Hi forumheads,
first of all: thanks for the massive amount of advice and insight in other people's constructions in this forum. Big up to John and the team who set it up an maintain it.
My project:
I'm planning on building a small control room / MIDI studio in the basement of my own family home.
The specs:
Location: Cologne, Germany
Purpose: Hobby, no clients, mixing, recording synths, vocals
Loudness: Doesn't matter, only annoying my wife and she already agreed to ignore any noise, as I don't plan to record drums or electric guitar the sound level will be reasonable
Surrounding: Studio is in the basement of my own family home, adjacent rooms are a corridor, a big empty storage room (maybe future studio?) and the kitchen one floor above
Budget: ~1000 € for construction, another 500-1000 € for acoustic treatment
Room size: 3,47 m x 3,80 m
Room height: 2,17 m from existing laminate flooring
Walls: 15 cm Prefab concrete
Ceiling: Prefab concrete
Floor: Floating concrete pavement with floor heating and laminate flooring (not glued to concrete)
My questions
Are angled walls needed? Nearly all designs shown in this forum have these. As I don't have much space I don't want to sacrifice much room.
Is the template design like in this thread (scene 2) possible?
Should I build slab walls or can I go with direct acoustic treatment on the concrete (building a frame, filling it with insulation and covering it with cloth or using acoustic tiles for the ceiling)? As I said earlier, soundproofing is not a big issue. Would slab walls improve reverb time and absorption?
Should or can I integrate my speakers into the wall? I know that the bass response is better when integrated, but my monitors (Alesis Monitor II) have rear bass reflex holes. Would that somehow work with wall-integration (e.g. leaving bass reflex openings in the wall)?
Do I need a vapour barrier on the outer wall or special slab walls with insulation to stop moisture? The wall is insulated with 80mm insulation on the outside.
How best to close the hole in the door wall where the tubing goes into the corridor?
I've posted some pics of the setup of the basement and a sketchup file for all interested in the detailed room dimensions.
You can also follow the building process in my flickr set.
I would be very happy to hear from you and keep you informed about the progress.
Many TIA
Dok:Z
Hi "dok:z"
Could you post a SketchUp model of your room, with accurate dimensions? That would make it much easier.
Are angled walls needed? Nearly all designs shown in this forum have these. As I don't have much space I don't want to sacrifice much room.
You don't have to splay (angle) the walls. It helps to create a reflection free zone, and reduce flutter echo, and with other stuff too, but it is not 100% necessary. Many successful rooms have parallel walls, and then extra treatment to deal with those issues.
Is the template design like in this thread (scene 2) possible?
Yep! That studio was actually built, and worked out fine as far as I know.
Should I build slab walls or can I go with direct acoustic treatment on the concrete
What do you mean by "slab walls"? If you are totally certain that you do not need isolation (meaning that there is NOTHING noisy in your house or your neighborhood that could interfere with your recordings, such as vacuum cleaners, people, radios, TVs, dogs, cars, lawn mowers, aircraft, rain, wind, etc.) then you don't need to bother building inner walls at all, and you can treat your concrete directly. However, if you have any of the above in your home, then you probably do want at least a little bit of isolation, and the cheapest way of doing that is with simple stud frames with drywall on one side.
So if you are certain that you will never need isolation then just go ahead and treat. but if you think you might need isolation, then do that first.
However, you might also need walls for other reasons, such as making your room symmetrical, or adjusting the room ratio to be a good one (or at least to get it away from a bad one).
Should or can I integrate my speakers into the wall? I know that the bass response is better when integrated, but my monitors (Alesis Monitor II) have rear bass reflex holes.
Why don't you call Alesis, or send them an e-mail, and ask if your model of speaker can be "soffit mounted", and if so, how to do it properly. Soffit mounting (more correctly called "flush mounting" is good, but I don't think it would be easy to get right with a rear-ported speaker. I don't know how you'd handle that.
How best to close the hole in the door wall where the tubing goes into the corridor?
Where? I don't see that in the photos. Post some close up shots of that, along with your SketchUp model.
- Stuart -
Could you post a SketchUp model of your room, with accurate dimensions? That would make it much easier.
I already did that. Please check the attachments from the first post again (it's a bit hidden - the last attachment).
Soundman2020 wrote:
You don't have to splay (angle) the walls. It helps to create a reflection free zone, and reduce flutter echo, and with other stuff too, but it is not 100% necessary. Many successful rooms have parallel walls, and then extra treatment to deal with those issues.
I think I'll go for parallel walls to save some space.
Soundman2020 wrote:
Yep! That studio was actually built, and worked out fine as far as I know.
Will use some of the treatment components from this thread to start from.
Soundman2020 wrote:
What do you mean by "slab walls"?
I mean drywall. I think this would improve the room's acoustic behaviour, the room climate, the visual appearance and the thus the whole "feeling" inside. The tool on this website (big german drywall manufacturer) calculated a big improvement in overall reverb time as well.
Soundman2020 wrote:
However, you might also need walls for other reasons, such as making your room symmetrical, or adjusting the room ratio to be a good one (or at least to get it away from a bad one).
I think I don't have spare room for things like that.
Soundman2020 wrote:
Why don't you call Alesis, or send them an e-mail, and ask if your model of speaker can be "soffit mounted", and if so, how to do it properly.
Good idea. I just sent them an email. We'll see what comes back from Alesis. I will keep you updated.
Soundman2020 wrote:
Where? I don't see that in the photos. Post some close up shots of that, along with your SketchUp model.
It's the hole in the lower right corner (on the sketchup screenshot) in the wall with the entry door. I attached a close up to this post.
Best regards and thanks for your contribution
Denis
Things are moving forward very slow as wife and family demand some time...
Just finished the frame for the window between control and (future) tracking room. I took 20 mm MDF (medium density fiberboard) and painted it black with lacquer. Sealed the air gaps with acrylic. See more pics on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dokz/sets/72157616673349157/.
The window itself just arrived. Will post more pics when i mounted this.
