Studio construction issues - Damp + floor cavity

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My studio is built into the basement of an old, early 1900s villa. It is a purpose built studio and has been very well constructed - however, the original basement floor was uneven, with about three levels. Because of this, a pretty poorly constructed floor was built a while back, leaving a cavity in some places about a foot and a half deep. This floor was not rebuilt when I had the rest of the studio constructed. Needless to say, there is a serious low-end resonance and oomph that I'd love to get rid of. This cavity covers around half of the live room and is absolutely doing my head in.

This leads to my first question: Has anybody any experience with filling cavities like this? I was originally toying with the idea of an expanding/hardening filler but am not sure what this would do acoustically. This would be ideal as I would likely not have to tear up the entire floor as it would be a pump-based system.

Secondly.. The entire studio has recently seemed very damp and musky. I have air conditioning in both the live and control room and am going to figure out today how to set it to automatically run a few hours a day but thought it would be worth checking if anyone else has any good tips on controlling damp or musky environments. Obviously I'm extremely concerned about the well-being of all my gear!

Thanks in advance

 

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Nothing?

 

[ArthurD]

You should give the John Sayers Forum a try. I don't know if they will have the answers, but give a try. Loads of info there.
www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

 

[Styvo]

Sounds like a serious headache.
Is there any chance you can build a new floor ontop of whats already there?....you'd loose some room size but could potentially re layer your flooring to eliminate the the oomph and unwanted frequencies.Using thick rubbber, timber and carpet??
I don't know your current financial situation but my tip would be rip up the old flooring and fill it with sand.

When you have a room built that's sealed and isn't getting much if any air circulation it's pretty damn hard to avoid condensation from building up fast particulalry in warmer weather.You may need to look at a better system of air flow rather than just relying on a regular air conditioner.
May need to go with some filtering system of some type.

John Sayers was a great help when I built my recording studio and we did pack the floors and walls with sand ...really helped ...however every room is different so you would need to discuss your concerns with someone like him who would be able to offer you working solutions rather than suggestions or opinions like i'm doing.

He's worth every dollar and so's your studio ....so if you have to,rip that fuckin floor up and get it to where you want it to be.
You'll feel great about the place once again.

Best of lUck.

 

[J-Mac]

What is the floor constructed from?

If it's concrete you can use a self-leveling floor compound (when mixed it's like a really soupy concrete without aggregate). This will fill the voids in the floor and create a nice surface to build from - acoustically it will be about the same as concrete so I would build a standard floating floor on top of that.

If the floor is wooden (Joists with sheathing/boards on top) the best solution would be to remove the sheathing and shim the joists level and reattach the sheathing.

As far as the dampness - The quickest solution would be a dehumidifier - you can set the relative humidity and it will pull the moisture out of the air. They are loud so it would be best to run it over night. Moisture is pretty much guaranteed when you are occupying space below ground level. There are other more permanent solutions, which are dependent on the homes construction and your budget but I would suggest the ~$100 dehumidifier and see if that works.

Hopefully that gives you a start. If you can provide more details we can work on a more tailored solution for your floor.

Cheers.