel
turned up in his headphones you can only communicate by hand signals. YMMV

Good Luck

Scott R. Foster

[archive]

From: sjoerd@n...
Date: Tue Mar 6, 2001 7:14 pm
Subject: Re: door decisions

Scott, rafters,

As I have another 3 doors to do, been playing around with some idea's

I'm thinking of trying this on one particular door which is in the
corner of the tracking room, leading to the kitchen / lounge. By
nature this area could (which means, will) be prone to have some low
frequency build-up. So I'm thinking in countercting this effect with
the door.

Armstrong door (the $89 one :>). On the opening side a frame of 1 1/2"
wide, 1" thick timber(has to be hard,like beach or ash), screwed into
the metal door cladding.
inside the frame 5/8" Armstrong acoustic panel, glued to the metal
door cladding. A sheet of 3/8 finished ply (finished on one side
only)glued & screwed over this.
The result should, in theory, make for a joint door / resonance
chamber, eliminating a build up of low frequencies.
The other (closing) side I will cover like my other doors, cover the
door with 1/8" mineral loaded vinyl and beach ply, set in 1/2" from
the door surround (to make space for the seal).

I've just finished the control room door and hung it, made as above
but with vinyl / veneer on both sides and an extra seal which locks
onto a frame inside the door's existing frame. Very good result, I'll
measure sometime in the future (difficult to measure - the door itself
with the 2 layers of vinyl will have a very high STC rating, the
weakness is the seal).

I wanted to get "proper" acoustic doors. As I need 4 acoustic doors,
the cost of approx $2.300 was simply stupid. For the future: I have
convinced a master carpenter friend of mine to start making studio
doors, windows and baffles to my designs. These will beat existing
products hands down, and it looks like a door will sell for just under
$1000.

comments welcome!

[archive]

From: SRF7@a...
Date: Tue Mar 6, 2001 8:53 pm
Subject: Re: [acoustics] Re: door decisions

In a message dated 3/6/01 2:15:32 PM Eastern Standard Time,
sjoerd@n... writes:

> Armstrong door (the $89 one :>). On the opening side a frame of 1 1/2"
> wide, 1" thick timber(has to be hard,like beach or ash), screwed into
> the metal door cladding.
> inside the frame 5/8" Armstrong acoustic panel, glued to the metal
> door cladding. A sheet of 3/8 finished ply (finished on one side
> only)glued & screwed over this.
> The result should, in theory, make for a joint door / resonance
> chamber, eliminating a build up of low frequencies.
> The other (closing) side I will cover like my other doors, cover the
> door with 1/8" mineral loaded vinyl and beach ply, set in 1/2" from
> the door surround (to make space for the seal).
>
>

Sounds like it'd work ... its a panel resonator hung on the back of the door.
Might want to take some measurements in the corner first so you can design
the box to ring at the right freq.s

Alternitive: buy a nice banner (Dennis Hopper on a Harely waving his middle
finger, or maybe an eagle eating a snake) and sew a back to it out of cheap
cloth ... make a giant pillow case .. stuff it with fiberglass or polyester
batting ... an overstuffed decorative quilt ... hang this on the back of the
door ... we did this with some Jimi Hendrix banners to damp the zing off the
metal doors.