From the ground up

Hi there. I'm Mark and I live in South Austin, TX, USA. I'm a musician though my day job is writing commercial software. I've done a lot of live sound and recording over the years with varying degrees of success. I like a lot of genres but if I'm playing I gravitate to acoustic country blues & oldtime, classic rockabilly, and 1950's Otis Rush-style electric blues. I've played in quite a few bands over the years. I experience frustration and overload (since I usually end up doing livesound & recording, as well as playing) holding things together without a solid base. Hence it's high time I built my own facility. I do have some clues having studied studio sound nights at an SAE college which gave me the basics. By no means do I believe I'm any kind of expert, hence I throw myself on your mercies. Building, most simple DIY tasks I can handle, never built a whole building though. A couple of my relatives are carpenters and builders and are interested in iso and acoustics. They've offered to help. I have a copy of Rod Gervais' "...Build It Like The Pros" and bought a copy for my carpenter brother-in-law when I noticed he couldn't put it down while visiting us last week. I also have the other reference texts mentioned on here, Everest's "Master Handbook..." and "...On A Budget", Newell's "Studio Design", others. I try to be "design technique agnostic" but it's safe to say I'm pretty much sold on 2-leaf MSM, Green Glue and the other myriad techniques and materials put forward on this site. Objectives: * Build a great-sounding studio in my backyard * Use it for tracking, recording live, mixdown, maybe dabble with some mastering * Create enough rehearsal/live recording space for full 4-piece band w/vocalist * Include a CR, LR, Iso booth, drum room if possible within the footprint. Machine room, storage room * Bathroom need not be within the structure * Don't disturb the neighbors by achieving the best isolation I can. Band practices can get loud of course so assume the worst case would be around 110dbSPL with higher transients. There is ambient outside noise, the interstate highway is one mile away, and 3 main commuter arteries run 500 yards away on 3 sides. Manifests itself as a low hum I can just hear from inside my largely uninsulated frame house. No SPL meter yet, I'm looking for one. Actual immediate neighborhood is quiet. * 5.1 production interests me as a future direction, I enjoy home theater & SACD as a consumer * Do it primarily for the love of it, with a lesser commercial angle. I spend so much time doing music. But I also aim to be able to get sufficiently high quality for commercial release * Timeframe: planning and financing phase through to at least September 2010, longer if necessary * Budget: This is a whole new purpose-built building. Budget will be "whatever I can cost-justify and convince my wife of the need for" but 80K and up I expect * Preserving two mature Pecan trees bounding the target space is a constraint I wish to observe So what do I have to work with? A smallish ranch-style house with a big backyard (for Austin) with a couple of mature trees and a nice open space for a studio. Neighbors are all around me but friendly and set back sufficiently that it should be possible to avoid disturbing them if everything is done 100% I've attached some JPGs and a Sketchup of the lot layout. These are all to scale, I use a little Bosch DLR130 laser measure said to be accurate within 1/16" (recommended BTW). Here comes the first question. Given that I have a finite amount of space within which to park this building I've come up with two alternative ways of using the target space and preserving the trees. One is to create a fairly squarish building, the other is longer and less wide. Both are 12' high to the top of the walls. Which would you pick as creating the best opportunities for a good internal layout? Or would you think "outside the rectangle" and make it a different shape entirely? I'm open to all comments and ideas. I hope I've provided enough information and thank you for listening thus far. You all have created a great forum where I spend way too much time at present.

"I try to be "design technique agnostic" but it's safe to say I'm pretty much sold on 2-leaf MSM, Green Glue and the other myriad techniques and materials put forward on this site." It is like that for a reason, because it works. So you made the proper adjustment. The only thing I can add about square or rectangle would be this: If you build a square building you can still install a working recording studio. But if you have goals like a bathroom, kitchen or other extras, then rectangular may be better, depending on the footprint of the structure and how it fits into the environment. If it comes down to one thing, then you may want to design a sketch of what it is you think you will require as far as control room/tracking/machine room/iso booths, etc and then see how that fits into either a square or rectangular building. I think in the end, that will give you the answer all though someone else may come along and prove this incorrect. But I doubt it ;)

xSpace wrote:

The only thing I can add about square or rectangle would be this: If you build a square building you can still install a working recording studio. But if you have goals like a bathroom, kitchen or other extras, then rectangular may be better, depending on the footprint of the structure and how it fits into the environment.

