1800's New York Chapel (updated)

Converted chapel. The dimensions are appr. 20X56 feet with a 28 foot ceiling. As far as building material, I am not a 100% sure. It is in post/beam style I believe with wood frame. Built in 1875 with complete renovation in 1982. "lots of rigid fiberglass" insulation in walls and ceilings. I can try to find out more about this. Budget - $3000 (for panels) Flexible, but absolute max. $10,000 Volume- Single instruments at once. Drums will be an issue with the old single pane glass. I have a much better looking Sketchup file available but it is 1.5 MB and the host won't let me post it. Goals- Having a good sounding room with an accurate mixing environment. Question What's the best way to treat this chapel for a combination live/mixing room? I haven't been able to find people with similar problems. ie. Combination mixing/live room. Shape with this ceiling. This is for personal use, and not as a business. Thank you for any help and please let me know if I can help in any way. Best, bamsee

It could be great but to function as a control room/mixing space, you will need a great deal of treatment or some sort of portable wall system that is close to you for mixing. Parallel walls are an issue for recording but well placed treatment all around can make it work. -bassman

So, lots of bass trapping and absorption at the first reflection points then? I'll also be using it for a Live room. So I don't want it too dead. I was thinking 4" of 703 at first reflection points from monitors, on walls near instruments and at about 50% of corners to start with. How does that sound? I'm worried about the cathedral ceiling, so I was thinking of making that at least 50% absorption with the same method as above? Should I go higher than that given that the sound will bounce right back to where I am?

There is an announcement at the top of the forum about what to do to assure getting as many responses as possible. The announcement leads to this post. Actually, several people, who are experts on this forum, will not reply if you do not do what is written in the post. Many others who are very helpful, will not reply out of respect for the moderators' wishes. Attach the sketchup file. Do some reading here on absorber building and costs. $3k will not even cover the cost of absorbers with the finish to do justice to the beautiful church. You are guessing with the ceiling coverage. Keep to one thread. Once you have complied with the first paragraph in this post, many knowledgeable people will readily give lots of great advice. Andre

Hi Andre, I'm not sure I understand. I had read the post you linked to and thought I had followed all the rules, including having questions last, my budget, loudness, goals. searching for previously asked questions. Please let me know if I missed something. The host won't let me attach the sketchup file as it is over 500 kb. I brought it down to bare bones and it is still 1.5 MB. The idea of covering 703 in cloth and putting it up is something I've read on many sites. I thought it was an inexpensive and effective way. Again, please let me know how I'm wrong with this. I was hoping to get a conversation going, not hoping to break any rules and guidelines. edit: updated main post Best wishes, bamsee

Hi Bamsee, Beautiful place! whats in the small room on the steps? Do you own it? You wouldn't want to ruin the aesthetics, but hangers in the ceiling and wall panels. I wouldn't do to much as you could record some great string and orchestral groups. Use the roll around baffles for drums

Hi Lilith, Thanks! The small room on the steps will be the kitchen. Above that will be the bedroom. I do own it as of last month. I do agree about keeping the aesthetics pleasing. Don't you think it needs to be treated though? I was planning on using RealTraps Micro Traps for drums. Best, bamsee

I guess the biggest question here is: How does the room sound right now? And how do you want it to sound? I mean, are there any really objectionable problems with the room, such as excessive reverberation, flutter echoes, bad resonance at certain frequencies, rattling, etc.? If not, then maybe it doesn't need much treatment. Have you done any measurements in there, to see what type of problems you might have? It's a beautiful room: It would be a shame to spoil the aesthetics with acoustic treatment if it isn't really needed.

