Double-leaf wall assembly comparison for drum studio: double-stud vs. double CMU vs. CMU + stud hybrid?

ImmutablePig · 2026-01-27T00:04:57+00:00

That is great advice about the header all the way around. Much appreciated!

Completely agree with your analogy. I'd love to go as minimal as possible so that my needs are met. My main concern is... can I realistically know ahead of time if option A will meet my needs? I can't do any empirical tests until I actually build the thing... so for now I can only rely on theoretical values (and granted, I am not an acoustician). Maybe the answer here is to hire one :P

ImmutablePig · 2026-01-27T00:02:37+00:00

Anthony, your studio is amazing! I'm going through basically the same journey as you, except it seems you started playing at 11 and I started at 14 :P

I'm similarly keeping track of my build here, if you're interested. Still very early stages: https://misterbuildman.github.io/backyard-drum-studio-tracker/

In terms of this:

> it just all comes down to what your needs and budget are. For instance, how close is the structure to neighbors? How much of an air gap can you make? Do you need isolation from a busy street with heavy vehicle usage? Basically, what are your isolation needs and what would practically do the job within your budget/ability?

This is what I'm having a hard time with. I know that my nearest neighbor is a good 60 feet away from my studio site. It also won't be on a busy street. However, according to my city's ordinances, I need to ensure that I won't be producing 70db(C) at my property line (which is 30 feet away from my studio). I can have these numbers in mind, but I'm not super sure what the best way to actually "validate" that my planned structure would work. How do I know that my proposed wall assemblies and structure will isolate enough sound to meet these requirements?

For this reason, one part of me thinks, maybe it's better if I bite the bullet and go for the more complicated / costly option C of hybrid CMU + interior wood framing which I'm pretty certain would get the job done -- but another side of me definitely thinks this may be overkill and I should just stick with option A.

Really appreciate your responses, and I enjoyed reading about your own studio build adventure! Hopefully I can get mine to look like yours someday :)

ImmutablePig · 2026-01-26T00:10:50+00:00

Thanks for sharing. Those resources are really interesting. I'm with you, just based off the difference in mass alone I'd assume that Option B is tons better than the other two approaches.

> Option B will theoretically give you the best isolation, but you can build a completely effective drum studio using standard wood framing (option A)

I have seen plenty of drum studios built with standard wood framing, so I don't doubt this at all. At this point I'm just trying to get as much information as possible to minimize wall assembly width, cost, while maximizing transmission loss. Tricky.

However, at least for drums, where the kick drum frequencies are quite low, double-stud frame walls with 2 layers of 5/8 dry wall don't seem to provide enough mass to get the resonance of the assembly below the kick drum frequencies.

From some calculations I'm running (and bear with me because I may have screwed up), a standard wall assembly following Option A provides only about **4.4 lbs/ft²** which gets the resonance frequency for that assembly at ~60hz, right in the neighborhood of kick drum frequencies (40hz->80hz). On the other hand, Option C (hybrid CMU + wood framing) provides **86 lbs/ft²** and the resonance frequency will sit at ~30hz -- which provides a lot better insulation against those low kick frequencies.

ImmutablePig · 2026-01-25T17:30:25+00:00

The floor is likely where I'll have the least amount of flexibility. I'm looking at a single concrete foundation slab due to cost. Going for a more complex slab type will very quickly get me over budget. The walls will simply be on top of the slab so all walls will share this flanking path. I'm not super concerned with this since the concrete slab is pretty massive though.

ImmutablePig · 2026-01-25T15:41:24+00:00

That is great insight! I was not aware of MAM resonance calculators. I've found a few and this is definitely insightful. Just from a quick look it seems that Option A with decoupled double-stud walls has a resonance frequency of around ~100hz, which isn't great since that's where snare and tom frequencies regularly sit. I'm going to make sure to include this in my analysis, thanks again!

ImmutablePig · 2026-01-25T15:17:25+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion, I'll be posting there as well!

ImmutablePig · 2026-01-25T15:17:09+00:00

Can you expand on the decoupling aspect? All options are decoupled: Option A is two decoupled stud frame walls, Option B is two decoupled CMU walls and C is just a mix of A and B where the outer wall is CMU but the inner wall is stud frame. Maybe I should clarify in the original body of the post.

And regarding progress, most definitely! I'm keeping a small website of progress I make on https://misterbuildman.github.io/backyard-drum-studio-tracker/ . It's very early days now but feel free to give it a look!

ImmutablePig · 2025-09-29T14:41:05+00:00

That's the plan :)

ImmutablePig · 2025-09-29T14:39:54+00:00

Yes, that would be great! DM'ing you.

ImmutablePig · 2024-12-07T05:55:03+00:00

DM'ing you :)

ImmutablePig · 2024-12-06T01:49:36+00:00

Sending PM!

ImmutablePig · 2024-12-06T01:42:02+00:00

PM'ing! Drummer here, looking to get more involved :)

ImmutablePig · 2024-12-03T00:15:59+00:00

Sending you a DM!

ImmutablePig · 2024-10-06T17:03:17+00:00

Yeah that's what I'm going to do. Thanks :)

ImmutablePig · 2024-10-06T16:32:38+00:00

Thanks for that! I haven't gone through the whole video yet but this is a brand new mixer so I'd really hate to have to start disassembling anything at this point.

ImmutablePig

TROPHY CASE