Pool House to Studio near Athens, Ohio

Greetings to All! Very excited to be posting here for the first time. I am a recording engineer for a non for profit artist-in-residency program based out of Chicago, IL (http://www.haroldarts.org) We just acquired some new land out near Athens, OH. On this land is a stand alone pool house in which we intend to construct a recording studio. Our budget to create the space is around $2,000 USD with a little wiggle room. We can get milled lumber for free (2x4's, 2x8's, this kind of stuff). We can't, however, get plywood, mdf, sheetrock, and insulation for free. Our projected start date is early June. The building is in a field 50 yards from any other building, and there is no road nearby. Right now the only sound getting into the building when all windows and doors are closed is the birds chirping. How nice... Here are some pics and a .pdf with dimesions: (I also have a google sketchup with accurate dimensions which appears to be too large to attach, even after zipping. Let me know if there is a workaround.) We're not looking to do anything super fancy, this is going to be the studio we use for 2-4 years before we build something from the ground up. With this in mind, we are avoiding room isolation within the poolhouse (with the exception of a small iso booth) and extraneous wiring/electrical stuff. What we WOULD like to do is: 1. Kill the outside noise coming through the windows and sliding doors. 2. Make the room sound great while retaining some of the liveness. (What kind, and how much absorption and diffusion?) 3. The obvious: Figure out how to deal with the POOL! As much as we would like to be able to do a take and take a dip... We debated whether or not to track in the pool or kill it by capping it and we arrived at covering it with a heavy deck, making a flush floor throughout the whole space - effectively creating one big live room. We don't NEED to have an isolated control room but maybe we could construct some movable gobos to create some separation from the rest of the space - possibly along the side nearest the sliding doors. We have thought about the need for a pump and possibly a de-humidifier under the deck. More about the room: The floors are all concrete and brick. The walls are covered with some sort of laminate with micro-bumps (pretty reflective stuff). It's 10ft from the ground to the tin ceiling, which we intend on ripping out, exposing the studs and the single layer of insulation between all the joists. It's then another 6ft to the peak of the A-frame roof. The idea was to leave the joists and insulation in-tact and cover the surface with fabric. This would let lower frequencies through to the "attic" space but we're not sure if that could lead to problems. Maybe we would need to go up there and insulate more... There are also ported sunlights for natural light which we would like to keep. We would probably deal with the corner windows by making them all big bass traps. For the windows and sliding doors we might use some box absorbers to double as inside absorption and outside noise cancellation. I should say: it doesn't matter how much sound is escaping, just what's coming in. The music is going to be eclectic, ranging from really quiet noise/experimental, to acoustic jazz and heavier rock. The most noise outside will be the birds and people walking by or laughing in the field. We will encourage people to keep it down when near the studio. Feel free to shoot down any and all of our ideas! You guys know best and we are open to new thoughts. I believe I've covered enough so far, forgive me if I left anything out. Thanks for your time! Cheers, Ben

Id build the studio over the pool and turn the pool into a chamber reverb.

Check your budget. Assuming 15% of your wall/ceiling needs absorption, mulitply that by the surface area, then by $2.00 as a first guess at the price of 4" 703 like material in your area. That figure is just for raw absorption. 2k does not seem realistic at all. Andre

though building the live room in the pool will give you some good height.

Thanks to all for the quick replies! John- I thought about that chamber reverb idea. That would be totally cool and unique! Andre- Very helpful indeed. Although did you overlook the fact that the entire ceiling will be a solid layer of "pink stuff" (only 2 or 3 inches thick though) covered in fabric? I know this won't get the lower frequencies as much like the 703... Again, I would like to clarify that we do want a decent amount of liveness (perhaps absorption over 15% of the surface area does just that) so I'm really interested in some broadband diffusion. The thing is, we have free lumber for constructing diffusors. Lilith- We have done a lot of back and forth on the height topic. Our decision to cover the pool is for several reasons: 1. If we lover the deck into the pool more than 3-4' we'll start to lose square footage pretty rapidly due to the slope of the pool. 2. Considering 1, will 4' make a noticeable difference? If not, how much will and is it worth sacrificing the floor space and the possibly more complex construction. 3. It might make playing live and headphone-less an odd experience when the drummer is "submerged" in the pool. 4. Sinking the deck would also create some odd space AROUND the pool that would probably be useless.. 5. The acoustics in the sinked deck might be more of a problem than it's worth - consuming more resources (depending on how low it goes I suppose). SO Any ideas on the deck build in general? I wouldn't think so - but - Is it necessary to float it? Is it worth sinking it for some extra height? What are some diffusor designs that you would recommend for this space? Any other way I can upload the Sketchup file so you guys can take a closer look? Thanks Again! Ben

carver wrote:

Thanks to all for the quick replies! Andre- Very helpful indeed. Although did you overlook the fact that the entire ceiling will be a solid layer of "pink stuff" (only 2 or 3 inches thick though) covered in fabric? I know this won't get the lower frequencies as much like the 703... Again, I would like to clarify that we do want a decent amount of liveness (perhaps absorption over 15% of the surface area does just that) so I'm really interested in some broadband diffusion. The thing is, we have free lumber for constructing diffusors.

You are welcome. Yes, I did overlook that the ceiling plan to make it 100% absorbent with pink stuff. That material at 2 or 3" thick will not absorb at the low end. Make it at least 6" thick if using pink stuff. Regardless of the material, covering the entire ceiling will make the room with no liveliness. 15% coverage overall will give a room with life to it. Diffusers can be made in various forms. With that size room, you could use splayed diffusors to prevent flutter echo. A definite potential problem with those dimensions. The deck has to firm enough to not absorb low frequency sounds at selective frequencies. A 10 foot to 16 foot height is comfortable. The recessed deck sould be in the higher area, so I see no great reason to recess it. Sight lines from the periphery to the recessed area would strange, at least. Please remeber my tagline. In addition to it, talk, meaning designing, is cheap compared to building, tearing down, and rebuilding. Good luck and keep the design evolving! Andre

Can anyone think of some good construction tips for building this deck in the pool so that it's flush with the ground level? I got some ideas but I've never built something like this and I want to make sure I don't overlook anything. Also, I've been thinking about constructing some Shroeder diffusers. I've seen lots of calculators online for dimensions. I'm wondering if there's anyway to calculate optimal placement and bandwidth of the diffusers in the room. Thanks, Ben