Recording Studio Design in Cali, Colombia.

Hello people. I'm glad to be at the forum, it is wonderfull the spirit that lives here. I will design and build a project studio in my appartment and I need your help for this task. First let me introduce myself. My name is Edu, I'm a musician and recording engineer in Cali, Colombia (South America). This is the third biggest city in my country, very famous for his Salsa and Latin orchestras and musical scene. I've been recording for the last 8 years and performing as a musician for 20. Now I just returned back from Argentina where I was studying sound techniques and sound for film and TV. I've been producing many records within different styles of music, most of it rock, heavy, and pop. But I try, each time I can, to produce records for people that don't have the money to make them in a regular commercial studio, so, Hip Hop (with kids that live in extreme situations in working class neighbourhoods) and Folk music (with Native South American Indigenous musicians) have a place to work at my studio. I believe that though music you can help to build a more equal society. I started to configure my studio, and designing it. I've been reading a lot here and on some books. I printed all the SAE documents about studio construction that John wrote years ago too. I've been practicing with Sketchup and Smart Draw in order to give exact views of my design. I made the plans and now I start this thread in order to receive your advises and recomendations. I've been reading other people's threads and learned a lot from them. Specially this one because it became my inspiration and because, like Dynamike, I will build it all by myself. http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8205 My budget is so tight that I can't afford to hire a proffesional. Gladly I'm pretty skilled with carpentry and electricity and I'm going to take a lesson about drywall install next week in the Home Center Mall here in my city. I will bring plenty of pics and drawings for you to undertand better the project evolution, and hoping that it will help others too. Excuse my english, as you may have guessed, my first language is spanish. Ok let's go to it. The studio will be build in the fifth and last floor in an appartment. Fortunately the two rooms I will use don't have neighbours next to it on the side walls. Only (and it is my first concern) the family that lives below the place in the appartment at the fourth floor. I want to keep the recording room the more isolated I can in order to be able to record drums without annoying my neighbours that live below. Since I don't mix at very high volumes the isolation in the control room doesn't have to be so drastic (my budget can't afford it neither). So. My goal is to isolate the studio with a room in a room concept, and leave the control room just with the sound treatment and a ligther floor design. I am pretty much clear about the configuration, but my doubts are many regarding to how many helmholtz slat resonators, bass traps and hi Freq absorbers should I build in order to have an even control of the room modes, and the acoustical dispersion. The place where this absorbers will be located is crucial, and how big they should be. All measurements are in metric because it is easier for me. The control room is 3,90m x 3,0m= 11.7m2 The studio is 3.25m x 3.0m = 9.75m2 Control room: The walls are 2.40m high at the lower side (front wall) and 3.65m at the higgest side (back wall) So I want to profit this to broke the paralelism between floor and ceiling and to make the impression of a bigger place. Here are the pics:

Should I upload the sketchup file? I'm a beginner at sketchup and the file is like 8Mb. Is there a way to make smaller sketchup files? Thanks. Edu.

Hi Edu, and welcome to the forum. A couple of suggestions: read the "stickies" threads, to make sure you understand the rules for the forum. And read as much as you possibly can of other threads on design and construction. This place has a huge amount of very, very useful information, and the answers to your questions are probably already in there somewhere. And you'll also have the added benefit of learning much, much more along the way. Regarding SketchUp: Yeah, the files get to be VERY big very fast, due to some kind of bug: When you delete something from your model, it looks like SketchUp does not actually remove it from the file, so your file just gets bigger and bigger, even when you delete stuff that you no longer need. I discovered that the best way to work around that is to create a brand new clean file, then "copy and paste" things from the old file, but only those elements that I actually need. Anyway, hope that helps.

Hello. I see my pics are way too big making difficult to read. Can the moderator please delete my thread? I will resize the pictures and re post everything the right way. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks Edu.

I don't think you need to delete the thread, Edu: You can just edit your posts and replace the pictures with smaller versions.