Thanks xSpace. WRT kitchen, bath, other "outside the studio" facilities, I had an idea to use the longer floor plan situated as shown, and build a connecting (read "decoupled") corridor / room to the house, making an L-shape. Place the studio entrance door within, and provide a second door to the outside, essentially creating an airlock situation. There would be a third door into the house. Looks to be plenty of room for WC, sink, kitchenette, maybe a shower and storage. I imagine a terraced space outside. [edit: It would make sense to put a wall box in there so I could use it for live recording, acoustic instruments probably, when needed] Here's a Sketchup I just threw together. I have no idea how feasible it is, particularly the back corner roof where it meets the house but out of line with the existing house wall.

xSpace wrote:

If it comes down to one thing, then you may want to design a sketch of what it is you think you will require as far as control room/tracking/machine room/iso booths, etc and then see how that fits into either a square or rectangular building.

Right. I'm assuming it will be a process of reiteration; outside, inside, revisit outside, and so on. I'd like to get the general layout roughed out before taking a stab at an inner plan. Appreciate the feedback. Mark

You could make some assessments on what sizes you want each individual room. This will allow you to establish the total square footage and then design the exterior accordingly. As an exterior, as said, square or rectangular isn't so important, as I understand it. Wasted floor space, poorly defined room dimensions and things of that nature due to poor planning, is ;)

I got a Radio Shack level meter, levels outdoors during rush hour are 57 - 60 db I've been doing some internal visuals that "look right" proportionally and have good sight lines without regard to ideal ratios (other than not making anything square or evenly divisible). I tried not to limit myself too much and this resulted in some pretty radical asymmetry, outside of the CR To take the approach you suggest, of deciding room sizes and seeing how they fit, I'm torn between symmetrical spaces whose response can be more easily predicted and then treated (and cheaper to build), or whether to experiment with non-parallelism. I'm off to do some more reading on room sizes, symmetry and ratios.

I got a Radio Shack level meter, levels outdoors during rush hour are 57 - 60 db

With A weighting or C weighting? Fast or slow response? 57 seems low for C weighting and slow response with rush-hour traffic, but sounds about right for A weighting.

I'm torn between symmetrical spaces whose response can be more easily predicted and then treated (and cheaper to build), or whether to experiment with non-parallelism.

Well, for a control room, symmetrical is absolutely essential, But for a live room, you can make it practically any shape, within reason, as long as you avoid the bad stuff.

Re. A or C rating - I'll confirm that tonight, I had just got it out of the box and only skimmed the manual before firing it up. I believe you are correct, that was A rating. Re. Control room symmetry, absolutely. Live room, I dunno but am leaning towards symmetry + treatment, KISS principle. I'm taking the approach xSpace suggested of figuring out approximate room sizes required and fitting them into the footprint. I have developed some minimums / maximums for each room based on slicing up the available space in rough sketchup models. The next trick will be to translate them to workable ratios. Speaking of which, can anyone recommend the RPG Room Sizer s/w? I see it allows you to input smallest- and largest rooms' dimensions and produces "good" room ratios within that range. If it works as described it's just the tool I need at this point.

Re. ambient noise, integrated average measurements at ground zero, 5:45 PM, C weighting, fast sample rate, pointed at the noisiest direction SSW: Minimum 56 db, average 62 db, max 70 db Included a Cessna heading in to the airport (4 miles away as the crow flies but we're not under the glide slope), a jet up in cruise, and a couple of briefly barking dogs. The usual urban cacophony, funny I don't even notice it most of the time. It could be worse, we're pretty much in the middle of relatively quiet low density island.

Live room, I dunno but am leaning towards symmetry + treatment, KISS principle.

symmetry will work, but sn0t necessary for an LR. And if you do make it symmetrical, then stay away from parallel walls, and also from ceiling parallel to floor, just to make your life a bit easier!

