Exterior wall concept

Thanks guys. I have a new employee(commercial painting company) with a serious BO problem. I had a talk with him about how it's not cool for the people/ trades working around him that he smells so strong. His response was that "where he is from, they were all used to working around natural human odors and after a while you just get used to it'. That and he didn't want aluminum in his armpits. I suggested water might come in as a useful tool. Point is, wow, some people just like to smell bad and it is a serious problem over an 8 or 10 hour session if they start the session already a bit ripe. It happens, usually it's the drummer, am i right or what :wink: ( truly they are my favorite people almost always otherwise) So this is a good point to have clear and i appreciate the insight. The bigger machine is a go.

Ok back at it. I need to nail down basic room dimensions, like to the inch, so i can pour the slab and accommodate the big walls in the concrete. Here again is my roughed out room sizes pic...These sizes were decided by just laying out rooms and feeling them out as well as using the little bit of knowledge i have regarding angled walls etc. What i am looking for is some help as to how to refine the sizes(interior dimensions of the rooms). There is quite a bit of room for adjustment at this point. We can start with the CR and go from there if that makes sense. Thanks

Which area is the control, room?

xSpace wrote:

Which area is the control, room?

378 ft sq CR

You can see i left some trapping/diffusion space on the sides and front and back, that's what those other dims around it are.

How about showing the actual positions and dimensions of the walls, doors, and windows on there, plus the positions of the monitors, desk and engineer, and maybe the initial positions for other furniture and the first round of basic treatment? That would help to get a better idea of what you are intending to accomplish. - Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:

How about showing the actual positions and dimensions of the walls, doors, and windows on there, plus the positions of the monitors, desk and engineer, and maybe the initial positions for other furniture and the first round of basic treatment? That would help to get a better idea of what you are intending to accomplish. - Stuart -

Thanks Stuart, i'll get that happening asap and post a pic.

Soundman2020 wrote:

How about showing the actual positions and dimensions of the walls, doors, and windows on there, plus the positions of the monitors, desk and engineer, and maybe the initial positions for other furniture and the first round of basic treatment? That would help to get a better idea of what you are intending to accomplish. - Stuart -

Ok here are some very rough pics of the concept. I am only at pouring the slab right now. What i am looking for is any comments on if i am making any mistakes leaving the room i am for the CR size. It can be angled and treated within the dimensions shown with a rough goal of the 21x18 interior final size. Again the ceilings are open to 21 feet at the peak and 16 or so at the far sides so there is lots of room to work with on the ceiling.

Ok well since no one has anything to say on that, a couple more questions... -What is a wise size of conduit to use to leave myself room for snakes and cables room to room through the slab? any other considerations with that? -As for speakers on the console, if my set up is as follows in the pics, planning for flush mounted mains, but also i want to be sure that speakers on the console are far enough from the wall to function well. Is 4'8" good? -Would one be better to plan for floor AC plugs directly Under the console or out from the back a bit? Pic notes: FM= Flush mount speaker

planning for flush mounted mains,

There seems to be a problem with the way you have the front of your room depicted: from the drawings, it looks like you are not using soffits at all to mount your speakers, and instead the seem to be mounted directly into the inner leaf! Not only that, but they are not angled: They do not face the mix position, but rather face directly towards the back wall, head-on, at 90°! That would put your sweet spot somewhere way outside the back wall, way beyond the building... I also don't understand the areas marked "space for CR treatment": that too seems to be outside the inner leaf. How can you treat the acoustics inside a room by putting the treatment outside of the room? Maybe you could explain that, and also provide more detail (in 3D) on your SketchUp model, since it is hard to figure out what the various lines are supposed to be. Regarding your other questions:

-What is a wise size of conduit to use to leave myself room for snakes and cables room to room through the slab?

Basically, make them all as big as possible (within reason!), allowing for future expansion, and use separate runs for electrical, audio, and other things (telephone, video, etc.). Keep the audio runs as far away from the others as you can.

As for speakers on the console, if my set up is as follows in the pics, planning for flush mounted mains, but also i want to be sure that speakers on the console are far enough from the wall to function well. Is 4'8" good?

Maybe, maybe not. The best plan is to find the right place for the speakers once the room is built. Your mix position and speaker geometry are a little strange: it looks like you have your mix position marked at the apex of the triangle, which is at 1/3 the room depth. The general recommendation is that the listening position should be at 38% of the room depth, which of course means that the apex of the triangle will be a bit further back than that. Also, even though you commonly see it in photos of all kinds of studios, putting speakers directly on top of the console is not a good idea. Much better to put them on stands just beyond the console.

-Would one be better to plan for floor AC plugs directly Under the console or out from the back a bit?

Personally, I prefer to just have two or three plugs at the front, somewhere, feeding power strips attached under the desk and inside the racks for distribution. But that's more of a personal preference thing: I like to have as little clutter as possible on the floor, and try to hide all the distribution under/inside the furniture. - Stuart -

Please excuse my rushed pics. Here is a more detailed one. No 3d yet, i'm pretty slow with that stuff, hopefully this will you give a better idea. Notes: For the CR I went off the ratio of 1(14ft H): 1.28(17.92ft W): 1.54 (21.56 ft L) I left a couple feet at the back for serious diffusion and did not include that in the room dimension as that seems to make sense.(no?) I want to build a RFZ CR.

Any thoughts on the idea or placement of a radiant wall heater in the CR? It will have in floor but in order to get it warm fast i will plumb for a wall unit. My thoughts were that the back of the room would work, center it in the diffusion. No comments on the above design?