Thanks Soundman. Yes I've just edited the pics and some of the text, now everything look better. I've been working on my skills with Sketchup, I could lower the file sizes but they are still big. Regarding the space, all the walls are 6" (15cm) brick rendered both sides. The floor is concrete 5" thick (12.5cm) over 8" concrete beams. (I will post a drawing of the floor detail later). Because the walls can't be removed (at the most just open a place for the inner window) the studio design is what you see but I think it is ok. It doesn't bother's me to have the window at the left (I plan to fill the space with a removable slat resonator). Well this is it for the moment. Next time I have to figure out and decide wich way to go regarding to the floors (floated or not?) and how many slat resonators, low bass traps, and HI freq absorbers to put and where. Thanks Edu.

Yes I've just edited the pics and some of the text, now everything look better.

Much better! Thanks!

Next time I have to figure out and decide wich way to go regarding to the floors (floated or not?)

Regarding floating floors, I strongly recommend that your read this thread: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8173

and how many slat resonators, low bass traps, and HI freq absorbers to put and where.

The basic idea is to have as much broadband bass trapping as you can get, and the best place for that is corners, especially the front and rear vertical corners. For a small room, you need lots of bass trapping. Your first priority with absorption should be your first reflection points on the side walls and the ceiling, above the mix position. It seems that the best advice for the rest of the treatment, especially from people like Rod, is to wait until you have the basic room built, then take measurements to determine where your problems are, and design treatments for those specific problems. Sure, you can predict nodes and performance with calculations, but that is never going to be as good as actually measuring the room once it is built. My $0.02 for today! - Stuart -

Hi, here I am again. I've been measuring the floors in my appartment, and modeling with sketch up the concrete floor and the beam structure. It looks like a bunker!! LOL, I mean, the beams are rigid concrete with steel reinforcement inside and the concrete floor is thick. I see that I can't predict where the noise will flank or leak through the neighbour's ceiling below. And how much leakage will he perceive, for example when I'm tracking drums. And regarding to drums that is the most concern I have. In order to record decently a drum set I have to invest in so many things (preamps, mics, cables, mic stands) and the sondproofing is very expensive too. Tha place is not so big and my clients are not professional musicians... Should an electronic drum Kit hooked via USB to EZdrummer or BFD be a better option for having great drum sounds? Ok I'll post the floor pics soon. Thanks. Edu.

Should an electronic drum Kit hooked via USB to EZdrummer or BFD be a better option for having great drum sounds?

That's the 64,000 dollar question, isn't it? I don't think anyone else can answer it except you. It all depends on what you are trying to do with the your recordings. Personally, I much prefer a full acoustic drum kit to an electronic drum kit, simply because even a half-decent drummer can get very different subtleties out of an acoustic kit, simply by the way he tunes the heads, the way he hits the drums and cymbals: position, angle, velocity, stroke, stick, style, etc, etc. You just can't do the same thing with an electronic drum kit. And as good as sampled or synthesized drums are today, in my opinion they are still no match for a good set of acoustic drums played by a master drummer. It just does not sound the same, and there is nothing you can do with electronic drums to get the same feeling and character into you drum tracks. That's my opinion: yours may be different. (Your mileage may vary. No warranties either express or implied. Void where prohibited by law...) On the other hand, if you don't need subtly in your recordings, if all you want is an absolute pounding constant repetitive beat that never changes much no matter how you hit it, then sure, electronic drums will do that for you just fine. They also have stacks of different pre-programed sounds that you can switch beteen at the touch of a button, whereas an acoustic kit only has the sound that you set it up for, it takes hours to change that, and even then can never give you the broad range that an electronic drum kit can. Another advantage of electronic drums is that its fairly easy to separate out the individual pieces onto separate tracks for more control in mixing, if you want to do that. even a very well close-miced acoustic drum recording will have lots of bleed between mics. It's unavoidable. But cleaning that up (or enhancing it!) is part of the fun of mixing drums, in my opinion. So it's really a matter of personal preference, the style of music you plan to track, and what you are tying to accomplish. However, a really good electronic drum kit is not going to be much different in price than a decent set of drum mics and a basic pre-amp. I wouldn't worry about a dozen mic stands, either: most drum mics these days don't need stands: Just clip them right onto the drum rim, at least for the toms and snare. You only need stands for the overheads, kick and hi-hat. I'm sure everyone has his own opinion on electronic vs. acoustic drums, but what more can I say? The only person that can REALLY tell you what is best for you, is you! That said, if you plan to mix and listen at high levels, you'll still need good isolation in your room. If you are pumping out 100 dB from your speakers during mixing, then you aren't far short of the level of the acoustic kit anyway, so you might as well do the best you possibly can with isolation, regardless of whether you decide on acoustic drums or electronic drums. That's my $0.02 on the subject, FWIW! - Stuart -

