Stefan's small home studio.

Heya everyone! I'm going to start my thread as Stuart; Noob alert! I probably have no business being here, much less trying to build my own studio! I've been making music from home for quite a while now and I'm getting more and more serious about it and starting to get my foot in the business, not money-wise though. :P I've always been interested in building my own little "studio" here at home and thought that now when I have some spare money I might at least start. Okay, 'building a studio' might not be the right words for it but basically what I want is a good acoustic treated room for mixing and a small vocal booth. So what do I know about acoustics? I will be honest, very little. I know some terms and I've read some threads both here and on some Swedish forums. I'm very interested in the subject, it's just that it is a lot to learn! Don't get me wrong, I'm all about learning new things that interests me, it's just that I prefer learning during the process. That sounds a bit weird, I know. :P I will build everything by myself with help from family and friends. I know a couple of carpenters (free manpower - yay!) that won't have a problem to build and get some of the materials that I will be needing for a better price. In this case, in my mind, a fairly easy project. But what do I know, right? :) Where am I? I'm located in a flat in Stockholm, Sweden, where I'm also born and raised. The flat is on the second floor out of three, so I have neighbors both under and above me. Since I'm in a flat I'm not allowed to do huge changes to it. Although I can make minor changes that is easy to restore before I move out. According to materials here in Sweden I don't think I will have any bigger problems finding what I need since we have a couple of big warehouses, like every other country, specialized for just "building-stuff". What am I attempting to do? I'm striving for a better acoustic environment for my control room to be (now my bedroom) and vocal booth. Where am I right now in the project? First steps of planning and trying to figure out what will give the best results in my two rooms. In the mixing/control room I've been thinking about to put up either some new walls inside the room or to just put various acoustic panels on carefully chosen spots, in corners and so on. In the vocal booth I've been thinking of building a booth in the booth, to get it tight, with a window out to the control room. How loud am I? During the days I can get pretty loud but none of my neighbors have a problem with that. The one under me is a songwriter which I'm working with from time to time and the one above me is also a music lover who's pretty loud himself. During the nights I'm quiet as a mouse since other people live in this flat. And that's why we've got headphones, right? :) What do I record? I mainly record vocals, guitars and some percussions. I don't have the space to record drums and other large instruments. When I'm mixing and doing my own music it's mostly reggae, hiphop, R&B and house. What is my budget? I would say around $500-600. $1000 TOPS! I figured that it should not cost more than that since it's not a very big project/room and I'm building everything by myself. But since I have no idea of what I will be using I have no idea of how much it will cost. But like everyone else I hope for as little as possible. What do I have to work with? What I got is two rooms. The biggest one is 3.58 meters long and 3.15 meters wide. The smaller room, the vocal booth, has a length of 1.77 meters and is 1.2 meters wide. Its 2.4 meters from the floor to the roof in both rooms. I've got 2 doors where I can choose which one to use to get in to the room - either the top one, which leads to the kitchen, or the one far to the left, which leads out to the living room. What’s it made of? Two of the walls (bottom one and right one on the sketch), there the "right wall" has a window in it, is made of some type of concrete. The other walls I would say is made with some type of heavier wood. I don't know what they're "filled" with - sorry. The floor and roof is solid, probably concrete. Sorry that I don't have exact information about this. If it's needed I will try to get it. What questions do I have? • Is it worth making a room in the room in the control room? My feeling and thoughts tells me that it aint. Both for my economic situation and becuase I can't build what ever I want, because it's a flat. • Which is the best solution to furnish? This will also be my room in the flat, where I have to sleep! • If I build a booth in the smaller room, which way is the best to go with the window to the control room and how do I handle the ventilation? I'm sure I've got a lot more questions, it's just that I can't come up with anything at the moment! They will come up during all the reading I will have to do! Thanks a lot for taking the time to read this and for helping me - if you now choose to do so. :P Kind regards, Stefan. EDIT: Some typos and miss-spellings.

