Home Studio Design

Hello everybody It's feels great and also a little bit intimidating to finally post here in this wonderful forum. I have been a fly on the wall for a long time, reading and learning from all the knowledgeable nice people around here, and after a long time that I never dared to post or to ask I finally got the courage so please bare with me. Firstly I would like to introduce myself: My name is Joseph aka Artois and I'm from Israel (apologies in advance for any mistakes with my English :D ) my long lasting dream is to have a small home studio, where I can produce my nice electronic music for the soul mainly in the box. I feel that after reading so much information that exists here and around the web I got a little confuse and what seemed to be a quite reasonable goal began more and more complicated. I know everyone are busy so I will be very grateful for any minute or two someone spare to help a fellow acoustic lover from the over seas, so here I go: GOAL My goal is to have a small recording studio/listening room (I don't know the difference sorry for my ignorance :oops:) where I would be able to produce electronic music (House,Techno), I won't be recording any live instruments or vocals any time soon but I want to be able to record when I need to. I'm renting so I can't really modify anything with the structure of the room but I can do everything else preferably things that I can take with me later on. ROOM DIMENSION -The room is full of concrete top to bottom left to right. dimensions are: Length:3.17 meter Width:2.79 meter Height:2.74 meter -One Window Length:83 cm Width:63 cm Height from floor:90 cm Hope this picture make any sense Right now the room isn't treated professionally I only have a carpet and a few acoustical foam panels scattered on the ceiling + front + left and right walls but my plan is to remove them to make room for professional absorption. (that's why I didn't include them in the sketch). PLAN I'm Sure there are a lot of ways someone can treat a room but I was able to come up with 2 designs for starters: DESIGN 1: A. 2 superchunks in the L+R front corners for the low frequency. B. 4 broadband absorbers on front and back wall. C. 1 broadband absorber for early reflections on right and left wall. D. 3 broadband absorbers hanging from the ceiling functioning as a cloud (not in the sketch) E. I have trouble to solve the back wall corners, R corner is under the window (where I thought I would could place a small Superchunk or a bass trap), and the L corner is the door where I can't place anything permanently (I thought about building a bass trap or a broadband absorber on a pole and reposition as needed) F.I'm not sure about whether or not I should place 4 broadband absorbers in 45 deg hanging from 4 middle ceiling points to 4 middle points on the walls. (hope this one make sense) DESIGN 2: A. 2 bass traps on front corners. B. 4 broadband absorbers on front and back wall. C. 2 broadband absorbers for early reflections on right and left wall. D. 3 broadband absorbers hanging from the ceiling functioning as a cloud (not in the sketch) E. the same as mentioned in design 1 F. the same as mentioned in design 1 MATERIAL Over here is impossible to get a decent Fiberglass or Rockwool not to mention Owens Corning 703/705 :cry: the only material that can be obtain around here is glasswool duct liner faced with alufoil scrim kraft (whatever that means) and Rock Fiber Board All the specs are inside the pictures, NOW TO CONCLUTION: The designs I did obviously are not final and any notes/tips are very welcome. The material here is what available here in Israel unfortunately so please consider that. Lastly I want to thank you for taking the time to read this (I know it was long sorry about that), and hopefully with your help I will get my dream studio :yahoo:

Hi Joseph, and welcome! First, I'd suggest that you need to re-arrange your studio layout, since you will find it really hard to get good sound the way it is now. Two points here: 1) Your speakers are firing across the short axis of the room (2.79 m), but they should be firing down the long axis (3.17m) 2) Your mix position is almost exactly in the center of the room which is the worst possible place for it! Your head is in a whole bunch of nulls. You can fix both of these major issues by rotating your layout 90 degrees clockwise (to the right). That will have consequences (such as one of your bass traps will have to cover the window), but it will improve the acoustics considerably. Another comment about your speakers: You need to get them off the table and onto massive stands, and you need to orient them correctly to get the right geometry. Getting your speakers right is one of the major keys to getting your entire room right. Some other comments on things you mentioned:

I only have a carpet...

Get rid of it! Carpet is selective, it absorbs too much in the highs, and noting at all on the lows. Makes your room sound dull and boomy. The general consensus here is that the floor should be hard and reflective (such as concrete, ceramic, or laminate) and the ceiling should be soft. The easiest way to do that in your case would probably be to build a large "cloud" that you hang over your mix position, covering as much of the room as you can. Regarding your treatment layout plans, both like fine to me. Either one should work. You seem to have the right idea. Personally, I'd go with the superchunks, and also put some horizontally up in the wall/ceiling corners, since that room isn't very big and you are going to need lots of bass trapping. About the door: You might be able to build a "bass trap on wheels", so you can roll it into position over the door when you need to do critical listening. About the materials: If that stuff all you can get, then that's what you'll have to use! :) The "glass wool board" seems to be too thin, and I can't make out the specs for the "rock wool board", since the image is very low resolution, but it looks like it might do the job.