Re. ambient noise, integrated average measurements at ground zero, 5:45 PM, C weighting, fast sample rate, pointed at the noisiest direction SSW: Minimum 56 db, average 62 db, max 70 db

That sounds about right! (By the way, the direction you point the mic shouldn't have a lot of effect on the numbers. The mic is supposed to be omnidirectional). So now you have basic ambient noise figures. Do you need to add anything to that (apart from the airport)? For example, are you close to a railway line? Or a hospital (ambulances and med-evac helicopters make a lot of noise)? Or a fire station (ditto fire engines)? Noisy neighbors that like to party loudly on Friday night? Or any other possible intermittent sound source that might not have been active when you measured? Any of those might affect your numbers. You might even want to consider things like heavy rainfall, or thunder storms, if they happen to be common events in your area, and might trash that one-and-only once-in-a-a-lifetime perfect take... Just some things that might be worth thinking about. I wouldn't sweat those numbers too much at this early stage, but it is something that you need to keep in mind. You also need to think about how quite you want it it to be inside, usually represented by choosing one of the noise curves, and designing with that in mind. This includes not just blocking outside noise coming in, or inside noise going out, but also noise going between rooms. Right now, I reckon your best bet would be to throw together some rough layouts of how you think you might want your rooms organized. If nothing comes to mind, then take a look at some of the many designs John has done: maybe one of those will strike you as being close to what you need, so you can use that as a basis, then modify and refine it as time goes on. Then post your basic plans here for comments, and with specific questions. So far, you sure seem to be doing everything right! - Stuart -

Thanks Stuart, good call. Yes, there is a rail line 1 mile way, and they blow that lonesome whistle and rumble by now and again. And yes, we hear sirens too, Saturday night is pretty noisy. As for thunderstorms, this is central Texas and we have some whoppers sometimes but that would be a show stopper anyway since I'd be outside watching. No partying neighbors though. Safe to say my iso requirements are on the high side, in and out. Question 1: I'm now working on the internal plan version .000001, and need to make my walls thicker than one pixel so can work with realistic internal dimensions. Cheating a little bit from xSpace's reply to a similar question elsewhere on the board, if I were to go with a true double wall construction, with two layers of 5/8" sheetrock on each, plus a gap between the 2x4 plates of 1", that gives me a total minimum thickness of: (5/8" boards x 4) + (nominal 3.5" plates x 2) + 1" gap between members = 10.5" total wall thickness, with an air gap minimum of 8". So if I were to add on an additional 1.5" and draw the interior faces offset -12" this would allow for Green Glue, fabric, optional wider spacing between members, Murphy, etc Would 12" wall thickness seem to be be a reasonable allowance to get me in the ballpark, or is the +1.5" fudge factor too much? Question 2: Thinking ahead to exterior wall cladding. How does his play in this 2 leaf MSM configuration? I'm assuming there should be no air gap between ext board and cladding, and whatever the cladding material is it has to be fixed down tight. You see a lot of new construction in this region wrapped in Tyvek before the final cladding goes up, and most often fibrous concrete board siding is fixed on top on account of termites don't like it. The existing house has this form of cladding but there's definitely a gap behind it. Would I be correct in thinking that if done right cladding will increase mass and therefore improve isolation, and conversely, if not tight, could reduce it? [edit: I knew some of the answers to my wall questions were here somewhere. This thread was very illuminating, except now it's got me thinking concrete block + sand w/2 layers of gib on RC might be an alternative way to go, and use double framing for the interior walls. But maybe not due to the need for increased bass trapping due to the stiff wall, I'm weighing the options. Apologies for missing that thread, I'm trying to be diligent by using the search and not asking the same old questions you've seen dozens of times before]

