Lisbon, Attick control/bed room, need help with design.

Hi you all To start, i would like to congratulate John Sayers for this excellent forum about recording studio design, for all the help that has given to me(and others) in developing our project studios. My introduction My name is Vasco, and i am recently formed audio engineer by SAE, and i am starting my own project studio at home. I live in Lisbon , Portugal, and my home is very close to the airport, having this in consideration (and some recordings i have already done at home), i can't have a fully sound proof studio. to be explicit it means i couldn't be recording when the airplanes are making their way to the landing track. Besides being my project studio i intend to do some (small) commercial projects in it for my work as a freelancer. What i want to do/have in this room, is a control room where i can mix some electronic music projects, some small songwriter stuff, and Movie post-production, i guess usually don't go into much high level of dp/spl in my room, but i will find out soon, as i am looking for a db meter in the shops around town Levels in decibels will be provided ASAP... My intentions with the room are : First of all setting the speakers will go on some stands, i think the best way is to lay a plasterboard wall decoupled from the wall with isolation and frame on top filled with rock wool high density and cover with fabric, in my right left and back wall, and at the same time i would like to keep my storage space accessible (making the right winged wall, swinging like a wall, if that is possible at all) and my bed at corner :P so my wife doesn't kill me :p Files to download : http://www.sendspace.com/file/ar46t2 A pack of zip files, with the SKP and Fuzz measure files on it Now for the room introduction I am in need of help in designing my control room, that happens to be in my bed/room. My room is in the attic of 6th floor building, and the 2floors under the attic, the 1st is my dressing room and under it is living room (the plans and some 3d pics of the project made so far in G.Sketchup 8, are show below) I am not providing measures here as the room shape is to irregular and all the measures are already in the SKP file on the zip file . The right wall is the most critical as it is the only side i have neighbors sleeping and already have the access to the storage room, and the left wall it contains the chimney. That is one detail that is not provided in the SKP file but i provide as picture, that is a window that is on the roof situated in my back facing the speakers: it's measures are : width 1m,27cm height 90cm and depth of 25cm Room Acoustic Measures I didn't try to went for calculating room modes in a space with this configuration, i did some search for some info about it, but i couldn't find the answers i were looking for. Also tried to take some acoustic measures from the room as it is, all the measures were taking during the nightfall, didn't had the best mic for it, i tried to look among my stuff and the " small condenser omni mic" i could find was….SE electronics 4 but with cardioid head(not the best mic for the job but i had it at hand), graphs and fuzz measure files are provided in the zip file All measure were taken facing same direction and angle pointing to the speakers and little angled to the roof 1st measure was taken in meter away from the sweet spot (on the following measures i decided to change mic to see what was the difference on the graphs , i used a SE electronics 2200A) 2nd measure was taken from the same spot 3rd measure was take from the sweet spot Room extra info Back wall from the speakers is 8cm thick and it's made out of 2 plasterboard and cement in back side, it contains a crappy wood door (this wall may be moved back if necessary), the side walls are made out of 2 bricks short type with 10cm each, i have no idea if there is something between them as the place was build more then 43 years ago. The ceiling is just made out of plasterboard screwed to the frame on the roof beams i suppose (never had the chance to take a nice look at it), the ceiling on the storage room is roof-mate glued to the beams in the roof. Gear list Mixer : Yamaha 01 v96 + ADAT 16ch. expansion card Speakers : Soundcraft Spirit 4P Laptop : Macbook pro intel core i5 2.53Ghz . 4gb ram Extra screen : Asus 23" Synth's : UseAudio - Plugiator , Wawldorf - Blofeld Midi Controllers : Novation ZeRO Sl Mk II, Akai MPD18 10 U wood rack with Interface : M-audio pro-fire 2626 Pre amplifier : Focusrite Session pack 220 Electric Spike protection Furman : PL C8 E If i had forget to mention any detail or important information that was not provided please keep me posted!!!!!!! Now my questions Studio design: i was hoping on achieving RFZ design, but i am not sure if for the shape of room and it's measures, it's possible to get RFZ at my sweet spot Acoustic measures : are my measures anything near acceptable for what i intend considering the means that i used, and how do i approach room mode calculations with this design ???? I would appreciate any help tip or advise at all, feel free to comment or leave ur word. Peace

it seems like the biggest concern is the isolation with the neighbors. you have to consider ALL paths, not just the single dividing wall as the sound could easily be conducted via the ceiling, floor, and other walls and any shared plumbing, etc.

