Anyone build a room with a sliding glass door?

[JohnDavisNYC]

did it suck? expensive?

john

[norton]

i've built a few rooms with sliders in them.

Depends on what you're going for. Total isolation?? Unless you're getting a pretty damn awesome door... one door will kinda suck. At my place, i've got two sliders one in front of the other.. and they work pretty damn good. (but i got both free on the side of the road!)

If you've got access to a reuse type center used ones can be rehabbed pretty easily. I made a track for one of my doors out of 1x1 and 1x2 stock and a couple pieces of angled aluminum (for the track)...

I'm a big fan of the slider. big opening.... lots of sight lines and NO lost floorspace for the damn swinging door.

good luck!

[googacky]

Watch out for resonance, though. I have glass doors in my studio and they pass a frequency that is a function of the thermal break between the panes. It's the biggest mistake we made building our room.

[Kevin Kitchel]

Watch out for resonance, though. I have glass doors in my studio and they pass a frequency that is a function of the thermal break between the panes. It's the biggest mistake we made building our room.

Can you "cheat" by using different doors that might have a different cavity size? I have heard that the frequency is about an A on a bass guitar. I'm guessing that any two similar sized doors will have a similar sized cavity. Can you use a standard door on one side, and a custom single pane on the control room?

[googacky]

I think you've hit upon some ideas, Kevin. In my setup, I have two sliding doors for each iso booth doorway. Each is the exact same door. If they each instead had a different sized thermal break, then at least one of the pair of doors would be stopping that frequency. Single pane is an even better idea. Mine are two panes of 1/8" glass separated by a break that's around 1/2", if memory serves. Thick glass in doors is expensive, but so is redoing doors down the road! I've actually left them cracked before becasue at least then the bleed is full range and not frequency specific. If you're doing this between control room and live room, you'll have to be very careful indeed.

[Kevin Kitchel]

I think you've hit upon some ideas, Kevin. In my setup, I have two sliding doors for each iso booth doorway. Each is the exact same door. If they each instead had a different sized thermal break, then at least one of the pair of doors would be stopping that frequency. Single pane is an even better idea. Mine are two panes of 1/8" glass separated by a break that's around 1/2", if memory serves. Thick glass in doors is expensive, but so is redoing doors down the road! I've actually left them cracked before becasue at least then the bleed is full range and not frequency specific. If you're doing this between control room and live room, you'll have to be very careful indeed.

This might be totally off the mark, but you might be able to "vent" the inner sides of each door. This might help with the air cavity resonating...it might make it worse. Also, I don't know if there is a way to dampen the glass too? Can you remove the glass at all? Maybe you could line the inside of the frame with some thick rubber between the glass (around the edge). Maybe even a slightly compressessed neoprene puck in the middle. Just tell people its there so they don't run into the glass.

[googacky]

Hey Kevin, you've hit on some ideas that I had, too. We got busy finishing the wiring of the studio and then doing some work, so I've tried to blot out the memory of the damn doors. It is on the "to do" list, so I should be revisiting it soon. I thought about perforating the glass on one side, but then I'd have a whole lot less isolation. I also thought about dampening the glass with rubber or mass loaded vinyl. I even looked into clear MLV. The craziest ideas was to fill the space up with sand. There's a thread over at the John Sayer's Studio Construction Board here.

[Al_Huero]

I've got two sliding glass doors in parallel, with about a 2-1/2 foot gap between them on average (they're arranged at an angle). The isolation is great.

[toddjal]

My old studio used them with astounding success accoustically, even when someone forgot to close one of them, but the doors get abused so much that the track wears down fast, makes it difficult to close, and instead of forking out the dough for new doors and frame most busy people just live with it and curse having installed them. Clients will sometimes walk into them when it's dark making a good laugh and every sigle day someone a little slow will stand there for a full minute trying to figure out which one of the two opens, even though you've clearly marked them.

Just my experiences. Best of luck.
Todd

[culture2]

I have one in mine and I bought it for around 30-40 bucks at a consignment shop and it works and looks just as good as a new one. I have had no problems with any recordings either.

[trodden]

I use one to separate my control and live room. The idea was to use two but duct work in the ceiling would require a custom sized door which would be wayyyyy too much money for what i'm doing. Two would definitely better!