It is a beautiful room. Are you doing the labor yourself? What are your neighbors and how close? All I can see are trees outside the window. You wrote you were going to start another thread on the windows. Attached is an skp with what dimensions I do know. It is 35k in size. Correct dimensions and add architectural details. DO NOT play with trying furniture etc, as once they are tried, copies of the components are kept in the file, bloating the file size. The room has about a 21,000 ft^3. A beautiful recoding space. This would need a reverb time of around 0.7 seconds. That requires ~1,400 Sabines of absorption. This is equivalent to 175 2'x4' absorbers. With the original budget of $3k that is about $17 per absorber. Guilford 703 is around $4/ft^@ last I checked. IOW you could not even cover the absorbers with that budget. An obvious start is to use fewer and listen to the room. If you are doing single instruments, have you considered making tube trap type absorbers and creating acoustiwalls and large goboes that you can adjust for different amounts of ambience? What does the room sound like right now? For mixing you will need some closer walls to provide the proper ambience. I am looking forward to your updated skp file. Andre

If you do not have a copy of Master handbook of Acoustics - Everest, this is one room that is going to demand that you get it :) This is a beautiful structure. I am not ashamed to say that I envy you for this :)

Soundman2020 wrote:

I guess the biggest question here is: How does the room sound right now? And how do you want it to sound? I mean, are there any really objectionable problems with the room, such as excessive reverberation, flutter echoes, bad resonance at certain frequencies, rattling, etc.? If not, then maybe it doesn't need much treatment. Have you done any measurements in there, to see what type of problems you might have?

I've only been able to play some acoustic guitar and the boombox in there at the moment. It does have excessive reverberation at the moment, but the acoustic guitar sounds please. I have done no measurements as I don't have much in the chapel at the moment.

AVare wrote:

It is a beautiful room. Are you doing the labor yourself? What are your neighbors and how close? All I can see are trees outside the window. You wrote you were going to start another thread on the windows. Attached is an skp with what dimensions I do know. It is 35k in size. Correct dimensions and add architectural details. DO NOT play with trying furniture etc, as once they are tried, copies of the components are kept in the file, bloating the file size. The room has about a 21,000 ft^3. A beautiful recoding space. This would need a reverb time of around 0.7 seconds. That requires ~1,400 Sabines of absorption. This is equivalent to 175 2'x4' absorbers. With the original budget of $3k that is about $17 per absorber. Guilford 703 is around $4/ft^@ last I checked. IOW you could not even cover the absorbers with that budget. An obvious start is to use fewer and listen to the room. If you are doing single instruments, have you considered making tube trap type absorbers and creating acoustiwalls and large goboes that you can adjust for different amounts of ambience? What does the room sound like right now? For mixing you will need some closer walls to provide the proper ambience. I am looking forward to your updated skp file. Andre

Yeah, isn't it? My girlfriend and I are quite happy about it. We were planning on having a contractor and his men do the labor. With the big window being to the south, there is a neighbor about 20 feet to the west, another one about 30 feet to the north and another one about 35-40 feet to the east. Thank you, it was the "components in model" that I had to get rid of as I had played with furniture at an earlier time. I put the temporary listening position 21' 4", or 38% of the length of the room, from the south wall in my plans in my first model. I do understand this is not necessarily the best position. The instruments were then mostly behind, and around me. I am surprised by the amounts of panel you recommend. I was thinking of having the room on the "live" side as it will also be functioning as a live room. I was planning on using gobos as well. As mentioned above in this post, the room has a lot of reverberation with no obvious peaks or dips. I will update the original post to include the updated Skp. file. I am by no means a Sketchup expert, but I thought it turned out okay.

xSpace wrote:

If you do not have a copy of Master handbook of Acoustics - Everest, this is one room that is going to demand that you get it :) This is a beautiful structure. I am not ashamed to say that I envy you for this :)

It's on my shopping list. I already have Rod Gervais' book. Thanks, Bamsee

I am surprised by the amounts of panel you recommend. I was thinking of having the room on the "live" side as it will also be functioning as a live room. I was planning on using gobos as well.

My recommendation is based on the Rettinger equation for studios. It is definitely on the live side compared to modern tastes. Good luck with the MHoA and keep communicating! ANdre

So, any advice on how to treat the place?

I think the gobo/false wall approach yields the most flexibility and best results for each application (ie Recording in a more live space with some isolation capacity with gobos, and mixing with complete false walls to enclose a "mix room" inside of the space) Having the room treated in one way for all of your purposes will be a compromise for each use. :shot: -ashley

bassman wrote:

I think the gobo/false wall approach yields the most flexibility and best results for each application (ie Recording in a more live space with some isolation capacity with gobos, and mixing with complete false walls to enclose a "mix room" inside of the space) Having the room treated in one way for all of your purposes will be a compromise for each use. :shot: -ashley

I think it should be okay. It worked for Allaire and many other studios. I do plan on keeping gobos handy around instruments though just to control reverberation. I plan on putting panels behind the monitors. I plan on making the ceiling right above the mix spot completely dead.

