ceiling vs wall reflections and high ceiling treatment

Hey guys, I have tried to title each section of type so you can easily bypass anything you don’t feel like reading. Thanks in advance. **casual chit chat** A couple of months ago I finished an 8 week process of building my new recording studio from the ground up inside a warehouse located in Perth, Western Australia (just what we needed). Its Industrial are so noise is no issue. I designed the thing myself with much help from you guys, a local guru and a genius builder. Of course the design is not completely perfect but for a 1st time builder I’m pretty damn happy and feel I made excellent use of the space available. I would have run a build diary but was struggling for time between uni, working and learning how to design studios. The studio is a multi purpose studio but mainly used to record bands ranging from Hard rock to country. I love it all. Anyway.. **down to business** I’ve been working in it for a few months now and have come up with the funds to get my builder to come back and help me tackle the acoustic treatment side of things. It’s currently running as pretty much big live rooms. Now.. one thing I’ve been trying to do is avoid just sticking foam etc on the walls.. I did that at my old studio and it worked for that but I want to keep this place looking a little more pro. Below are some of the questions I’ve struggled to answer myself in my travels. **layout and design** I have three (3) rooms. Control, Live and Iso. All rooms are 3.6 meters high and constructed with stud walls packed with Bradford sound batts (Rockwool) with 16mm Firecheck Gyprock on either side. The outer wall is a single stud wall but the rest are double (as seen in picture below). The back wall of the Live Room/ and Iso is Double Brick. The ceiling is the same as the walls and is parallel with the floor. The CR/LR glass is 1400x700, CR/ISO is 700x700 and ISO/LR glass is 1000x700. All doors were constructed ourselves and are made with timber frames, packed with rockwool and 6mm MDF on either side (needs to be changed.. needs a layer of gyprock to work better). They are all 900x2100 except for the double doors in the Iso which are 1400x2100. The floors are currently still painted concrete but are 80% covered in throw mats. I’m not concerned with the Control room at the moment as I have a grip on the treatment of that room. I am more concerned with the two music rooms and even more specifically the ceiling treatment. **goals** LIVE ROOM - big open sound but not too long reverb time. Designed mainly for drums. I prefer explosive drum sounds too BIG rooms sounds. - Often move drum kit position in room. Should I make different parts of rooms different sounding? ISO - Room appropriate for tracking vocals but also sound nice with piano and alternative drum sound to live room. - Original intention was completely dead but open to other/better possibilities **budget** I have a decent budget.. a few thousand. And my builder can build pretty much ANYTHING. **actual questions** LIVE ROOM 1) What is the difference in sound between Vertical reflections (ie ceiling/floor) and horizontal reflections (ie. Walls)? - Does that “explosive” sound very much come from the ceiling reflections?? - people are always saying to use absorbing drum clouds on ceiling. This is true often in a listening room or if you have low ceiling but I don’t. Would my high ceiling be put to waste if I just padded it up or can it be better utilised using diffusion etc?? - What about a combination on the absorption and diffusion? Ie. Drum cloud at each end of room with big diffuser dome (or other) in center? Was even thinking of using a Silo lid reinforced with plaster. 2) Would hanging sheets of 20mm MDF on angles from ceiling diffuse the sound nicely or will it give the sound too much of a specific path? - how do the diffusers I’ve seen that look like large sheets of 20mm (or so) MDF with holes in them work? Like at http://www.electricave.com.au/Photo_12.html The reason I’m thinking its better to diffuse ceiling and absorb walls is because It would be easier to adjust absorption levels on walls than ceiling. But are there better advantages to absorbing ceiling more? Even if high? 3) Should I be using a certain thickness wood/MDF to diffuse frequency’s that cause flutter echo? I do intend to build some bass traps and porous absorbers on walls to absorb lower frequencies or should I be doing that on the ceiling too? 4) I will eventually build corner traps as well. ISO I might come to this later as I think I’ve already overloaded. But essentially I’m starting by building a ceiling frame to hold up 2 layers of 75mm rockwool over the entire ceiling and then was gonna slowly add absortion to walls until I was happy with the level of dryness. I have these Tonteine batts which absorb down to about 400Hz so I was gonna use them and some slat resonators? Either that or some rockwool. Sound ok? Thankyou so much for your time.. if you managed to get through it all. I’m sure you will anyway but please ask/tell me if you need more information. Kindest regards Matt :roll: :roll:

here is another example of the diffusers with holes in them that I was talking about...from another thread ..very sexy...

Would hanging sheets of 20mm MDF on angles from ceiling diffuse the sound nicely or will it give the sound too much of a specific path?

sorry for my ignorance.. this really is more "deflection" isn't it? :oops:

anyone?? I've got my builder back in working for me at the moment.. so i think for now I'm just going to put up a whole bunch of timber rails on the ceiling with hooks so I can attatch whatever I want later. anyone got any idea but? What do most people do with high ceilings in the live room?? thanks Matt