Alex´s Studio - newbie - please help. | John Sayers’ Recording Studio Design Forum archive

Hello guys! Greetings from Guadalajara, Mexico! The land of Mariachi! OK I have read the stickies regarding first post, hopefully I am not missing anything….and….well, first of all I want to thank each and everyone who contributes to the wealth of knowledge that is this web site. And specially to Mr Sayers for hosting it. I have been reading, and reading, and reading since November last year trying to get soaked with as much knowledge as I can. And still, it´s not enough I think. So anyway, newbie here, I have a modest setup at home for recording my band´s demos but I never took the time to properly treat it acoustically!! (I know, duh!) Therefore you can imagine the lots of problems that I have encountered, given that I record in an almost square highly reflective room. Not to mention the room where I mixed wasn´t even treated at its FRPs. Here are the details (my English may seem good but sometimes I can´t find the right words, so please bear with me) : Location : Guadalajara, Mexico. (Lots of tequila, not enough 703). :) My objective: I want to turn a spare, square, reflective bedroom into a Live Room where I can record decent sounding drums, guitars and bass primarily, and probably some other instruments as well (strings, brass, other types of percussion). I also have most of the "control room" in my living room space, so I would like to turn that into a proper mixing environment too. I want my mixes to translate, pleeeeaaazzzee! :( Current status of the project: Starting over from scratch. I decided to build some broadband traps about a month ago, using all the info found here. And….they work!! I didn´t have a job back then so I could only afford to treat my CRs FRPs and the 2 north wall-wall corners. But now I have a job! :yahoo: And I want to do this properly and treat both CR and LR. Sound levels : I was mixing yesterday night and I found myself mixing at 75-80 db(A). But I read somewhere, that the best is to go 80-85db when mixing because that´s where the ear presents the flattest response. I read that the OSHA std for near field is around 83dB (A) with a slow response. So that would be where I´m mixing at. I currently record mostly rock for my band. But I would like to be able to record any genre I want (not that it would make much of a difference, but I thought I´d clarify) For tracking well, hahaha…I can track my guitar at manageable levels, but I´ve met drummers who smash the hell out of those drums...so I guess 120dB? I really don´t think I need isolation to the outside of the LR. Up to date, I´ve never received a complaint from the neighbors hehehe. Budget : Around 100 USD monthly for as long as I have a job! Well, I guess let´s just leave it at 100 USD /mth for now. The place (Live Room) : Oh man, I´m afraid of what you´re gonna say after you read this, hehehe. I live in a rental house, but I only rent the second of 2 floors. Not to worry, my neighbors downstairs are offices and they´re not in for the most part of the day. The house is located in a corner, and I believe distances from the live room to the nearest neighbor walls allow for enough transmission loss (or at least that´s what experience tells me). Bedroom´s dimensions are - - Height is 2.84 m (9.317 ft). - North wall to south wall: 3.99 m (13.091 ft). - West wall to closet door: 3.94 m (12.93 ft), closet door to east wall: 0.82 m (2.69 ft)…west to east wall is 4.76 m (15.62 ft). …the closet covers the entire east wall. It´s made of 1.70cm (0.67in) particle board.

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All the walls are 32cm (12.6 in) thick, made of brick and concrete and covered with mortar. I can´t measure the ceiling thickness but I bet it is roughly the same, only the ceiling is 100% concrete.

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The floor is glazed ceramic tile. The north wall has a window which is 1.50m (59in) x 1.18m (46.5in). The door access is 88cm (2.88ft) x 2.20m (7.217 ft). No pillars, walls are parallel except for a little wedge in the corner of the north and east walls. Ceiling to floor also parallel.

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I know I have to give you guys some type of sketch. I just downloaded sketchup and haven´t gotten around to fiddle with it yet. I´ll get around to learn to use it and upload a sketch so you get a better image of the place. Please refer to the pictures attached in the meanwhile. The place (Control Room) : hehehehe….I invaded half of my living room so I could be out of the live room while my drummer was tracking. Being in there not a good idea, unless I wore plugs!! OK, so here are the dimensions: Length: 5.95m (19.52 ft) Width: 4.28m (14.04 ft) Height: 2.84m (9.317 ft)

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….same construction as the Live Room, brick and concrete walls covered in mortar, concrete ceiling covered in mortar and glazed ceramic tile. all walls parallel including ceiling to floor. But it gets a little trick on the south wall, the access door is like a wedge between east and south wall. and also the south wall has the access to the kitchen so it´s really not a wall but only part of it.