How are these lines for sound travel looking? I have extended the diffusion section at the back to help. Its 24 feet away from the speaker at the back wall.

Actually, i went and stood in the previous layout and it feels too small width wise, if i got a longer console i would be messed up. I added 2 feet on the sides, now i have this cool line from the speakers where the high reflections stay in the back of the room. comments?

I'm trying to figure out what those lines are supposed to portray! :? :shock: :?: Maybe you can explain the concept you are trying to convey with those lines? - Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:

I'm trying to figure out what those lines are supposed to portray! :? :shock: :?: Maybe you can explain the concept you are trying to convey with those lines? - Stuart -

I know, nothing too serious, and kinda messy, but, Well, perhaps i am wrong, but given high's travel in strait lines, that would be the path they would follow from the speaker given the angles of the walls. Not something to consider? On another note, any comments on using a floor box for xlrs in the recording room, poured into the slab? Better in the walls?

I have some conduit questions here viewtopic.php?f=16&t=16823 if anyone is interested. Thanks

Soundman2020 wrote:

planning for flush mounted mains,

provide more detail (in 3D) on your SketchUp model, since it is hard to figure out what the various lines are supposed to be. - Stuart -

This is the best i have at the moment,i'm horrible with SU. The purple thing is the Vox/utility/ upper booth. It will look out over the main room. Under it is just a storage/amp/repair room. Thoughts on the layout?

Several questions: Why are your speakers no longer in the center of the soffits, where they have to be in order to work properly? Why have you removed the rear corners of the room, which are essential for good bass trapping? Why is the mix position roughly in the worst possible spot, at the geometric center of the room?

I know, nothing too serious, and kinda messy, but, Well, perhaps i am wrong, but given high's travel in strait lines, that would be the path they would follow from the speaker given the angles of the walls. Not something to consider?

I think you need to study the concept of ray-tracing. Yes, highs do travel roughly in straight lines, but not as one single line emanating from the center of the speaker! :shock: There is a wave front that follows a roughly cone-shaped path from the speaker, spreading out with distance. Pack in a few million individual straight lines within the cone, follow each one of them for a few bounces around the room, and you'll have a rough idea of where the actual wave front is going by seeing where each of those those few million "strait lines" goes. It's just a tad more complicated than a single line can represent. You might be able to simplify it to a dozen or so lines, but certainly not to a single line.

On another note, any comments on using a floor box for xlrs in the recording room, poured into the slab? Better in the walls?

Better in the walls. If you stick it in the floor, the connectors will gather dust, get stepped on, spilled on, take up valuable floor space, etc. - Stuart -

Regarding your attempt at ray-tracing, besides the excellent 'splanation from Stuart, trying to do anything like this by hand with partially curved and very inexact lines is absolutely futile. I suggest you simply try and locate your prime reflection points - but at least use a ruler and perhaps a protractor. Use the system similar to that outlined by Ethan Winer http://realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm by copying a mirror image of your room to either side of the actual room diagram, then drawing a line from the actual listening position to the centre of the reflected images of your monitors - where it crosses the actual room boundary is your primary reflection point for that wall. You can do the same for the ceiling and even the floor using the side-view of course (including the desk if you've got it scaled in the drawing). Using this method can also help you work out the required angles for walls, hardback-clouds etc. for RFZ as well as treament.

"trying to do anything like this by hand with partially curved and very inexact lines is absolutely futile." That isn't what is happening here. The poster actually attempted to re-create the path lines using the tools included in Sketchup. What might be in question is the angle of incident of all the angles. The "hand drawn" lines is a rookie mistake, but if you look closer you see that he is trying to follow the "guides" that he used to develop his angles with. Kind a smart really...just looks like a hack did it in the end :)

I didn't give enough notice to the guide lines in the background - sorry, my bad.

BriHar wrote:

Regarding your attempt at ray-tracing, besides the excellent 'splanation from Stuart, trying to do anything like this by hand with partially curved and very inexact lines is absolutely futile. I suggest you simply try and locate your prime reflection points - but at least use a ruler and perhaps a protractor. Use the system similar to that outlined by Ethan Winer http://realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm by copying a mirror image of your room to either side of the actual room diagram, then drawing a line from the actual listening position to the centre of the reflected images of your monitors - where it crosses the actual room boundary is your primary reflection point for that wall. You can do the same for the ceiling and even the floor using the side-view of course (including the desk if you've got it scaled in the drawing). Using this method can also help you work out the required angles for walls, hardback-clouds etc. for RFZ as well as treament.

Thanks Brihar for you comments. If you look closely you will see protractor lines under the hand drawn ones. But Stuarts' point is well taken. I am aware of the mirror trick, since it cannot be done yet, as the room is not built, i thought this might be a useful exercise to have a look at, at this stage.

BriHar wrote:

I didn't give enough notice to the guide lines in the background - sorry, my bad.

No worries.I appreciate your comments. :)

From Stuart "Why are your speakers no longer in the center of the soffits, where they have to be in order to work properly?" It's something i have not studied enough yet to know the exact specifications of, what i am looking at right now is where the speakers will be placed so i can get the wall positions correct. The soffits can be built later. "Why have you removed the rear corners of the room, which are essential for good bass trapping?" Those can still be there as they were, again built later, the space has not change except it is wider now. Why is the mix position roughly in the worst possible spot, at the geometric center of the room? It isn't, it may look like it given the 2d thing but it is still placed 38% from the front wall "Better in the walls. If you stick it in the floor, the connectors will gather dust, get stepped on, spilled on, take up valuable floor space, etc." Cool, thanks for that.