My Great Little Studio

Hello everyone, just thought I'd share:.....................Feel free to comment... :yahoo: At the end of 2006 I started posting questions in the John Sayers Forum regarding my ‘studio’ design. The original post can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7770 The final floorplan here: It’s going to be a small, private studio, just for my own pleasure.....a sanctuary;-) In the picture above, the outside walls are dark red, the inner walls dark grey. The gap between inner en outer room is white. The inner rooms are build on an isolated slab. A ditch of 10 cm wide surrounds the doubly reinforced slab of 15 cm thick concrete. Construction of the outer leaf (amongst others; it was an addition to our house we were building) started around may 2007. By the end of 2007 the exterior was finished, meaning I could start filling all the gaps, beefing up the ceiling with two layers of gypsumboard etc. (After making another (new) shed for bikes and garden tools of course) For the inner walls I used concrete bricks (21x10x8 cm) It was my first time ever laying bricks so it took me a long while to build the walls: A total of 3 months, with an average of one hour per day, just 30 bricks per hour....patience, patience, patience... If there’s one thing I’ve learned from building this thing; it’s patience. The brick laying was especially challenging since I had to fill the joints between the bricks on the outside (of the inner room) right away. Because there is no room to acces it later. This had to be done carefully and not spill too much and thus filling the ditch between the concrete slab and the outside wall, which would compromise the isolation. Once the walls were done, the beams for the ceiling were next: 20 pieces of 420 x 24 x 7 cm. In order to try to match the isolation I would get from the 10 cm thick concrete walls, I decided to go with a concrete ceiling as well. I reckoned 6 cm concrete ceiling would provide enough isolation. I had the beams calculated by a constructional engineer who said 60 cm OC with those beams would be enough. I went with 30% more: 40 cm OC, just to be on the safe side. More to come....

Because I won’t have much ceiling height, just 240 cm, I came up with an idea to lift the ceiling of the TR a little: 50 cm. The plan is basically to build a rectangle box on top of the TR beams: Before starting with the brick laying of the elevation, the concrete floor (ceiling), surrounding the lifted ceiling part, had to be poured. In order to carry the extra weight of the elevation, I glued and bolted 3 beams together on either side. On top of the beams are 18 mm OSB boards. On top of that, the reïnforced concrete. To be continued.....

The double wall between the CR and TR was done with 5 x 10 cm beams. 1 layer of OSB (18 mm) and 2 layers of (9,5 mm) gypsumboard on the CR side, and 1 layer of OSB and 3 layers of GB on the TR side. Of course filled with rockwool... I cannot find any pics of this anywhere,...;-( Then came the fun part: building the soffit wall and the CR back wall. For the soffits I decided to go with the Thomas Barefoot idea, where the speakers are decoupled from the outer frame: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=718 To give myself a really hard time planning/constructing I also wanted the speakers above ear height, angled down:....Why? Because of the more clear ‘view’ from behind the desk (interference of sound with the LCD monitors) and,...I have to admit: looks....;-) viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11447 The plan: The construction: The white boxes in the soffit frame picture are the speaker stands: A wooden box filled with concrete (23 kg each). Each one will rest on 4 rubber (Merfomer) feet of 8,7 x 8,7 cm. More later...

The speakers are firmly attached to the stands. The backwall of the CR will be filled with rockwool in 3 corners (left, right, ceiling) like the Studiotips superchunks. More than 50 cm rockwool on the thickest side. The ceiling will also be filled (mostly) with rockwool (24 cm) I'll be back soon... :)

Since the speakers (Genelec 1030) are going to be fully enclosed by rockwool, I’ve removed the amplifiers (for easy acces and cooling) and will place them in the frontwall. For this I constructed a wooden frame: Hope to continue soon....

Next up, the doors. Basically 3 layers of (ply-)wood in a bankvault style construction. (40 mm Okoumé, 18 mm Meranti, 12 mm Meranti) Double seals on the doors with a corresponding door frame. The glass is 14 mm laminated on the TR side and 13 mm laminated on the CR side. For the latches I found something they normally use in ship building. More or less similar to the ones Paul Woodlock used in his massive studio build (Diary at Studiotips): http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.p ... start=2000 These latches compress the seals to the door jambs. Normally they attach (weld) the latch directly to the steel door. In this case I had a friend who welded them to steel plates. I then screwed the plates to the doors: Stay tuned...

I really, really wanted wood for the floors. If it makes any difference acoustic wise, I doubt it, but I like the feel and look of it. So browsing the net I eventually found this:I made a desk that fits the 12 degree angle of both side walls and some racks from 22 mm Okoumé. The top layer is a double layer with trims around.More after the break

Next up, putting trims around the cloth....As you can see the bezel is not made of Meranti. I went with 18 mm mdf and painted them black.All I need now is a comfortable couch and a lava lamp.....and finish the trims around the cloth,..and connect the central heating,...and etc. etc. etc. (not to mention completely building the inside of the tracking room...;-) In the meantime I’m playing CD’s Haven’t done that in quite a while. Just to get a feel for the room. First impressions: GREAT!....at least to my ears: love the imaging, thight bass response... I am one happy camper :yahoo: That's all for now folks.....

