Serious Technical Advice Needed on new Studio! Please :)

Hello, I'm new here, I have read all the rules and think I've got it all right. The dimensions I have in the drawings are in mm, I hope that is ok? If not just let me know and I will change them all. Ok so heres the deal. I'm building a studio in Johannesburg South Africa. Its not a home studio, its going to be located on the third floor of a 20 floor high rise in the Joburg CBD. This means I have no concerns about noise and neighbors. The studio will be the only thing occupying third floor and I highly doubt we will make enough noise to affect the other floors (we will be far enough away from the main entrance to the floor and the way the building is constructed, it will probably operate mostly after business hours anyway) The floor is concrete slab (obviously) about two feet thick and there is another slab above the ceiling for the next floor (obviously). The ceiling itself is 2600mm from the floor, the gap inside the ceiling and the next slab is about a meter (three feet). The ceiling is suspended grid type. The walls will be dry wall, filled with fiber glass insulation, the ceiling will have the same inside it. The south side wall is full glass (these are the windows to the outside of the building, they do not open and are sealed tight) The wall in between the live room and the control room is double dry wall with double fiberglass. I have included a floor plan with dimensions as well as some 3d renders of the design. You will notice in the renders that the walls have some panels on them, these are large wood panels and the black parts on them are high density open cell polyurethane foam (acoustic foam) I designed and made them myself. Lastly, the two corners in front of the desk have dry wall board at an angle filled with fiber glass behind them. You will also notice the floor has been raised in the "lounge area" this is purely for aesthetics I didn't do it for acoustic purposes. Things to keep in mind: Size/Space is not an issue, there is plenty, but rent may be so the size I have it at right now is about right for the rent id like to be paying. The floor is bare decorative concrete. The desk (furniture is already built) The floor plan is only of the space the studio will occupy, not the whole floor. What I need to know: I really want some serious acoustic advice. Construction hasn't started so I have the opportunity to build this thing as perfect as I want but cant do so without the right info from those who know better :) If i have to change the whole design I don't mind at all. If you'd like me to send you the sketchup file let me know and its yours. I have built two large professorial studios before however the acoustics where basic, with this one I want to do it right! I greatly appreciate your comments and I'm looking forward to discussing this project with you all. So yes here it is, the proposed studio for Karbon Productions Johannesburg. Take it to pieces please :) SoundBoy

I forgot to say. I have read most of the recording manual and I think it is excellent! I can allready see some problems with my design. I am slightly confused about the standing waves, room modes and how they relate to the dimensions of the room, also what is good and what is bad? Could someone break it down for me? Thank you

Hey there, I'm no design pro. Actually here trying to soak up some knowledge for my own build. Just wanted to say those sketchups are impressive! Are the 2nd (slightly rear) pair of speakers for the clients listening at the back of the room? If so, I feel like they'd need to be closer to add any noticeable benefit. My 2 cents... Anyhow, this design looks great. Can't wait to see it come to life.

welcome! overall it looks good. the speakers on the desk are bad plus they don't look useful for the mix position. the work desk next to the mixer - those monitors will cause a reflection right that which will not be good - if that desk serves some other role other than mix, move it. if it does support mix, consider side-to-side symmetry needed during mix down so those video monitors are better served in front between the monitors - maybe something to raise and lower them?

Hey, thanks for the replies! :) After having a a closer look at it with fresh eyes gained from the recording manual here I have decided to make the following changes: 1. Angle the two front bass traps at 30 degrees exactly. 2. Soffit the monitors. I originally thought about this but didn't realize how crucial it was until coming across this site 3. I will be looking into two side walls angles at 6 degrees 4. Bass traps at the back of the room 5. Possibly add a vocal booth room @solo-bration: Doesn't matter if your a pro or not mate, everyone has knowledge to share so thanks for your input. All four monitors are for the engineer. I didn't design it like that on purpose but I just already have one set of 6 inch and one set of 8 inch near fields so might as well use them all. The other two speakers you see under the lcds are standard teac hi fi speakers I will use for testing the mix. I placed them there on purpose to make the acoustics bad (i.e. to see what it sounds like in an untreated room) Dunno if thats stupid or clever eh eh. Thanks, I am glad you like the modelling. I'm quite efficient in sketchup as I use it professionally, project management and construction design is what I do for a living. The renders of the studio were done in Kerkythea. It is free and has sketchup plugins so grab yourself a copy, really brings the models to life. If you ever need help with a model just drop me a message and Ill be happy to help you out. @gulfo Thanks for the input, firstly with the speakers on the desk you confirmed my suspision that its a bad idea so I have decided to soffit them. Do you know much about how to do this? Id still like some tips on it. When you say the monitors on the work desk do you mean the lcd's or the speakers? As I explained above the speakers on the right are just a hi fi set up to have an imperfect reference. I wont be using them very often. If its the video monitors your talking about, I put them on the right like that so they don't block the view into the live room. Also I have the space so I didn't want to cram everything into the front desk where the console is. However if I have to move the video monitors for acoustic purposes I will do so. What do you think? The last question I had was I know that the front two bass traps and the soffit must be at 30 degrees and the side walls at 6 degrees from what I have read in the manual. It doesn't seem to to say much about angles of the traps on the rear walls and rear corners. Any advice on these measurements would be greatly appreciated. I also need some info on the dimensions of the room itself as I am struggling to understand what sizes are good and what are bad and how to calculate this. I will be doing the new design over the weekend and will post it up as soon as im done. Thanks again for the help! SoundBoy

there is a lot of info on the site about soffit mounting however, just moving them off the desk onto stands may solve some of the issues. as a general rule, making your mix position asymmetrical acoustically is not typically going to help you make good mix decisions - whether that is turning your head to look at monitors on the side, or having reflections off them, or having various audio monitors not faithfully reporting the panning etc will skew your assessment of the mix. so, if you want the monitors out of the way because of visibility, and that is more important, you can do that but maybe it might be better to put them on a swing arm to re-position them as needed or if you don't need them for tracking, raise and lower them. on the audio monitors, having them all placed relative to your main sitting position is a good idea but be cognizant of the impact of them in terms of the position of the main monitors.