... hopefully ... I will get my dream studio

That's what all of us are here for! Getting our "dream studios". So you sure are in the right place! :) - Stuart -

Hi there Stuart and for your time Its was nice to read your notes and ideas and also made me happy to read your suggestion about changing the room layout and relocate on the long axis of the room, because this is how I'm sitting now. I just thought it would be better to relocate in order to make sure that the front end of the room is symmetrical. And so I went back to the drawing board and I sketched a new design with application of your notes and suggestions. and this is what came out: Without Ceiling: With Ceiling: I added: 1. absorptions on the ceiling 2. changed the mix position 3. Monitor stands 4. Horizontal absorbers 5. Changed from vertical to horizontal the absorbers on back wall --- I will have to call someone to move my air conditioner to make room for the superchunks :D What do you guys think? am I on the right track?

Looking good! Make your speaker stands VERY heavy (for example, many people use hollow stands and fill them with dry sand), and decouple the speaker from the stand. I think I'd still try to get some more trapping in the rear corners if you can. Maybe attach something to the back of the door? - Stuart -

Hi Stuart Glad you like the design, thank you for noticing the rear end of the room some how I forgot about it :oops: do you think it will be OK symmetrically to put a superchunk absorber on the left rear corner? and when you say decouple the speaker form the stand do you mean like MoPads or some sort of acoustic foam?

do you think it will be OK symmetrically to put a superchunk absorber on the left rear corner?

symmetry is more important for the front of the room than the back, but you still need lots of bass trapping in a small room so I'd certainly put that superchunk in the left rear corner and also try to do something in the right rear corner, not so much for symmetry as for total amount of bass trapping.

and when you say decouple the speaker form the stand do you mean like MoPads or some sort of acoustic foam?

Yes! :) (In other words, either approach will do. Anything that acoustically prevents even the very lowest frequency and very highest frequency vibrations that your speaker is capable of producing, form propagating into the stand. Use the search feature on the forum, and you'll find many ways of doing that. - Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:

symmetry is more important for the front of the room than the back, but you still need lots of bass trapping in a small room so I'd certainly put that superchunk in the left rear corner and also try to do something in the right rear corner, not so much for symmetry as for total amount of bass trapping.

OK got it, I Think your idea on the bass trap on wheels is great I will try to build it

artois wrote:

Yes! :) (In other words, either approach will do. Anything that acoustically prevents even the very lowest frequency and very highest frequency vibrations that your speaker is capable of producing, form propagating into the stand. Use the search feature on the forum, and you'll find many ways of doing that.

I really like the idea of using building blocks filled with sand for speaker stands I found this somewhere hope its ok to post here What do you think about: 1. The distance of the cloud from ceiling how low should it be from the ceiling? I Hanged it 20 cm off the ceiling 2. How much air gap should I leave between wall absorbers and the walls? and does it matter if the absorber is vertical or horizontal? 3. Do you think diffusion in my case should be planned initially in the first design or should I wait to test and hear the room and than decide? Really sorry to bombard you with all this question but you seem to be the only one who answer :D

1. The distance of the cloud from ceiling how low should it be from the ceiling? I Hanged it 20 cm off the ceiling

That's OK, but you could probably reduce that a bit if you need the head room, or even angle it. Search the forum for ideas on how to design, build and angle clouds.

2. How much air gap should I leave between wall absorbers and the walls?

A few inches is good.

and does it matter if the absorber is vertical or horizontal?

Not as far as I know! Whatever gives you better coverage.

3. Do you think diffusion in my case should be planned initially in the first design or should I wait to test and hear the room and than decide?

It's a small room, so diffusers wont work too well. Diffusers need lots of room to be effective. If your room turns out to be too dead, then you can liven it up a bit by partially covering your bass traps (superchunks) with plastic, or you could build slot walls instead of plain absorption on the side walls. But yes, you are right: do the basic bass trapping and FRP treatment, hand the cloud, put up a couple of absorbers on the sides, then measure to see where you are and which way you still need to go.

Really sorry to bombard you with all this question but you seem to be the only one who answer

No problem! That's often the way it works here! We kind of "tag team" randomly, if that makes any sense... :) So tomorrow someone else might be answering, while I'm miles away... - Stuart -