Wow! That looks pretty cool!!! Congratulations! But the big question, of course, is how does it SOUND? :) - Stuart -

Thanks Stuart, Well I haven't spent a lot of time listening (its cold :ahh: ....heating yet to be installed) But the first impressions are p r e t t y - w o n d e r f u l l. A really strong imaging (wide and depth), large sweetspot, tight bass. (although I might need to add a sub at some point) You can quickly discriminate between good and, let's say, not so good mixes (also a matter of taste of course) Haven't got any measurments to back it up, my music computer needs an overhaul, but all in all I'm very satified with the results. Results for which I'm greatly indebted to this forum, mind you :!: :!:

great Phybeau! :thu: looks all pretty awesome! have you ordered your latches in the www? great idea how you fixed your speakers! the second layer of your soffit - is it glued, screwed or nailed? the piccies are always too small here on JLS to see any details =( greetings, carsten

Thank you Carsten! I bought my latches in a store for shipyard supplies. But if you google the dutch word for compression latch => DEURKNEVEL, the first result will give you a supplier. The soffit layers are all screwed...;-) I like to have acces if necessary. If I ever want to switch to different speakers, this way all I have to do is replace the concrete filled stands (depending on the size and weight of the new ones), the bezel and I'm done...(at least that's the idea)

hehe. i just found your post on gearslutz ;) cool. I used a couple of strong magnets for my doors. works fine but I think it could be better. I will give it a try as soon as I'm done with everyhing and feel the need to "pimp" some things... is there a build diary on gearslutz? your information here on JLS is a little decent so to speak. (don't get me wrong!) I'd love to see a few more details 'n pics. dank u well carsten

Carsten, The problem with the 'diary' is that I'm trying to recapture the last two years... Most of the time I didn't have time (or didn 't give myself time) to take pictures,...always in a rush :mrgreen: If you can point out what kind of details you're looking for, I'll try and find some more pics. Or I could send you larger pics if you want,...just pm me you e-mail address and specifics. Kein Problem :)

Wow, it looks really neat!!! Just a question, I pressume you had also to reinforce your foundation (fundering) inside? I'm still in the middle of planning my build, now what you build seems reasonable...and well worth doing. I'm just really curious, now with the concrete ceiling, and bricked walls, what's the STC rate of your live room? My place is situated pretty close to the neighbours, and I really need something where they can't get bothered with any drums ( of me and my wife ), or shredding guitars... Now is building an extra room inside with concrete bricks filled with sand and a concrete ceiling THE solution to that? Hopefully you can tell me :)

Funky Animal...Just a question, I pressume you had also to reinforce your foundation (fundering) inside?

The inside rooms are build on an isolated doubly reinforced concrete slab of 15 cm thick.

Now is building an extra room inside with concrete bricks filled with sand and a concrete ceiling THE solution to that? Hopefully you can tell me :)

Well, not at this point I´m afraid. Still have to pour concrete on most of the ceiling. (that´s one job I won´t do alone. So it takes synchronizing agenda´s and better weather...not when it´s freezing) But like one reaction I had when planning this thing `You´re basically building a concrete bunker in a brick shit house´ I suspect it will be overdone, but rather safe than sorry as far as isolation is concerned. Another aspect,...concrete comes cheap around these parts, at least al lot cheaper than gypsym board or wood. More mass for less money :wink:

A little update: Last week I took some measurements with Room EQ Wizard in my nearly completed CR. With the microphone at 125 cm height (approx. ear height) and at 38% from the front wall, here are the results: (The speakers are Genelec 1030 and the mic used for measuring: an sE-Electronic SE-2.) As you can see from the waterfall, the room is pretty ‘dead’. More dead than some people prefer, but I kinda like it this way. It sounds tight. The graph showes two very large dips at approx. 435 and 495 Hz. I then generated both frequencies (sine wave) and just listened walking through the room. The results were shocking: when moving your head vertically at the listening position, at some point/height there was practically nothing the hear at others is was very loud. Because of this experience and the calculation with the Real Traps Graphical Mode Calculator (results below) I suspected it had something to do with the room height (242 cm) In trying to be clever I thought: what if I slope the ceiling above the listening position? So I attached som 15 mm thick mdf to the already (12 degree) sloped absorbing ceiling (see picture below) I took some new measurements: WRONG! I suspected it would create some new deviations but apart from that the dips were deeper! Deeper than with the absorbing ceiling! So I’m kinda stuck, out of ideas/solutions. It is on one hand not a bad room at all: I like the way it sounds, and the mixes I’ve done so far, seem to translate very well. And now of course I know where to pay extra attention to when EQ-ing. And I can always raise or lower my head 20 cm to double check..;-) On the other hand, If I can (without completely reconstructing everything) within the possibillities of this small room, make it (slightly) better, I’m all ears. Any suggestions? In order to give a better idea of what I have to work with I made some pictures. The room dimensions are 4,00 meters deep, 2,42 meters high and the width goes from 2,35 to 3,90 meters. The ceiling is completely fiiled with rockwool (24 cm deep) apart from the space between three beams in the middle. (I have not decided yet what to do with that,..absorbtion, diffusion?) I did not draw the rest of the rockwool and beams, otherwise you cannot see anything.. :mrgreen: Thanks in advance, Phybeau

Me again :wink: Could a Helmholz absorber tuned to both frequencies (435 and 495 Hz) be effective? Thanks for looking into this. Phybeau