Feedback and questions on a simple mastering studio design

Hi all Im really pleased to have found this forum, it seems a simply amazing hub of knowledge, and Im looking forward to learning lots from the information and people on this site. My name is Ben, I live in Wokingham, UK, and run a small mastering facility. I have recently been offered a larger space for the studio, and all in all it looks to be a much more suitable space than the current building. The new building is kind of mid-construction, or rather mid-conversion from its old purpose of a store room, and so the owner has given me some flexibility in kitting the room out as I need. I have a basic grasp of acoustics, in the context of having iteratively treated my last two studio locations, and a very basic knowledge of construction, though fortunately the owner of the building is taking care of this side of things. Ive taught myself the basics of sketchup in the past couple of days and have a model to share with you later in this post, So then, what Im looking for is a bit of feedback on the suitability of the building and my design for its intended use (mastering), and to answer some specific questions that I'll come to later. I generally listen between 85dB with bursts to 105dB. I work with all genres, though over 50% is fairly bass oriented electronic music My goal is of course to have as neutral a listening environment as possible, with a fairly large sweet spot. First of all, let me share with you some details about the building. It is a timber frame construction, with a concrete floor. The overall building dimensions are: Length: 28'6 Width: 18' Height: 8' (though this can possibly be raised a little - see one of my specific questions later) I plan to place a dividing stud wall to create a small kitchen/storeroom at the back of the building, at the point where a supporting beam runs from ground to the roof centre. This would create the following dimensions for the main room: Length: 22'6 Width: 18' Height: 8' The outside of the building is timber slats, and the outside of the roof is corrugated iron, and the rood seems very well sealed and insulated Here is a picture to show the inside of the building as is (excuse the mess :) ) The owner plans to insulate the cavities with mineral wool, and lay plasterboard on the frames. I plan to ask him to lay an additional 1 or 2 layers of plasterboard [See Q1 later] Here is an image of the sketchup model Ive been working on. Id like to get your general thoughts on the design; help me identify any problems or potential problems, and offer suggestions on ways to improve it. This version of the model shows a listening position with a sofa, and I would have a couple of small racks on wheels for key processing pieces - the tweeter level would be around 3'. An alternative version involves me building a custom desk with minimal surface area and space underneath. In that case the tweeter level would be around 5'. The corner trapping would be floor to ceiling stacked 703 or similar. Some specific questions: [Q1] Isolation isnt really too much of an issue as either side of the building is disused (or rarely used) storage. My main concern are how the room sounds inside. Is it worth me laying additional layers of plasterboard? What about the ceiling? [Q2] The ceiling is currently at 8'. However, I have the option of raising it within the limits of structural safety. The onwer tells me we could raise the level approximately 16". The side profile of the building is as below (approximate): And I have the option of raising it up to 16" like this: Is this a good idea? What effect will this have overall? [Q3] I have around 20 open face cubed vinyl size MDF boxes for my record collection, most of them full or nearly full. Can I make use of them in this room to improve the acoustics? Some additional info: a) Ive uploaded the .skp file here b) The owner of the building has said that he's willing to spend up to around £1000 on preparing the building c) I have a further budget of up to £1000 (I already have much of the trapping materials shown in the sketchup) Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and for any advice you are able to offer!

Can you post the SKP?

Just quickly you need to move your speakers and listening position away from the wall. 38% from the front wall is the rule.

Thanks for the reply. The skp file is linked at the end of my original post. The listening position already is at 38%.

hhmm nah can't get the skp, sorry.

hhmm nah can't get the skp, sorry.

Me too. It says "403 - Forbidden".

ahhh very sorry guys FTP permissions - should be fine now.

I really love the simple look of mastering studios. They all seem to be large rectanglar rooms with free standing speakers. They have very large RFZ, so I assume there mainly cloth walls. http://www.jackthebear.com.au/ Jack is one of the big guns here in Australia- this is his new studioand this is turtle rockI wonder if there are a different set of rules from mastering rooms??

lilith_envy wrote:

http://www.jackthebear.com.au

Thats a nice facility, but a scary photo on the front page :) So......do any of you knowledgeable people have any input / feedback on the proposed design, and the specific questions? Thanks!

"[Q2] The ceiling is currently at 8'. However, I have the option of raising it within the limits of structural safety. The onwer tells me we could raise the level approximately 16"." As Liliths pictures show, volume in a room is a requirement for Mastering. So raising the overhead in your issue is a good idea. Problem is, it is not as simple a thing as getting the say so from a landlord and in fact could be cost prohibitive. In order to modify the existing roof trusses the proposed rehab has to be enough to meet or exceed the existing deadload of the roof while still being able to keep the building walls in an erect position, not an easy task. A typical procedure might involve a beam installed from gable end to the other gable end with new supports installed to maintain the beam. A new truss design would have to be submitted for approval when the beam and supports were submitted. Is that what you were thinking?

