studio acoustics and a brick wall

[soundcloset]

in an earlier post i told you about how i found a building that im considering converting into a studio space .. it's the typical "downtown" buildling sandwiched between two others along "main street" .. has really cool brick walls .. i'm doing the room within a room isolation deal but wanted to know - before i ask construction guys - if there were any comments about building my room within a room and keeping the exposed brick as the fourth wall .. being sure to seal all gaps and such .. i just like the look of this .. is this a situation of take efficiency over aethestics or what? thanks!

[DAS]

Actually a brick wall can be okay acoustically as one of your four walls. If the bricks are rough enough and/or small enough they can provide some diffusion. If possible I would make it the "back" wall of the room and be ready to place a good amount of absorbtion on the other three walls and ceiling.

[soundcloset]

great thanks .. i actually thought about the diffusion aspect of it .. because it's an older looking wall - not perfect .. my concern was in having a perfect floating room .. where no inside wall touches an outside wall .. this brick wall is fixed in the structure as an outter wall .. in other words there's the wall and then the next building on the other side .. it has to be a side wall in this case because the room rooms long in the opposite direction .. will the gap between buildings give me the air space i need for iso?keeping sound in the room - IN the room .. and outside of the room - OUT of the room ..

[Coerce]

Are there any breaks in that wall, i.e. windows? If so you will need to cover them and remove that leakage point. What is between the outside of that brick wall and the next building? Lost of space, little space, is the next wall to that building also brick? You may be all right but can you buy a sound perssure level meter (radio shack has them cheap) and take measurements of the outside noises at various points throughout the day? That may give you some ideas of what can be done.