Here I'm back. I've been waiting for a money loan by the bank. The credit is now approuved so I'm glad. Regarding drums... well I've been recording drums since 2000 and I have to say that I'm able to get a very decent sound from an acoustic drumset. But now I will give a chance to the electronic drumset. I've been using recently a software called EZdrummer and Addictive Drums and I'm more than pleased with the results. Not having to record loud acoustic drums in my appartment studio makes me easier for sound proofing. Any way I think I will have to build some kind of floating floor. I will ask later about that. I'm now looking for fibreglass and found 1" and 1 1/2" thick sheets at an affordable price. I will keep looking for materials here in my city and let you know more when the construction begins. See you then. Edu.

Hello to all!!! Here I am again with the continuation and now with the building!!! of my new studio. Finally I have the space to work and the construction started this week. I begun with some masonry in the walls, opening windows and doors in walls and closing some windows too in order to soundproof the place. Then we started with the construction of the isolated ceiling with glasswool and drywall. Well, let's go to the pics. And feel free to ask and advise about anything you want, any hints will be really appreciated.

Ok that's it for now. Tomorrow we will continue with drywall and begin the building of a doble wall in the studio in order to isolate the place where the mics are gonna be open. I decided not to go for a room with in a room because te noise leakage is not so drastic. I allready had a small studio in this place before with lot of less sound treatment and the noise from outside wasn't a problem. Now I improuved some things (ceilings, and walls) so I hope it will be better. Anyway I will have to measure with the decibel meter. I spect to have a maximum SPL of a 40 dBA noise floor in the empty studio room. P.S. Should this topic be moved to the Studio Construction Forum? Thanks Edu.

Hello... is anybody watching? I feel kind of lonely here. This week we are finishing with the drywall. We did the ceilings and one wall in the studio wich was double layered in order to increase a little the STC. Last night I measured the noise floor with my decibel meter and outside the studio I had 65 to 70 dBA SPL and inside the studio, with all doors opened, 45 to 50 dBA SPL. So just entering the studio I have a decrease of nearly 20 dB's!!! I guess that with all the new doors installed I will be able to lower the noise floor 10 dB's more wich is ok for my purposes. I've been working on the design of the panels. I will build Hi freq absorbers, Hi-Mid traps, Bass traps, Slat Resonators, and clouds. I'm trying to decide if building the frames with 18mm MDF or 18mm plywood (MDF is cheaper, but plywood is best looking) wich one would you choose? All the panels will be removable. The most expensive material is the rigid fiberglass pannels, so I can't put more than 2 layers of 1" thick fiberglass in each panel. I have plenty of the more fluffy fiberglass wich is 3 1/2" thick but is not rigid. Can I use this material to replace or complement the rigid fiberglass within the panel frames? I will upload some new photos soon, but I'd like at least a reply from you. I hope I'm doing it ok. Thanks. Edu.

Hello. I`m in the construction phase so I guess I should move this topic to the Studio Construction Forum. How can I do this? Thanks. Ed.

I think you need to PM Ken or one of the other moderators

NativeLuv17 wrote:

I think you need to PM Ken or one of the other moderators

Ok, thanks... so any one, help please. Ed.