I've run with the idea of focusing on the rooms and fitting them into the space (that was excellent advice) and am becoming mildly obsessional about this whole project. First up here's a third attempt focusing on the control room. It's based on (close to) Seppmeyer ratios #1 (1:1.14:1.39). Angles are what you'd probably expect from a neophyte like me in studio design, wall splays are 6 degrees, equilateral triangle on mains and mix position, surround sides angled @ 120 degrees arc behind the mix position, this I got from more than one sources I trust, at least until informed otherwise. I've set it up for 5.1 surround mixing since it interests me. I gleaned ideas from across the net esp. this forum (naturally, thanks all), gearslutz, and disparate articles I found compelling by Wes Lachot and Russ Berger. Establishing an RFZ, with the sliding doors left of mix, may be a challenge. I imagine one solution might be an upwardly mobile absorber which would swing / slide up during live recording / rehearsal, when I won't care about early reflections, being on cans or running back and forth with a guitar. It would slide / swing down for mixing / listening. This should be possible given the 12' height and some creative design I think. Hell I could even motorize it with a remote, that would be fun, very James Bond. 8) The rectangle on the wall in front of mix is a projector screen for computer output, CCTV and other video. I'm sold on projectors, though a big HDTV would do. The rest of the space will follow on. I decided that a couple of priorities for me are eye contact with the drummer since they tend to count-in a lot of numbers, and vocals, since singers have a disproportional amount of power in the band. Only half joking there. So I imagine the drum room at the far wall and a vocal booth with proximity and sight lines to the mix position. This last point has me stumped at present. The big room will double (triple?) as a rehearsal room and mother of all neighborhood home theaters, at least my neighborhood. Gotta sell a lot of blackmarket popcorn to pay the extra property taxes. Please take a look, all comments would be greatly appreciated, jpegs attached. I will have to delete some fancy bits (components) from the sketchup to get it to a legal <= 500 Kb, to follow in the next day or two. Main question at this point, any red flags? Many thanks, Mark.

I realized the above was slightly off, room ratio-wise, and am reworking it. I will correct it later so I don't perpetuate misleading info on the net. I have a theory question. You know how with splays you can take the average (measured at the center point) as the ratio number. Does that logic also apply to angled soffits do you think? Should you extend the length of the room to account for angled front baffles? As an illustration the room below is Seppmeyer ratio #2, 1: 1.28: 1.54, exactly to two decimal places. For a 12' high room like the one I'm planning I calculate that to be 12'H x 15.36'W x 18.48'L, with a mix position at 38%, 18.48 x .38 = 7.02' from the front flat portion of the wall. Here is the question. If the soffit angled front 'infinite baffle' walls are not in play I can simply make the room 18.48' long along its maximum (centerline) length, simple. But if the soffit angles reaching back into the room along the side walls do affect the ratios I would do well to average them, like a splayed wall. In this case that would have the effect of lengthening the room by around ~1.04' (I picked the distance off the back wall intersecting with the center of the speaker driver, so not strictly an average of the consumed space, it just seemed 'elegant'). I apologize if this has been discussed before, I couldn't find anything. Since the devil is in the details, and it's all on paper at this stage, I'd love to hear what y'all think. edit: I'm now wondering if that's why, I seem to remember, John's designs sometimes feature a slatted soffit construction with treated space behind, this would effectively provide a false surface plane for waves to propagate along the speaker baffle face while still preserving the length ratio? Makes sense to me.

"You know how with splays you can take the average (measured at the center point) as the ratio number. " Ratios apply to rectangular boundaries. Averaging may have been submitted as a method to keep in the parameters of a ratio, but it really doesn't apply. Once you splay your walls, properly, the need for ratios as a strict boundary guide are no longer required. As a reference to develop a well dimensioned room, sure, it's a better starting place then guessing. But when splayed walls are introduced, then the ratios do not matter. The reason is that you are adding simple diffusion and by virtue of the splayed walls are reducing standing waves, which are by and large the reason good room ratios were looked into in the first place...I think :) Anyway, start with a good room ratio to obtain your room size then splay the walls as they should be and your room will need less treatment and sound more even and better overall. As to getting the maximum air space you can, get it all. But there is some support that once you actually hit a 12 inch cavity that this is as far as will be helpful. I think the document I am thinking about was using sheetrock, so this applies to your build, essentially. Certainly everything matters. Like if you had a double leaf with each leaf being 24 inch concrete, then a 3 foot (36") air space might improve the isolation of the assembly. edit: a few typos.

I see what you're saying. If splays mitigate problems that ratios were designed to address then the strict need for ratios is reduced. I also agree it would make sense to use them as a departure point. The 12" I've allowed for when drawing double walls is outer surface to other outer surface of two layers of 5/8" sheetrock, so that would yield an airspace of: 12" - (5/8" x 4) = 9 1/2" Since I last posted I've researched soffits and pretty much been able to answer my own questions. I've also moved on to concept #3, forgetting the outer walls and parking the rooms I need within the site area. This is bringing me much closer to what I actually need, rather than allowing what I can pack into a rectangle of finite dimensions to drive the design. I'm finding it a lot more creative to work that way.

