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Treating Floor in New Construction - Reducing Footfall and Vibration

Looking for some good ideas/solutions to treating my new dedicated music room's floor.  The room will be fairly large at 22w x 29L, built on the main floor of the new house with a basement below.  My current room is in my basement with concrete floors so footfall is never an issue.

I have asked the engineering firm to give me some recommendations on making the floor stronger structure wise; not sure what they will suggest, maybe floor joist on more narrow centers, say 12 inch vs 16.  

Have you tackled this issue?  What about mass loaded vinyl (MLV); would a layer of heavy vinyl between the OSB floor boards and carpet pad help?  Use two layers of OSB flooring and glue them together?  Ideas?

stickman451
stickman451 OP
529 posts
 
All the walls will be double layers 5/8" sheetrock with green glue between the sheets.

Ceiling is 11' high and will be subdivided into six partitions; the partitions or soffit that forms them will hold the HVAC and lighting.
needfreestuff's avatar
needfreestuff
386 posts
 
If I was use I would consider using quiet rock for all your drywall applications. Best of Luck
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
4,966 posts
 

Stickman, re your floors, you have been very spoilt by having concrete floors in your current room.

Any suspended floor you have now will need the speaker isolated (de-coupled) from it, not spiked or coupled in any way, otherwise the floor will become a sound board for the speakers.

There is one way for you to be able to spike (couple) your speakers in this room to get the very best out of them still. It radical , but then maybe you are as much as I am. Seeing you have a basement underneath this suspended floor, you can have two concrete post poured from the basement floor up to where your speakers are positioned, this way they'll still be on a concrete support.


Cheers George       

ptss
1,649 posts
 
Instead of 2 x 5/8 drywall I experimented with 1 x 5/8 MDF under 1 x 5/8 drywall and was amazed at the improvement overall.  I used adhesive on the studs, probably PL400,can't remember. That's how I would go now,all around.  Seemed to put the sound on steroids for clarity,dynamics,nuance and overall sense of aliveness.The room was incredibly "quiet". What about your ceiling?
ptss
1,649 posts
 
Also,forgot to mention. Re the floor; 3/8 plywood glued and screwed to the underside of the joists gives 'tremendous' boost to rigidity and is how I would go if building new or renovating today. Between floors I like a second layer of press fit insulation resting on the plywood base.
I'm with needlefree re the benefits of QuietRock drywall. They claim 1 sheet of their 5/8 is equal 7 sheets of normal drywall if I remember correctly. 
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