Hi xSpace Thanks for taking the time to reply. The landlord is a builder and claims we can raise the trusses by up to 16" within safe tolerances The ceiling height would then be 9'4", which is quite close to 1/2 of the building width (18'). Problematic?

subvertbeats wrote:

Hi xSpace Thanks for taking the time to reply. The landlord is a builder

I've been in the industry a few years myself. Either one, installing beams or tearing the roof apart, construction knee walls to elevate the wood frame roof, it's all time and money. Getting the volume in the end is what you are trying to achieve, which is always good;)

Thanks xSpace. Did I formulate my post incorrectly or something? Pretty surprised there has been so few offers of advice or answer to the questions. Thanks in advance for anyone who does take the time to offer some help.

I still can't download your SKP. Thinking you have the very lastest version. hang in there

lilith_envy wrote:

I still can't download your SKP. Thinking you have the very lastest version. hang in there

Thanks Lilith Cant download, or cant open the downloaded file. Ive just checked and download should be fine, so not sure whats up. about versions, I downloaded whatever the latest version was from the google site, yep, Thanks again

I could download it but it won't open it says "unexpected file format" It doesn't look like it's should be as big file as it says i.e. 5 meg. Have you tried: Window/Model info/Statistics/Purge unused That should take the file size down - still can't understand why it says unexpected file format though.

Hi John, Thanks for the reply. I have indeed done a purge unused as I did notice the file seemed large compared with others postings. I took an educated guess and turned out to be a component for a diffusor panel that I downloaded. Ive removed that from the model and repurged. The file size is now 492K I have just uploaded the new version of the file: http://subvertmastering.com/studio/subv ... s_sofa.skp The Sketchup version info is 7.0.10247

yes - it's the same version as mine yet it still refuses to open. It says unexpected file format. What you should do is grab the whole model and make it a group or component. Open another window of sketchup and copy and paste the group into the new window and save. try up loading the new file.

Hi John Done. The new file is: http://www.subvertmastering.com/studio/ ... ios_v2.skp Strangely this file is 536k. I also zipped the skp and uploaded the zip to: http://www.subvertmastering.com/studio/ ... ios_v2.zip Cheers,

OK, that copy opens up fine for me (OSX 10.4.11, Safari, Sketchup v7). But... poor Sang. Poor, poor Sang. He was specifically instructed that this would be an unattended mastering session. But did Sang listen? No. He did not. Now Sang stands facing the corner, on "time out", until he learns his lesson, or pays the additional per-hour rate for an attended session.

opens for me too :) I'd do something like this.

Sang....Is that the little chappies name then Chris? :) So John, thanks for the update.... a couple of questions about your updated design First of all, you have the front corner trapping extending exactly to the 38% line. I assume this is deliberate? Could you help me understand why this angle is chosen? Secondly, I was to be making simple superchunks for the corners. Im not sure exactly how is best to build the significantly larger front corner traps as you have shown. Ant hints and tips? Finally, the clouds. Are the sizes and angles of the clouds in the model exact? Again, can you help me understand why they are positioned in this location at this angle And a couple more from the original post: [Q1] Isolation isnt really too much of an issue as either side of the building is disused (or rarely used) storage. My main concern are how the room sounds inside. Is it worth me laying additional layers of plasterboard? What about the ceiling? [Q2] The ceiling is currently at 8'. However, I have the option of raising it within the limits of structural safety. The onwer tells me we could raise the level approximately 16". The side profile of the building is as below (approximate): And I have the option of raising it up to 16" like this: Is this a good idea? What effect will this have overall? [Q3] I have around 20 open face cubed vinyl size MDF boxes for my record collection, most of them full or nearly full. Can I make use of them in this room to improve the acoustics? Thanks!

there's no need to imagine anything other than normal - I just extended your side traps down to your line as it was the line where the listener would be. yes - you have a low ceiling but the clouds I added were just your wall units re-scaled and angled at 12 degrees above your listening space and at 6 degrees behind you.

Thanks John, building superchunks of that size may well be cost prohibitive. Any chance you or some other knowledgeable person can answer the other questions?

I didn't intend them to be superchunks - I drew them as slot resonators which are absorbers aimed at the low midrange - 125hz - 500hz which is the area where the other absorbers start to roll off. They also stop the parallel walls in front of the listening spot where standing waves would have developed. the clouds are to stop the floor to ceiling standing waves which will occur in your room because the floor and ceiling are parallel. I've made the front panel at 12 degrees as it's iover your listening area/console so it won't get in the way - the rear one I reduced to 6 degrees because otherwise you'll bump into it.