Great gear, bad room! Please help with our remodel.

A friend of mine has a small space in Southern California that started as his private jam room and evolved into a local center of activity. What started out as a beer drinking good time has (over a number of years) turned into a sweet collection of gear that includes a vintage API desk, a 16 track Studer 2", and a small warehouse full of vintage gear/instruments (17 vintage drum kits, 3 hammond B3's, etc...). Some local engineers and myself have been using the place for some low budget projects and though we all love the gear, we all agree that the room sounds awful. The problem is that the room is a rectangular box that hasn't changed since the jam room days while the gear has gotten to be world class. A couple people that use the room have promised some labor but we only have couple thousand dollars US to make the necessary changes. The room isn't really available to the public so whatever changes are made will be at the expense of the poor slobs (like myself) that use it. Roxul AFB is available at a big box store by special order so I am anticipating that will be our material of choice. There seems to be some decent wood working skills within our group so everything you see here and clouds (not pictured) will be DIY. We also have a large but unspecified number of RPG W1 Hemiffusors (from a prior install) at our disposal for a very reasonable price. They are the wood finished version (2' X 2' QRD). Industrial carpet is on the floor. The ceiling is painted drywall. Currently, the walls are home depot Lauan sheet over drywall. Due to location, noise is not a problem. The door placement (something we are unable to change because of the lease) destroys the symmetry of the room and my solution was to extend the first reflection slats as shown. Until someone can suggest a better approach, I anticipate using 4" AFB for the corner traps and the broadband (+ membrane) units illustrated on the walls. Slats would be nice (high frequencies pretty dead as drawn) but I'm not sure how to calculate their proper values. Also not drawn in are corner traps at the ceiling line and the diffusers which will be on the back wall above the couch. Monitors are self powered Tannoy's and I can't remember what the model is. My Sketchup kung foo is weak but my passion for google is strong. The 827 is a placeholder for the A-80 2" 16 track. There is also an Otari Mtr 90 MkII 24 track and a Pro Tools rig as shown. While the dimensions of the 24 input API desk are accurate, I simply do not feel the need to draw the complete input channels or patch bay. Equipment rack is a generic slant front unit (off the shelf) already in the studio but currently located against the wall. The monitors are at 45 degree angle because of the narrow dimensions of the room after working around the door. I won't bother drawing in the details of the soffit mounted monitors as the moderators of this forum have already done such a wonderful job and made that information available to the public. I have read just about every post on every topic of this forum and I am still humbled by the collective wisdom of this community. The math skills required to make this room work are slightly above my comfort level and I would greatly appreciate your input.

in general, it looks like a good approach to the design, maybe consider extending the one wall on the right another 3-4' just so the symmetry is a bit further behind the desk since you have the room. also a good set of clouds over head to shape it will be a good final touch.

Thanks Glen. I wish we could but the rent is cheap and we can't rock the boat with the owner. The lack of symmetry is whats really throwing me here as I can imagine the low end buildup on that side of the room being atrocious. Nothing can be much worse than it is now but you know what I'm saying. Do you think the 2 X 2 diffuser panels should be exclusive to the back wall or spread throughout the walls?

Do you think the 2 X 2 diffuser panels should be exclusive to the back wall or spread throughout the walls?

The room is too small for most normal diffusers to be useful. I'd go for absorption on the rear wall. You already have slot walls, so you'll be getting some diffusion form those. And I totally agree with Glenn: that asymmetrical kink off to one side is not good: you really should plan on extending that right wall as far back as possible. - Stuart -

I miss-read Glens original post (should have been paying attention to my session). Extending the RIGHT wall (new construction with slats) is actually possible. Would shrink the useable (people) space considerably but it's a possibility. The room is 16' 10" long by 14' 2" wide. Is that really still too small to utilize diffusion? I seem to recall working in nicely built rooms with less depth then that. The other dimension is only different by 2'. Would there be an advantage to moving the console to the long wall? That would certainly fix the symmetry issue with the doors (except for the glass window being on one side of the mixing position and some corner trapping issues).

you should be able to use diffusion in that space. also, if extending the wall impacts your use of the space then just ignore that... maybe a standing gobo addresses the same concern and since it's movable you can use all the space.

Well that didn't work. Spent a couple hours rotating my sketchup model and couldn't find another way to orient the room given the pre-determined window/door placement. Updated version for review coming soon. This is an old photo (sweet equipment is now piled to the roof against each wall) but you can at least see the space. Any other ideas out there?

it looks like you could take the original approach with the slat side walls and soffits.