yap it's true is one of my major concerns is the isolation with the neighboors, tho we share same floor and beams in roof nothing more is in contact between or with the other side, there are no plumbing in this floor, for what i felt so far from the room, biggest trouble will be in the stairs, as each side can listen very well to the others footsteps, and closing doors , but besides that, we can't listen people talking. One thing i forgot to mention in my post was my budget that its goes until 600 € maybe a little more if needed but i will like to keep it under 750/800€ ,all work will be DIY with some help from friends.

so the impact noises are more direct. so you probably want to create an inner shell to the room to decouple the walls and ceiling and then a damped membrane floor to reduce the transfer there. it will be tough on such a small budget. you might consider removing existing drywall/plaster (if its an option) and isolation clips and hat (furring) channel on the existing ceiling and walls. if not, maybe agglomerated foam (rebonded) on the existing plaster and then layers of drywall on isolation clips/channel to create as much of damped membrane on the walls and ceiling and avoid too much air space between the layers.

So i am back, after a couple of days of researching the forum and the web, about stud walls and how to assemble the "best solution" , i came up with this design and the schematics of how the wall will be made, is in the attached pics, through the research i did i come upon something that bugged me out concerning my design , in the project i had flushed mount my speakers but distance they stay from the roof is to small i guess to achieve a better response then having them on stands??? questions : how about this design - flaws and mistakes ! How about the angle of the speakers??? With the angled walls of the flushed mounted speakers how to create the side walls, always straight as they are or do i need to give them some angle as well ? how about the decoupled and framed wall - space between layers ? correct order of assembly ? is the isolation in the right order ? is the triple leaf wall assembled like this considered a good solution for my case? Notes on the design > The side walls end suddenly at the same point, i draw them that way cause i didnt want to make the entire space a control room, i also know that they shouldn't be touching the existing concrete wall, what i don't know is how to finish the side walls design, if you can share an idea it would be great. Roof was not made on sketchup because i am taking the possiblity to remove the current roof and build a new one from the original concrete beams with rockwool but i have no information on how it was assembled , and about the floor i know isn't the best but is already a floating floor over concrete. I would appreciate any tip or advice you can share , most certainly i am not getting things rigth, thanks in advance

speaker angles should be 30° if possible to form an (overall) 60° per leg triangle. you could build out the side walls using 15° treatments like a saw tooth to help - using slats on the faces going back, and absorption on the leading edges. triple leaf is never ideal but if you have limitations that push you into that, then you have to live with it. what are the isolation clips and channel attached to? the shared brick walls or an standalone frame on the floated floor?

Thanks Gulfo for having the time to spend on this post. i am gonna check the angles i have made on that project, at same time i am currently making a new one and i will try to incorporate the saw tooth slats on the side wall, but i have no idea how much of the room space i will loose, the decision for the triple leaf wall wasn't the best, it's not that i need to go for it, i will try to get a better solution, what you advise a 2 leafs wall? concearning the isolation clips , at 1st i imagine them one a new frame on the floor standing on it's one, but as you wiselly suggest triple leaf wall isn't the best solution for what i read through out the forum. so probably if i go foward with this new design with the saw tooth walls the isolation clips will be on the brick walls i realize that some vibration may pass on the brick to the other side but as i currently checked i have no neighbours sleeping on this floor, and i will work mostly during the day time. i will post the new project as soon as done. Regards

since you have depth on the side wall already - you might make the side wall treatments that deep. i'd suggest (strongly?) to go with the double leaf approach and put the mass on the inside of the room so you maximize the air space. green glue could assist here and also using the lighter (pink) insulation (15kg/m3) insulation in the air space.