Allaire did not have the same approach at all. They had dedicated control rooms which were treated very differently from the recording spaces. As a recording room, your church will be awesome! :yahoo: As a control room, it will be ultimately dissapointing, IMHO. :horse: The reason I'm chiming in on your thread is that I, too, own a church and worked in the main sanctuary space as a combined control room and mix space for over a year. What is most difficult is gauging how much reverb and ambience is in your final mix since the reverb from your room will mask the ambience in the recording. Depending on the type o music you do, that might not be a big issue. Who knows... I'm just giving you advice based on my experience in a similar space. -ashley

Allaire had the same approach in their Neve room. The dimensions and space are also quite similar to my space. I'm planning on getting the RT60 to the appropriate levels for the mixing position. I was hoping someone here could help with that among other things.

I just took a look at that room at Allaire. Shame its going out of business. My guess on their treatment is that most of it was built in to the structure of the room so that you don't see it very much. In your case, achieving the same results will require treatments that are more visible (really big) in order to tame low freq RT. Good luck. -ashley

Morning, Can you post a .skp that has no roof and some more detail. windows rails pillars that step up and the mezzanine

lilith_envy wrote:

Morning, Can you post a .skp that has no roof and some more detail. windows rails pillars that step up and the mezzanine

Some of that detail already in the new skp file. If you delete the roof peak line the roof will disappear and you will see the insides. Andre

Your file shows the side walls are almost 15'6" high yet appear lower in the pictures. Is the 15'6" height for the internal walls? Regarding how much treatment, The picture of The Neve room I found shows ~45% of the ceiling covered with treatment. The walls in the picture are windows. Your room ceiling wall surface area, evenly covered with absorption would have ~34% covered. ~10% less coverage than The Neve room. The 38% guideline is for dealing with small room acoustics. That is modal issues. Your space is not a small room acoustically. The ceiling is so high that you do not need to worry about reflections from it. The only concern with length wise speaker locating will SBIR effect. Andre

I like using the <right click>-"hide" function which you can later un-hide. The side wall should be closer to 14' . You must have gotten a different version, or I never I got it perfect. I apologize. How can you tell it's 45%" in the Neve Room picture? I would like to see that picture if possible. If the ceiling is so high that I don't have to worry about reflections from it, then why treat it? To bring to RT60? Some parts of the ceiling will be 10 feet away from me. That I would worry about. In my case do you suggest covering the 34% wall and ceiling evenly in a manner like this 2'x'4' panel then 4x8' drywall for most of the room, and doing the traditional way in the RFZ? I was thinking of having SuperChunks, for aesthetics reasons, up the wall. Probably 4" 703 all across the vaulted ceiling at the top. Is that over kill? How many closer walls for mixing do you recommend. I was going to start off with a 2x4 behind each speaker. I was playing around with diffusors, but I'm not sure I will need them. Reading up on SBIR

bamsee wrote:

The side wall should be closer to 14' . You must have gotten a different version, or I never I got it perfect. I apologize.

Please check your skp for correctness and get back. You can apologize to me the first day I do not make any mistakes. John can assure you that will take a while to occur. :D

How can you tell it's 45%" in the Neve Room picture? I would like to see that picture if possible.

Guesstimating from the coverage. This should get to picture.

If the ceiling is so high that I don't have to worry about reflections from it, then why treat it? To bring to RT60? Some parts of the ceiling will be 10 feet away from me. That I would worry about.

Yes, RT60. I do not understand your 10' ceiling reference. The ceiling is angled, so reflections will not return to you significantly. The reflections will go into the room.

In my case do you suggest covering the 34% wall and ceiling evenly in a manner like this 2'x'4' panel then 4x8' drywall for most of the room, and doing the traditional way in the RFZ?

The 34% is using what information you have given. It is as detailed as the information I had to work with. The Rettinger equation is from the studio designs of the 60's, before the super dead studios of the 70s and 80s which are, well, too dead for today's recording tastes.

