Does the type of wood effect the sound of a floor?

JASIII · Post by **JASIII** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 1:15 pm

I'm currently having a new, hardwood floor put in the live room my home studio (a converted garage) by a friend of mine who does flooring professionally. One day he stopped over with his van FULL, I mean FULL of strips of flooring hardwood he got for FREE from a mill he buys from, they were having an annual "free for employees clean out day". So, he's got this huge pile of all different woods: maple, red oak, birch, black walnut, hickory. Since it's a very, very low-cost job, he's just installing wood as he grabs it off the pile, so it's a big mix. We were talking and I said how cool it could be if you had a floor with different "areas" of different types of wood. So, like if the drums just aren't happening on the birch section, pull them over to the hickory and see what happens, etc. I know, the size and shape of the room, and where you are in the room will have much more to do with the sound, but does anyone think the type of wood in the floor makes a differnce?

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 1:43 am

I would guess the difference would be subtle. The wood will have a fairly thick finish on it and that will impede the sound of the wood itself.

soundguy · Post by **soundguy** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:22 am

when you seal your wood floor with polyeurethane you now have a plastic floor.

I built a studio a long time ago and we never sealed the wood floor. The floor got trashed but it was totally worth it. One of the cooler sounding studios I ever worked in had a fucked up old NYC hardwood floor that was just mangled, they kept talking about refinishing it but Im positive its why the room sounded so cool.

having all different types of wood I bet is gonna look way cool, post a photo when you are done.

dave

Gare · Post by **Gare** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 1:21 pm

Hmmmm......sounds interesting. I have a small room where I do my recording. It is about 10.5 X 8 feet in dimensions. The floor, walls, and ceiling are wood. The walls and ceiling are knotty pine. It is my den, where my computer and radio gear are. So it only has a desk built into the wall, my chair, a small table and a curio cabinet.

I am currently in the process of upgrading my recording equipment. I am turning my computer into a DAW. I bought a Black Box by M audio and a good mike. I am still learning how to setup and use this stuff so I don't know how it will sound yet. What I read here sounds encouraging.

I was told about this site by a friend steering me to some needed help. I anxiously await the first issue.

Gare

dwelle · Post by **dwelle** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 5:58 pm

welcome. you're in the right place...

Post by **TapeOpLarry** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 7:59 pm

Gare,
Note the forums and the different places to post if you have questions. Welcome to Tape Op world...

linus · Post by **linus** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 7:34 am

On somelevel the type of wood may effect the sound. But there are SO MANY VARIABLES involved that I don't think anyone would be able to give you a straight answer about how black walnut would sound, verses oak, verses maple, verses...

Lots of great records have been recorded on hardwood floors treated with polyurethane (plastic...) so I wouldn't worry about that.

From an aestetic standpoint having a randomized mix of wood throughout the flooring might look really cool though. That's what I would do.

I'm Painting Again · Post by **I'm Painting Again** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 6:35 pm

I'm just guessing here so this may not be true..but I think you might get differences in sound between wood of significantly different densities..and possibly how you install the wood..

Sayer · Post by **Sayer** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 10:35 pm

I think the type of wood makes a very big difference IF it is untreated. I just got bought out of my space that was untreated fir and the floor resonation was much different than my previous space that was maple... Ya, I know it was different room, but trying to listen to the floor itself, sometimes with boundary mics, I thought there was a very unsubtle difference. I agree if you have the option not to seal the wood it is huge. Sealing the wood is like painting your auralex with epoxy... It's totally counterproductive to natural resonation... True, many a great record has been made on a polyurethane floor but so have many on concrete floors and you wouldn't accept that (hopefully).