Hello. I just finished the design of the studio and the control room and decided to build and install some panels. I will copy the panel designs in this site http://www.primacoustic.com/index-trap.htm. I plan to build some bass traps to put in the corners with measures of 61 x 1.22m height. In the front wall I'll put two 80 x 1.22m x 10cm deep mid/hi panels to avoid reflections fron the front wall since I will not soffit my speakers, they will be in a pair os speaker stands 1.10m height. In the back wall I'll install a wide 1.60 x 1.22 x 15cm broad panel in order to reduce the reflection at my back. Some Hi frequenci panel absorbers 61 x 1.22 x 7 cm in the sides in order to reduce a little the reverb in the room and finally a cloud, pretty much the same as the back panel. For insulation of all the panels I will use 1" rigid fiberglass. I was thinking in broadening the absorption of the panels by adding 3 1/2" fluffy fiberglass and 1/2" rigid fiberglass panels (the ones commercialy used for ceilings. ussually have a plastic foil in one side). So it is like a sandwich tha goes like this: 1" rigid fiberglass + 3" fluffy fiberglass + 1/2" fiberpanel with the foil to the outside in order to keep itchy glass particles inside (the front will be covered with clothing). Here you can see two sketchup drawings. Please tell me wath you think. Thanks Ed.

I feel like I'm in a monologue here, no replys at all, the only I see is that my thread is being visited so I guess there are people interested in my studio construction, anyway... Today i Just finished the building of all the frames for my panel absorbers. Tomorrow I'll upload some pics describing the process. I'm very proud of my skills in framing. I need to buy the clothing for covering the panels, they will be blue and yellow or beige. My suplier for 703 just text me saying that the fiberglass sheets will arrive on wednesday. Here is what I built: - 6 HI frequency absorbers 61cm x 1.22m x 5cm. 1" thick rigid fiberglass - 5 Mid frequency absorbers 80cm x 1.22m x 10cm. 1" thick rigid fiberglass + 3" thick fluffy fiberglass. - 4 Corner Bass traps 61cm x 1.22m x 30cm. 2" thick rigid fiberglass + 3" thick fluffy fiberglass + 1 bass hanger - 1 Broadband absorber for the back wall 1.60m x 1.22m x 15cm deep. 2" thick rigid fiberglass + 3" thick fluffy fiberglass. - 1 Broadband Cloud absorber. 1.88m x 1.22m x 15cm. 2" thick rigid fiberglass + 3" thick fluffy fiberglass. I built the studio desk too with the rack space and CPU enclosure. I'll post pictures of this too. Well that is it for now. I hope someone will reply a comment. Thanks for reading, and see you soon. Ed.

Ed, Hi. I have been watching your build as the others. Here is my take. You guys are doing a good job. You seem to have all your ideas together and you know where it is you are going. So the rest of us, at least I am, are just along for the ride. Keep the pix coming, keep the hammers swinging and don't stop until you get what you are aiming for. Brien

I was about to say the same thing that Brien just said, but he beat me to it! There isn't much more that needs to be said! It looks like you are doing fine, and don't have any questions, so that's probably why there aren't many comments. - Stuart -

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! gracias amigos. I'm glad to read your answers. I'm very excited about the studio construction. It has been very difficult because my budget is so tight but anyway, at least the first stage of the construcction is about to be finished. I had to postpone the building of the Helmholzt resonators but I guess anytime in the next 3 months I'll be able to start that project. Today I have the camera so pics are on the way. Thanks for staying in touch. Ed.

Ok I resized the pics. A lot of work was done since the last time I posted a pic, but you will see some pics of the process of construction. I don't have pics of the painting process but anyway it is not so important. One difficult part was the closing of the windows, rendering, and drywall instalation. Lots of dirt and dust!!!. That part is finished, indeed I'm living in the appartment now, I had the bedroom finished first so I could live and continue with the studio construction by myself. Right now I don't have any help at all, only my cousin Ricardo came tha last weekend to help me with the building of the frames for the panel, everything else has been done by me all alone. Ok let's continue where I just left the last time. This sequence will show the finishing of the works in the windows and the ceiling construction and a double wall with double layer of drywall in the studio room in order to have more isolation.

The works continue with this new list of pics. I've been using a lot the glasswooll for Isolation. I also used it inside the panels because I had a complet roll left over. I'll explain the panel construction later in detail.