Project Studio With small budget and large dreams!

Hi! So the studio construction is finally done! Me and my band decided to build a rehearsal-space that could double as a recording studio. The profit the studio makes recording other band will first off go to pay rent and buy more tasty gear! Now, the blueprints of the studio will not look symmetrical and I am aware of the drawbacks of that and at the same time I need to remind you that the budget for this project is not high at all. All the money comes form the bands' own pockets. We have expansion possibilities in the future to get a larger space but for now this was enough! This first picture shows the blueprints of the layout when we bought the space. Booth rooms has an angeled ceiling that goes from left to right - from 3 meter to 4 meters. The lower room is the control room and the upper one is the live-room. The absolute lowerst part of the control room with the weird shape that has the depth of 1.12 meters has been cut off as a small closet/storage-room but with a windowed door so that you "can" use it as a iso-booth. This is how the ceiling looks, Woodslats first, then black plastic and then 145 mm Rockwool, airspace and then concrete roof. This picture shows the small closet-cutoff Quick 3D sketch. you can see where the doors and windows are. This Shows the current location of the listening point. The black frame to the left is 120 mm rockwool with textile in front for first-point-reflections. (not everything is in space yet!) Now, I'd like some input how to acoustically treat this room effectively. I have already three absorbers on 3 more First point refelctions, they are 120 mm rockwool with 7 cm airgap behind!! Thanks in Advance and tell me if you need more info! EDIT: I tried to cover all the data required to post a question here. About STC that has already been dealt with, so I don't think that's necessary

i'd put the monitors on their own stands and consider a different desk to avoid the reflections off that desk. i'd consider a large cloud overhead to even out the overhead response by the desk and perhaps add some matching absorbers on stands on the open side of the desk (door side) to promote symmetry. the back wall should have plenty of absorption on it. the lava lamp also needs to be closer to the mixer person than the speakers :wink:

Hi! Thank you for the help! ofcs the lavalamp will be closer! It's currently on the same powerchain as my preamps ;) One more question, do you think the ceiling will have some sort of acoustic absorbing benefit considering there is rockwool there? I'm thinking of doing superchunks in the vertival corners and 5" basstraps in the horizontal corners. Will diffusion anywhere (like polydiffusors http://www.gearslutz.com/board/bass-traps-acoustic-panels-foam-etc/469065-d-i-y-polys.html) be a good choice, I'm thinking maybe in the live room to kill flutter echo, actually the liveroom already (without treatment) has a good room-sound to is, it may not be a perfect frequency response but in my opinion it has a decent sound for drums! I can maybe post a OH drumclip if someone wants to hear it! =)

i think the cloud with the plywood backing will help in terms of balancing the space since you have an angled (sideways) incline on the ceiling. super chunks should be good. polys in the live room would be a nice touch and help with diffusion and bass absorption.

Thanks so much for your help! Is there any special radius on the polys that I need to calculate or how do I make them most efficient? btw, what do you think of the ceilings absorbing abilities?

I like the ceiling concept. On the polys there are several approaches, lookup fuzz poly for one approach. The BBC also has a paper (not handy on my iPad) which describes a good method for constructing them plus various radius options.

gullfo wrote:

The BBC also has a paper (not handy on my iPad) which describes a good method for constructing them plus various radius options.

I have missed that. Do you have a report number? Andre

sorry, brainshort, it's Volkmann's paper on "polycylindrical diffusers in room acoustics design"

gullfo wrote:

sorry, brainshort, it's Volkmann's paper on "polycylindrical diffusers in room acoustics design"

Thanks. Here is the paper for those interested. http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/storage/3/653028/Volkman%20on%20Polycylindrical%20Diffusers.pdf Andre

Thanks, for the link! I have some more questions. Is there anywhere in the mixing-room where diffusion can be used?

in general, if you have enough space so the diffuser response is not discernible as more comb filtering, then yes. typically this is at least about 6' (2m) or more depending on the diffuser type and its operating frequency range.

Do you think it would be good on the angeled wall behind the mixing desk? I don't like when the room feels too "dead" but it needs to be more dead than it is at the moment.. Happy new years btw!

you could try it on the angled wall and see how it behaves. another, perhaps better, option is to put it on a stand so it sits square to the desk and you can adjust its distance from the desk.

Hey! I'm in the works of building some standing absorbers to use in the control room on the right side of the mixing desk! I'm thinking of making two of these I've started with some designs of how they should look: What do you think of the design? My general idea was that if I put some mass in the middle of the absorber it will act more as a "wall" and also provide some separation to the other side of the absorber where I will put a sofa. Or is it overkill with this type of absorber? (the middle wood slat is for support)

looks good!