Of course the installation of the wood is porbably equally important, however, I'm not very qualified to speak of this because I have never installed my own floor. What I will tell you is that if you have a space on an upper floor and there isn't much of anything seperating the floors other than the floorboards and trusses themselves; you get almost a speaker cabinet effect where the entire floor turns into somewhat of abaffleboard and can make your room delightfully boomy. However, it can also really piss off the asshole architechts below you that want to sketch at 11 pm, thus causing your landlord to buy you out of your lease.

soundguy · Post by **soundguy** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 7:53 pm

Sayer wrote: True, many a great record has been made on a polyurethane floor but so have many on concrete floors and you wouldn't accept that (hopefully)

Im a huge fan of the concrete studio. Its a pretty unique material. If I were ever to move my studio, yes tastes change over time, but Im pretty sure I would seek out ground floor slab concrete for the recording space.

dave

Bearclaw USA · Post by **Bearclaw USA** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:53 pm

Being an MTSU recording industry graduate who now works in the flooring department at home depot, I should be the authority on this topic. But I should be alot of things I'm not. Anway, I feel obligate to try to come up with some useful advice. First of all, if this room is an old garage then I'm assuming the current floor is a concrete slab. Standard 3/4" thick strips are not supposed to installed over concrete, because they require being nailed or stapled down which is not possible into concrete. Thinner strips sometimes can be installed but they must be glued directly to the concrete. If you glued your flooring directly to the slab I would think some of your resonances would be lost since your wood strips would be completely bonded to an unresonant slab of concrete. This type of installation might sound a little on the bright side. Think coats of glossy polyurathane would also brighten the sound of the room. A matte type finish might help make the room sound more natural. If you want to go all out, then I think the best thing to do would be to cover the slab with plastic sheeting (to act as a moisture barrier, which is important when dealing with hardwood), then build a shallow wooden subfloor type system out of 2x4's laid on edge and some 3/4" tongue and groove osb. Lay down some roofing felt and install the wood flooring. This wood help prevent any moisture problems common with slabs and it would also give the wooden floor a "softer" more natural feel and sound. I haven't dealt a lot with installations using several types of wood but I would play it safe and plan on there being some expansion and contraction differences between the wood types. So I wouldn't divide the wood types up just into squares because might end up with a decent sized fault line between endgrain boundaries of your different wood types. At the very least stagger your edges to scatter your postential gaps. Hope some of these ideas help.

thearnicasync · Post by **thearnicasync** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:03 am

BEARD_OF_BEES wrote:I'm just guessing here so this may not be true..but I think you might get differences in sound between wood of significantly different densities..and possibly how you install the wood..

I agree...I mean, listen to an old martin, and then a new one. Wood becomes more resonant and harder with time. If you could somehow start with that sort of density, you might be able emulate a little of the aging process, although I have no real idea.

thearnicasync · Post by **thearnicasync** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:10 am

soundguy wrote:
Sayer wrote: True, many a great record has been made on a polyurethane floor but so have many on concrete floors and you wouldn't accept that (hopefully)
Im a huge fan of the concrete studio. Its a pretty unique material. If I were ever to move my studio, yes tastes change over time, but Im pretty sure I would seek out ground floor slab concrete for the recording space.

dave

Hey Dave...are you serious about concrete? I only ask 'cause I just got a house with really, really cool concrete basement and I don't know what to do...install wood or just stain and finishish the concrete. I'm leaning towards the staining 'cause it's like $.25/square foot.

I guess I'm wondering if you can make good sounding recordings on a concrete slab. It would look cool, but...ya know...

kb

JASIII · Post by **JASIII** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 1:09 pm

Bearclaw USA wrote: If you want to go all out, then I think the best thing to do would be to cover the slab with plastic sheeting (to act as a moisture barrier, which is important when dealing with hardwood), then build a shallow wooden subfloor type system out of 2x4's laid on edge and some 3/4" tongue and groove osb. Lay down some roofing felt and install the wood flooring. This wood help prevent any moisture problems common with slabs and it would also give the wooden floor a "softer" more natural feel and sound.

This is exactly what I'm doing. I'm also not putting anything on the wood, no polyurethane.

Sayer · Post by **Sayer** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 4:06 pm

dave- do you really think you could get the necessary versatility out of concrete. I mean it seems like you'd be a professional rug mover at that point...

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Does the type of wood effect the sound of a floor?

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