The actual air cavity....back of one hard boundary to the back of the opposite hard boundary. Not the "actual" floor space the assembly steps on.

Gotcha. Here's the latest. The CR is based on Lowden's best ratio and I'm pretty happy with the basics of it at this point. I've come to realize that, for me, it's important the big room will work as a small venue and live recording, as well as rehearsals, tracking and house concerts. I haven't been able to get near to the top 6 ratios with the main room as yet. I'd like to get a really wide field of view from the desk across the room and this arrangement is the best I could come up with. I'm thinking double sliding doors. Could park a monitor mix position at the back door of the CR. At this point I think I could use the CR for vocals without having to fit in a dedicated booth. I'd like to be able to isolate the drums / stage, more sliders perhaps but better if I could fold everything aside. I have no clue how to achieve that. Any comments on the main room shape? Could this be made to work with suitable treatment on the end walls/corners?

I'm wondering why you have your live room laid out as a control room, with symmetry, etc., and why you are looking to conform it to a room ratio? You don't need to do that with a live room, only the control room. Usually the best idea for a LR is to totally forget about symmetry, and go with a sort of "random" shape, with no two walls parallel.

That's an interesting observation Stuart re randomness, and it was indeed my first impulse with the early drafts, based on good sounding live rooms I've been in over the years. Some had the good sound designed-in, some were completely accidental. Many were assymetrical to some degree. It's scary though, what if the accidental room design has problems? Which raises the question can you debug said random designs on paper? The "giant CR shape" suggested itself after I placed the actual CR and drew the sight lines out of the left side (purple lines on drawing). The shape that popped up provides a) a totally excellent field of view from the desk for live recording, b) a mini theater vibe c) v.efficient use of space. I did some searching, looking for live room general design guidelines. At this point I've come up blank and will continue to dig deeper. If anyone has any more, general or more specific, comments on live room design I would love to hear them. Could be a good topic in its own right.

None parallel walls and big, big ,big!

Lilith, yes, totally agree, as big as possible. Parallel walls could be dealt to with half round diffusers though I believe, though I haven't put that into the diagrams. I got that notion from John's Guruland photos --- to be totally honest I'm not sure about the look of the corrugated iron but it looks like a fun place! :D But you're right, and I probably will end up canting another wall. Newell's book has a chapter and examples of variable acoustics, rooms with acoustically different zones, and changeable surfaces. I think that's what I crave and there is enough room. Live-ish area for the drum / stage end, absorbent walls at the wider end. There are photos of studios using hinged panels for further dicing-up the room as needed for reducing mic bleed. In my case I figure there would be two folding floor to ceiling panels at the stage. They would close down flat to the wings when not in use and swing-out to track drums etc. Not perfect isolation by any means but really flexible and it would be sufficient iso for what I want to do. It's also the kind of stuff I could add to the project plan for "phase 2", so long as it's all thought out and planned for beforehand. I will draw something and post it.

Re. a drum recording space, I've tried various ideas on paper including full height folding- and full width stage doors. It's easy to see that building such things so they won't flap around, stick, obscure vision and generally be nasty as hell :twisted: would be tricky if not impossible. It also seems less than flexible in terms of being able to vary acoustic spaces, which, I have come to realize, is a priority. So I'm thinking of going for a techie prefab drum booth that I can put up for tracking (or live) and completely or partially knock it down for everything else. The cost of building-in would be equal to or greater than buying something. It would be more flexible, being able to be positioned on the stage riser or anywhere else on the floor. You could stick other instrumentalists, like a loud banjo player, or terminally quiet instrument that's getting stomped on by the loud banjo player, in there for a live acoustic session. Requirements would be it should sound OK-to-excellent, be easy to build / knock down, and have sufficient height for overheads assuming there's a lid to it. {edit: scratch that, I'd take the roof off in most cases] Any pros or cons, experiences? Bear in mind I'm primarily interested in capturing great live recordings, though recording good drum tracks is a necessary capability. I admit tracking is not really my idea of fun but I do know how to do it. Actually I really enjoy working on getting a great drum sound, and will need to work that way (scratch vocal, acoustic guitar, etc) as well. Hopefully I will be able to find a drummer that gets on well with the bass player, who digs the whole scene, that the singer likes as a person, and everyone has some sort of sneaking respect for the guitarist engineer, etc... :D