Stefan - check out the stickie "small studio in 3D" in this forum and see if you can scale that design to suit your space.

Great plans John. I really wish I had a lot bigger space to work with, hehe. This is what I came up with using your freebie plans. Plan 1: I feel like this will sound best of the options I have so far and also cost the most to build. On the other hand I have no analyze of the room as it is so it might be hard to know what I will have to do to get the right acoustics in here. It does also look like I wouldn't be able to fit a bed/bed-settee. Have to keep in mind that I will be using this as my bedroom. I'm also concerned that it covers the radiator that sits under the window and as you can see I've covered one of the doors in the larger room. I don't have any problems with doing this! Plan 2: This plan leaves a little open space for my bed and I will still be able to use my window. However it looks like it will be REALLY tight at mixing position. Not a lot of space to move on and it looks less symmetrical. I'm still using the same vocal booth. I like this one and will probably have it that way. I might build the walls a little bit different. What I do like about this plan is that when you're in mix position you can see straight in to the vocal booth! I know that I've got very little space to work with and that makes it even harder but please bare with me! I know that a couch can absorb lower frequencies. That might be a solution instead of having panels in the back (like in test2) and then put a diffusor above the couch. What do you think about that idea? - Stefan.

you've got the idea stefan - maintain the front symmetry to past the listening position then you can square it off to make it fit.

Which of the plans are you referring to John?

the first one.

Ok, this is what I made. I'm not a sketchup guru so I can't do it exactly the way I want it. Like doing the walls in the vocal booth solid, and doing the window out to the control room. But tell me what you think about this plan!

yeah - that's the idea

I got to thinking and I'm wondering; how can I be sure that this will end up in good results acoustic-wise? I mean, I haven't made any kinds of measurements of the room so we don't know what needs to be fixed and so on. Maybe I should make some measurements and post them and then we'll see what needs to be done?

What I would measure first is how loud you are in there, and how quiet you need to be outside. That will determine the isolation that you need, which will determine, to a certain extent, the final dimensions of your inner leaf, which in turn will dictate the modal issues and most of the other acoustic facets of your design. Based on that you can determine what kind of treatment you need to put where. But even then, there are a number of simple rules of thumb for treating small rooms, so most likely your design won't be too much different from many of the others that you see here. - Stuart -

Alright I've done some measurements now. And this is how it looks in my untreated room:

From what I have read, a 1/3 octave is used (yours reads 1/12) and it is an rt60, not 30 ;)

For some reason the program is only letting me choose between T20 and T30.

Stefan - the modes for your room length 3.585m are 46hz and 92hz which appear as a peak and a dip in your response. http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Titles/Acoustics1.htm

So how do I fix this? I've been thinking of making your Side Wall Absorber for the side walls. Basstraps in the corners, a cloud over my head. I have no clue what to do on the front and back walls. However - I'm not planning on soffit/flush-mounting the monitors, I've got a pair of Gelenec 8040, just to keep the cost of everything to a minimum. John, do you have a sketchup file for the side wall absorber? - Stefan

http://johnlsayers.com/Stuff/components.skp Stefan - it means you must treat those two walls heavily - I'd suggest you treat the rear wall with plenty of absorption.

How do you recommend doing that in the best way? I put the side walls at an angle of 8 degrees. Is that better than just having them aligned after the main walls? I've started on a new sketchup sketch and this is how I got it right now:

like this

Ok. That door on the back wall doesn't have to be there, so it's ok to build over it! What do you think about this John? What would that mod of the backwall have on the acoustics? I have no clue how to build a cloud but I made something, like I would want it, in the sketchup file! And again, a million thanks for helping me out John!

John, what do you think?

Alright, so I'm about to buy all the materials either today or tomorrow. I've just got two questions. Should I soffit/flush mount my monitors? If yes - how should I do it? The side walls with the slats, what type of wood should the be in? Does it matter? This is how it looks like right now: StefanF_2.skp Thanks again for all the help! Kind regards, Stefan.