Design for small studio - request for optimizations!

Hi all, In the next weeks i'm going to build a nice little studio in the back of my house.. Today i sketched a few things with the very nice tool google sketchup.. I attached the images with my post! I also want to create 2 basstraps in the back corners, they are not in the design yet! On the ceiling I want to hang some absorbing baffle panels.. The room is approximately 2.5x2.5x2.5 meters! Any reactions on this design are welcome! Regards Harris

"The room is approximately 2.5x2.5x2.5 meters!...Any reactions on this design are welcome! " /quote That is the correct word...reaction. Do you read...ever?

I'm from holland, so my english is not perfect... whiner ;)

Are u aware that those dimensions completly suck?!?!?!.....a textbook failure :cubic room is the worst room u can have Not to be an ass, because i´m a noob aswell, i would suggest u read up on the subject(s)

Those are some pretty rough comments. Even though your dimensions are to your disadvantage you should still be able to treat the room to make it somewhat useful. Space and working comfort will of course be an issue. I am certain that you are passionate about creating the best possible working environment for yourself so my advice would be to really do a lot of reading before proceeding to your actual construction phase. /Gash

with some good acoustic treatment, the design looks fine. one question though, what program did you use to make those designs??

I believe that is Google SketchUp software. /Gash

harrisnl wrote:

The room is approximately 2.5x2.5x2.5 meters!

That is about the worst possible size and shape for a studio room. The room modes stack on each other, and the frequencies are about 65, 130, and 195 Hz. That will negatively colour almost all instruments, including: bass drum floor toms side toms bass guitar acoustic bass cello viola bass, baritone and alto singing voices male spoken voice female spoken voice trombone french horn trumpet clarinet

Harris, if you are yet to read about room modes, ratios and the effects of standing waves and reflections/amplification/dampening and so forth, just do a search here on the forum. Make sure to read the reference section. It holds several links that are well worth the read. /Gash

Okay guys.. I know that the size and shape of the room sucks... but I can not change that.... So what I wanted to ask is: What kind of acoustic treatments I can apply to make the room a little bit better.. My ideas are: - Bass traps in the corners - A few absorbing panels on the ceiling - 2 PRD diffusers (front and back of room) - 2 Absorbing panels on the side of the room Will the acoustics be really that bad when I apply these treatments?? By the way: I will use my studio for electronic music ( house / electro ) Sometimes I record some vocals, but not much

Gash wrote:

Those are some pretty rough comments.

They may read rough in the early days. After about 6 or 7 months it is standard procedure :) People learn here, everyday, 24/7/365...you do it, I do it...nobody gets away with trying to pry out of my head what I have picked up for free. Its what I call "want to." If a person wants to, and I'm sure the op does, they will get acquainted with the information for the same reason as anyone here does. Because it applies to your project. But when a lazy presentation as this comes along, with surely the most absurd and most easily accessed dimensional issues as a cube...I just can't help but wonder..."what next...carpet or egg crates?"

harrisnl wrote:

I'm from holland, so my english is not perfect... whiner ;)

Your English is fine but that picture is about 320 pixels wider then the forum policies suggest. It reads "700 to 750 pixels wide." Would it be fair to resize the picture(s) to help us all to keep from scrolling sideways? Thanks boss, Brien

Hay harris, As a fellow Dutchman I welcome you to this mighty forum :) But yeah, you've gotta follow them stickies at the top of the forum's index. Too much newbies these days just flying by and dump their questions without reading first. Too many of those Q's have been answered already. There much info here, go get up-to-date. It's worth every precious spend minute!

harrisnl i didn´t meant to be rude or anything like that, but u know..... just like someone else said too those dimensions pretty much suck. So, as to solutions i guess the most plausible one would be to use another room, if that´s not possible consider altering the dimensions of the current room. I´d go for another room

Aloha and welcome to RSD Harris, Resized your pics. :wink: As mentioned, the dimensions aren't the best, but like most of us here, it's what we got so....a few thoughts to consider if I were in your shoes:

Wall Angles The first thing you must do is eradicate all the parallel walls in a studio design. I believe that a wall must be at least 12 degrees off parallel to stop parallel wall standing wave interference. That's either one wall at 12 degrees or two walls at 6 degrees each. If you can afford to make the angle bigger, do so. Also you can create angled walls within a rectangular room by adding acoustic treatment. (I'll demonstrate that in the pages on wall treatment). (Note: having non parallel walls doesn't entirely stop standing waves - they still form within a room but along different lines of repetition). The main reason for having angled walls in a control room is because of reflection control of the high frequencies for true imaging from your speakers. This effect also happens between the floor and the ceiling so to stop the effect you must angle one! well it's not going to be the floor is it. I must state here that putting angles into the ceiling is expensive so I would recommend that for the home studio you use the acoustic treatment to break up the ceiling. (See wall and ceiling treatment pages) John Sayers

Setting up the Mix Position Here are a few bits of information I’ve collected along the way that might be helpful as a starting point of reference. There is much more info to be had by researching the stickies sections and various posts. • Soffits angled 30 deg. in from a flat wall result in speaker baffles being perpendicular to the two legs of equilateral triangle comprised of two speaker centers and a point about 10" behind your head • The baffle extension (the face of the soffit) should be as large as you can make it, up to about 45" in each direction from the woofer in a system with a LF cutoff of around 45 Hz - There's a formula based on LF cutoff that ensures full 2 pi response for the woofer if the baffle is at least the size obtained in the formula's solution - • Monitors should NOT sit on the console but behind, placed on heavy decoupled stands - console placement causes early reflection problems in most cases, unless the console is slanted down in front a LOT. • Distance to wall behind speakers will change response drastically - there is a wall bounce calculator on the Acoustics forum that's fun to play with (needs Excel) • Moving either speakers or your head by as little as an inch or two can sometimes make drastic changes in response, due to modal peaks and dips. • Left/right room symmetry (at least within a foot or two of ear height) is important for good stereo imaging. • Roughly 38% of total room length from the front wall • Monitor angles 60 degrees (30 per side) • Monitor height – tweeter at ear level (avoid mid point of floor to ceiling measurement – either sit higher or lower if necessary) • If monitors are more than 3’ in height off the floor, they must be angled down. • Angled side absorption panels – left/right of mix position • Side walls 6-12 degrees • Ceiling 12 degree slope Hope this helps, Aloha 8)