Acoustic Properties of a Nordic Wooden House?

[Jez Corbett]

Here's a slightly silly but actually quite serious question

I live in Finland. A couple of months ago, at the meagre age of 42 I bought my first home, a modern (ish) detached wooden house, a style I've been in love with since I moved here, and it's lovely and I'm super happy I got it.

Now I'm setting up a simple little home studio setup in the spare room that I'll use for dicking around making weird techno and maybe very occasionally doing my actual work if I can't get to the studio or whatever, and have been thinking about acoustic treatment.

These wooden houses are made of two thick layers of wood, between them about 25cm gap packed with insulation.

Might I be right in thinking I might not need to worry about bass traps?

[Humble Bee]

Nordic wooden houses ( I’m in Sweden) are essentially acoustic panels with a roof. Most of the bass frequencies will go straight through the walls and not come back. Isolation might be an issue if you have sensitive neighbours. Our cabin on the west coast sounds great. It’s wood-150mm rock wool-wood walls the main room being 30ish square metres.

[Luke W]

Nordic wooden houses ( I’m in Sweden) are essentially acoustic panels with a roof.

I can certainly imagine them being a much better starting point that the annoyingly familiar "concrete cube" design that lots of people have to deal with.

[shufflebeat]

Also fantastic recording spaces (potentially). My favourite recording of me (5pce folkie stuff w/ double bass) was in an upstairs room of a soon-to-open restaurant in a small town in Norway, twin wooden walls, angled roof, terrible electricity, with individual mics - Peavey FOH mixer - minidisc (stereo). The room was the star of the show, not only in the recording but in inspiring a good performance.

[Jack Ruston]

I want a Nordic wooden house.
J

[Hugh Robjohns]

These wooden houses are made of two thick layers of wood, between them about 25cm gap packed with insulation. Might I be right in thinking I might not need to worry about bass traps?

You might well be.. but as always the devil is in the detail -- specifically, how thick the inner wooden walls are, and how they are supported. But essentially, you have very large diaphragm absorbers instead of solid walls, so I'd expect the low bass to largely disappear (potentially annoying any near neighbours). But that's not to say there won't still be some low frequencies that suffer room modal problems....

[Jez Corbett]

My neighbours are far away enough to not be a problem - I've certainly not noticed anything from my direct neighbour and his ridiculous 1.5m tall radiator speaker audiophile set up since I moved in so expect I'll be fine

[Jez Corbett]

I want a Nordic wooden house.
J

You know what, if you want to get some holiday home time place I'd actually seriously recommend looking into Finland. You can get massive places less than an hours drive from a big city for less than €10k, if you don't mind doing some work.

[Jack Ruston]

Ah....no I hate work.
J

[ManFromGlass]

You’d have no problem finding a finish carpenter . .

Oops, look at the time. I’m off.