Hi WalterI can only offer you my perspective as I understand it. Im currently designing a straw bale sound recording studio/center though it differs from your project in that it is new build and will be in the countryside.
My apologies in advance if I am saying anything you already know, these are just my thoughts on the matter.
From what I can see, depending on the complexity of the project and what istrying to be achieved, straw bales can go a long way to treating certain aspects of accoustic design. However accoustic treatment is very complex and for the level of sound control required for recording studios I feel that straw bales by themselves might not be enough. 55 bd is good but not a huge amount.
Bass sounds are the most difficult frequencies to control, the ususal approach being high density materials along side techniques to isolate structural elements so as to reduce resonances and transfer of vibrations through the building. Plasterboad doubled or tripled up is considered a good material for reducing low frequency noise transmittence, or a thin lead sheet like material sandwiched between two sheets of plasterboard. Behind or on top this would normaly go some kind of foam material to help absorb and disperse higher frequency sounds, bearing in mind that most materials absorb HF noise anyway.
While bales are a good material for absorbing mid to high frequency sounds, I feel they dont have the density to cover the lower frequencies. Prehaps if larger sized jumbo bales were used to increase mass but this isnt really an option for refurbishments.
Maybe the bales can be coated with a thick dense plaster to absorb the bass sounds, but care needs to be made that the plaster and bales are isolated from the structure, including roof and floor etc.
The angles of the walls is also very important, you dont want to have parallel walls setting up standing waves, and avoiding wall sizes which are multiples of themselves is also important. (you probably already know this but I include it for anyone interested)
The approach that I am taking is to build a timber framed straw bale structure and then create suspended floors, walls and ceilings inside. Wood as a covering for walls,floor and ceiling gives good colouration to the performing and recording enviroment though again it depends on what type of sound you are trying to create.
Just an idea but If you are thinking about building bale walls inside an existing structure Im wondering if it might be possible to create a "bass trap" by leaving a cavity between the existing and new structure. the bass sound would pass through the bales into the void and if that side of the bales were left unplastered the bass noise would bounce off of the existing structure and back onto the bale to be absorbed. To stop the bass noise passing out through the existing structure it might be necissary to line it with plywood on battens so that it is the ply that resonates and bounces the bass back and not the existing wall. Lifting the straw bales walls of off the floor would be a great help along with a suspended floor inside the studio isolated from the walls and probably a suspended ceiling.
Good luck, keep the forum upto date with how it goes. Paul Sheraton
From: "Walter Faas" <w.faas@student....nl>Reply-To: European strawbale building discussions <strawbale@amper....muni.cz>To: strawbale@amper....muni.cz Subject: [Strawbale] Sound insulation with regards to a recording studio Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:47:23 +0100 Dear balers, It has been quite a long time since I last posted something on this mailinglist. I have been working hard on my study and didn't manage to keep up with recent developments (which are undoubtly taking place even while writing this!). Currently I'm working at an architect agency. In one of our projects we have to design a recording studio in an existing building (1920's). Given the fact that the recording can produce up to 100 decibel and there will be a school nearby, we need to focus heavily on sound insulation. At the moment I'm doing some research on suitable materials and I just cannot resist seriously looking into strawbales. While travelling through time I found myself reading some posts from june 2004 which contained information about the soundinsulation of strawbales. I found that the typical Rw-value of a strawbale construction according to ISO 140-3 was about 55 dB(A). This was a normal 2-string bale with 35/25mm plaster applied. To pass for a building permit we must get a Rw-value of about <57 dB(A). This minimum standard probably won't be sufficient to achieve a comfortable area around the studio. We're striving for about 65 dB(A) at the moment. Does anybody have data about soundinsulation and/or has pointers about the true limit of pure strawbale building (just straw and plaster, that is. No fancy and expensive acoustic materials applied) ? I'm looking for insulation of the low-range frequencies since these are hardest to insulate. I know of the soundstudio in Germany. Is there any information about that project somewhere (I can't seem to find more than pretty pictures)? Kind regards, Walter Faas ____________________________________________________ European strawbale building discussion list Send all messages to: Strawbale@amper....muni.cz Archives, subscription options, etc: http://amper.ped.muni.cz/mailman/listinfo/strawbale ____________________________________________________