I was thinking of having SuperChunks, for aesthetics reasons, up the wall.

Superchunks are bass traps in corners used to control modal effects. IOW small room acoustics. Your room is not a small room acoustically. You may choose to have some to control corner bass buildup for recording in them.

Probably 4" 703 all across the vaulted ceiling at the top. Is that over kill?

Depends on how wide and what you do with the rest of the room. Excess absorption is excess absorption.

How many closer walls for mixing do you recommend. I was going to start off with a 2x4 behind each speaker.

I do not understand the basis of the question at all. Please write more on this.

I was playing around with diffusors, but I'm not sure I will need them.

Diffusion is required. What are you trying to achieve? Don't forget your budget! Keep the questions coming. The more you know, the better your beautiful studio will be. Good studio building is 90% design and 10% construction. Andre

AVare wrote:

bamsee wrote:

The side wall should be closer to 14' . You must have gotten a different version, or I never I got it perfect. I apologize.

Please check your skp for correctness and get back.

After checking the skp file I see that the side wall is in fact off by around 20". When trying to correct it, connected, but not selected objects and surfaces move too.

AVare wrote:

If the ceiling is so high that I don't have to worry about reflections from it, then why treat it? To bring to RT60? Some parts of the ceiling will be 10 feet away from me. That I would worry about.

Yes, RT60. I do not understand your 10' ceiling reference. The ceiling is angled, so reflections will not return to you significantly. The reflections will go into the room.

Part of the ceiling will be ca. 10' from my head if I sit at the mix position. Please see line in below image for further clarification. I'm worried about the vaulted ceiling because I read on Ethan Weiner's forum that the sound would bounce right back to me, and the vault would focus the sound right back to me.

AVare wrote:

In my case do you suggest covering the 34% wall and ceiling evenly in a manner like this 2'x'4' panel then 4x8' drywall for most of the room, and doing the traditional way in the RFZ?

The 34% is using what information you have given. It is as detailed as the information I had to work with. The Rettinger equation is from the studio designs of the 60's, before the super dead studios of the 70s and 80s which are, well, too dead for today's recording tastes.

Please let me know if there is any other information i can provide that would help you help me. Do you suggest I should apply this absorption spread evenly around the room with special attention given to the RFZ?

AVare wrote:

I was thinking of having SuperChunks, for aesthetics reasons, up the wall.

Superchunks are bass traps in corners used to control modal effects. IOW small room acoustics. Your room is not a small room acoustically. You may choose to have some to control corner bass buildup for recording in them.

I see, so not as much bass trap is needed as I thought. Could you give a number to this? ie. 20 feet of 2' wide bass trap for top ceiling corner, 8' for wall corner. etc.

AVare wrote:

Probably 4" 703 all across the vaulted ceiling at the top. Is that over kill?

Depends on how wide and what you do with the rest of the room. Excess absorption is excess absorption.

I was planning on doing 2' wide. I read by Ethan Weiner and other people say that there is no such thing as too many bass traps. It's interesting to see another point of view.

AVare wrote:

How many closer walls for mixing do you recommend. I was going to start off with a 2x4 behind each speaker.

I do not understand the basis of the question at all. Please write more on this.

Suppose I would create a "deader" sounding area with GOBOs for the purpose of mixing. How many panels do you suggest I use?

AVare wrote:

I was playing around with diffusors, but I'm not sure I will need them.

Diffusion is required. What are you trying to achieve? Don't forget your budget!

A pleasant sounding room for both mixing and instruments with neutral frequency response in the mix position. If you could go more into suggested placement of the diffusion and absorption that would be greatly appreciated. Please let me know if I can make this any easier for you. Like I mentioned above, do you think the absorption should be placed evenly around the room with special focus being to the RFZs? Do you suggest diffusion on the south wall (big window) I appreciate the help. Thanks, bamsee

Thanks for the post. I am waiting for the corrected skp before making any specific recommendations to be taken seriously. One thing, you mentioned things you have read on Ethan's site twice, including bas traps in rooms. Ethan's site is geared to what is referred to as small room acoustics. Your room is not a small room acoustically. Andre