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There´s a window on the north wall which is 1.50m (59in) x 1.18m (46.5in), right in front of my mix position. There´s also a sliding door on the west wall which is 1.50m (59in) x 2.06m (81in), roughly, it has an odd shape. Refer to pics. No pillars, no other weird things except for this reverberation that won´t let me mix right. RT60 : For the CR, I'd like to accomplish an RT60 of 0.5 seconds or less, balanced throughout the frequency spectrum, I know it will fluctuate from one octave to another, but my idea is to try to keep it fairly balanced. For the LR, I know it will have to have a lot of absorption in order to try and tame reflectivity so I don´t have a specific idea as to what the RT60 should be. I guess just get the room sounding nice and see where what the RT60 ends up being and if necessary work from there. Problems with the rooms : Live room. Oh man. I cannot track decent sounding drums for the love of God! hahaha. There´s this huge overbearing bass buildup that just clouds the highs. For example if I listen to a recorded kick drum, there is simply no click, at all, so I have had to fix the mix to the point of cutting 12db of bass frequencies plus trying to excite harmonics and…well you get the idea. Also because of the reflectivity of the room, the cymbals get into all of the mikes. That combined with the bass buildup is a mixing nightmare. Guitars sound…mmm…ok I would say. Not the best, not the worst. I can post sound files if needed. I have downloaded REW and as soon as I get up to speed on using it, I will post some response graphs. Control room. My mixing position is exactly at 38% from the north wall right in the middle of the room. My monitors are Yamaha HS50Ms near fields, placed on concrete stands at 1.20m (47in+) from the floor (dang, I am a short man! LOL). The monitors are aimed at me creating an equilateral triangle (60 degrees). The distance monitor to monitor is 1.5 m (59in), the same distance measured from each monitor to listening position. I have built 8 broadband traps out of Roxul RW60(could´t find OC 703), 4 of which are covering the CRs north wall to wall corners. 2 are on the side reflection points (1 on each side, calculated from Ethan Winer´s web site, thank you sir). And also 2 more behind my monitors, covering the back reflection points. I know this is not enough, but it has helped indeed. In simple terms, my mixes will not translate properly to other systems. I have resorted to replacing drums when the recording made in the live room is useless. But, my control room has this looong reverb time mostly coming from the nearby kitchen, that I have often found myself using too little or no reverb. My mixes end up sounding lifeless or dry. In simple terms: they simply will not translate properly to other systems. There is also this lack of bass around 100hz that won´t let me detail the low end of my mixes the way I´d like to. I heard it using Logic´s sine wave generator. And also this big peak around 60hz. I know, comes with the parallel walls. What I want to do / questions : Well, I would like to build the place from scratch but I don´t have the money and this is a rental, so…. 1) I want to put superchunks in all corners, wall to wall and maybe wall to ceiling. Both in CR and LR. Questions: Is RW60 appropriate for this? I have read it´s too dense, actual is 4.4 lbs/ft3 ASTM C 553. I have tried sourcing 703 with no success. If it is not appropriate, should I trash it? Or can I use it to treat FRPs? 2) I will treat all FRPs. including front, back, and cloud over mix position (CR) and cloud over drums (LR) and according suggestions I have read by Ethan Winer on other posts and his website, I am thinking of covering most of the walls in a checkerboard pattern (LR). Questions ("CR"): What do you suggest I do about the weird south wall? Should I cover the entrance to the kitchen with some kind of gobo? or should I treat the kitchen´s walls with absorption? I think I will put some throw rugs on the floor…is this appropriate? Can I keep the furniture in there? Questions("LR"): Since I can´t modify the walls in order to get rid of room modes, what do you suggest I do, given this is a rental? Gobos? What do you think about the closet? Should I stuff it with insulation? Or treat it the same as the walls (checkerboard pattern) ? Oh man, I have so many questions but I think I´ll stop right here, try to touch base with you and build from your help and responses. Which I really, humbly and enthusiastically hope I get from you. Thanks so much in advance for any help that you can provide. Cheers. Alex Robles.

Questions: Is RW60 appropriate for this? I have read it´s too dense, actual is 4.4 lbs/ft3 ASTM C 553. I have tried sourcing 703 with no success. If it is not appropriate, should I trash it? Or can I use it to treat FRPs? Roxul RW60 is absolutely fine. Note that Corner Absorbers are better value for money than SuperChunks, nearly as good, much more moveable when you move on. See http://www.studiotips.com Note in the comparison between SSC and Corner Absorbers, the SSC is 34 inches wide, while the Corner AB is 24 inch. 2) I will treat all FRPs. including front, back, and cloud over mix position (CR) and cloud over drums (LR) and according suggestions I have read by Ethan Winer on other posts and his website, I am thinking of covering most of the walls in a checkerboard pattern (LR). I don't know what an FRP is! I presume Flutter and Reflection killers. Cloud over Drums, Vocal spot, and Mix position. Use a mirror and a friend to be sure where to put these. Checkerboard is good. See Ready Bags for a nice looking finish. If you are in a Metric country your insulation will be a different size. Questions ("CR"): What do you suggest I do about the weird south wall? Should I cover the entrance to the kitchen with some kind of gobo? or should I treat the kitchen´s walls with absorption? I think I will put some throw rugs on the floor…is this appropriate? Can I keep the furniture in there? Furniture is good. I will look at the other questons later. Questions("LR"): Since I can´t modify the walls in order to get rid of room modes, what do you suggest I do, given this is a rental? Gobos? What do you think about the closet? Should I stuff it with insulation? Or treat it the same as the walls (checkerboard pattern) ? Gobos would be useful for many purposes but hard enough to construct. You could use them to shut off an area when mixing. SuperChunk and Corner Absorbers are good with modes. It is worth putting FRK, Paper or Plastic film/membrane on traps to get extra LF action. I would include this on the back of RFZ and Cloud panels. An airgap behind Cloud and RFZ panels pretty much doubles the action, for free. Closet? Can you lose the doors and fill it with light cheap attic insulation? You have hard floors can ceilings. There will be flutter and modes between them. Lots of thick Clouds with FRK on the back and airgap, would be great. You will hardly be able to cover the whole ceiling so certainly some rugs will help. Audimute have large areas of cheap treatment that you can just hang on the wall. Great for temporary work. Leave an airgap behind them. Best, DD