CARPET vs WOOD for floor.

hey Jeff-
One great option that I have discovered is to use Luann Underlayment. You just stain and varnish it and it looks beautiful! It's only about $10 for an 8' X 4' sheet- which is much cheaper than about anything... if you're on cement you'd probably have to glue it which is non-optimal, can make crackling noises if you don't use enough glue. sounds like a wood floor which is much better IMO since you get a nice warm reflection and can always cover that with carpet if you need dead.

HTH-
Ev

Do you like the sound of your room with the carpet??? If your not, then it wont hurt to try soemthing else. Each of these surfaces bring something to the table. The Wood or th elaminated wood wil make it more lively, so if your room is too dead, i would go with the wood. if your room is lively with the carpet, then get thicker carped and more padding, if you dont like it that way
Cj

Do you mean an engineered wood laminate where a 1/4 to 1/2 inch slice of real wood is bonded to a cheaper substrate or do you mean the rally cheap fibreboard with a photograph of wood on it that snaps together without glue.
If it's the latter then I'd suggest sticking with carpet, which won't squeak. You could always buy a few square yards of the click together stuff to put down on top of the carpet if you need a reflective surface below something though.

THANKS TO ALL...

The "allergy" problem with carpet plus the "ambient sound" leads me toward wood. I was initially looking for the "cheap" laminate flooring....now I'll have to check into a better wood option.

The "article" suggested vinyl flooring would be somewhere between dull carpet and ambient "good" wood flooring. The new "floating" laminated flooring "does" have a rubber pad that it floats on....this may eliminate the "squeak/cracking" that some spoke of.
Decisions, decisions.

Thanks,
Jeff

lots of good thoughts here!

My own logic, which may or may not make sense, is to go with a wood or vinyl floor in a control room (critical listening) space, and wood in a recording space.

Mostly, I just like the sound<G>, but from a practical perspective it is much easier to add throw rugs or other type of carpet to a wood floor than it is to add wood to a carpeted floor. That's it, that's my complete thought process!

In a control room I'll (hopefully) only "adjust" the behavior of the room once, and if I knew from the start that I had lots of lively surfaces I might go with a nice carpet from the beginning, but usually I like to leave myself as many options as I can, simply because financially it gives me the best shot at controlling costs.

In a recording room I use wood because I want options, and lots of them.

If you are going to go with anything other than carpet, and you are going to be recording in the space, then you do need to pay attention to the creaks and squeaks. If it is your monitoring environment, and you usually sit really still, and you never have a live microphone in there then maybe you can be a little less picky. I think the extra money for a quiet floor is usually well spent since it is unlikely that you will never find a reason to record in there<G>!

The comments on dust and cleaning are spot on, and lessons I learned the hard way. I prefer to spend my time in the studio doing pretty much anything but cleaning, so I try to make that task as easy as possible these days.

Do report back...

Go with the wood. Carpet attracts dust, which then gets sucked up into your computer, eventually clogging the fans. If you mic acoustic instruments in that space, you'll probably like the enhanced ambiance that wood gives.

Just get some thick pile throw rugs for your vocal tracking space, and if you need to mic a small amp set it on a chair to get it away from the wood floor.

Hi Jeff,

I just installed the laminate flooring (I think your talking about) in my frontroom where the TV is. We previously had carpet and the sound from our surround system changed dramatically and not for the good. Lots of room echo now. Heh heh, we're going to end up getting a big throw rug that will cover most of it. Oh well, my wife loves it.

As far as the squeaks and crackles are concerned I'm not sure. There is a little (very slightly) but since the underfoor is plywood sitting on joists I'm not sure how much is attributable to the new flooring. Even though it is the phony stuff it still looks vey nice and was very easy to install. Heh heh, It's hard on saw blades though.

I'm not sure if I would be afraid to use it for recording on or not. Floor transmision to the mics is a huge problem when the floor isn't solid.

T.S.

I had carpet in my house (my office/studio is an a study on the first floor) and a couple months ago we pulled out all the carpet and laid down hand scraped 5" maple - my studio/office included.

I've got a quite a few 703 panels up and on the ceiling as well and from what I can tell thus far, I'm much happier with the wood than the carpet. It was just too dead in here with the carpet - the wood really sounds more live.

I mainly record acoustic guitar and vocals - so it's worked out quite well for me.

I had a carpet floor for a few years, and the problem was more to do with cleaning than with sound. I installed a laminate floor, with the foam underlayment, and it looks way better and is easy to keep clean. I have a lot of traffic through the studio, and every session, someone walks in with dirt or wet shoes, or spills something. They may even just set a Big Gulp on the floor for a few minutes, and the ring left behind looks like crap and carpet requires a lot of maintenence to keep that fresh look. Run fast from carpet, and the laminate is good, quiet, clean. If you need to deaden the space, put strategic treatments on the walls and/or ceiling, or use rugs, but traffic on carpet will look like crap quickly. My experience.

cork?

Two people I know have recently put cork flooring in and it's lovely to walk on, quiet, soft, not too cold, looks nice... I have no idea what the acoustic properties might be though...

Which ever way you decide (IMO both) carpet for the mixing side and wood for the recording side or all wood with a carpet rug under you during mixing and editing. If you do decide on wood make sure it is well sealed under it because cement sweats and could ruin your floor not to mention that musty smell.

quote:

Has anyone used a "DIRT" floor??......................price should be right. :>)

droddey wrote

The original Motown studio had a dirt floor.

Talk about raising a ton of dust. Nope don't think you can vacuum your way out of this one. Has your wife look at you strangely lately??????

downsouthstudio

If you have the time go over to home depot and check out a couple of new items. One of which looks, feel, and sound like real wood but it is not. This stuff is so cool you could have it laid out in an hour. Plus you wont have to worry about the floor sweating.

downsouthstudio

I don't remember. I don't work in that department. But since I do have to work today ill check it out and let you know.

Noah330

Its not pergo and there is zero gluing or nailing. They are not even wood. What you are recomending on a cement floor you had better make sure the cement doesn't sweat ever! The only thing Ive ever seen that should be used before laing down real wood floors on cement is this board thats about 2' x 2' and has a bunch of small black feet so the wood will never touch the cement plus it allows it to breath.