Idea for temporary listening space

First: This is not to scale....just trying to flesh out an idea Second: I used someone elses SU plan for this, I am not very good at it and I thank whoever drew this ( I modded it a bit). Third: If I put this post in the wrong area, feel free to move it (sorry) I need to get out of the "closet" control room I am in for mixing. We have a "big room" (about 40x25 irreg. shape with a small stage in it) and I was thinking of moving out there and setting up something like the pic. I would think the side "walls" will be a lot longer. Would it be a good idea to set up 4 mobile slat walls as shown in the big room for mixing? If I did it this way, the walls can be moved to the big rooms sides and be useful there for live performances/recording. Maybe some sort of cloud above? Maybe an absorber behind? I am thinking that I would face into this structure when using it. Sorry for the lack of details, but it is only an idea, and if it is a bad one I'd rather not spend a lot of time on it. Just trying to get a decent listening area at this point.

you probably would want a bunch more of those because i think i drew them about 2'6" wide so your listening space is only around 5' wide... but you could so that. i would (if it's in a much bigger room) space them apart about 6" or so like this. vary up the slat/slot spacing/sizes and plan on adding some absorption around the larger room to keep resonances down. overhead - a cloud or two can help as well. sound operates in 3D so the space about above the clouds can have hanging baffles to temper the resonances there.

Oh, it was your design I used....THANKS!.....I did not have any particular measurement in mind, but I figured each unit to be about 4' to 4' 6" wide. My first thought was John's SU plan, but I could not find it again before I lost the thought. I also did not even consider a space between each unit. I would set it up in this room: I can just grab the VS-2000, the screen for it, put it on a table. A pair of powered monitors sitting on some concrete blocks with a rubber pad or something. Cheap, fast and best of all, a huge improvement over: BTW, we did out first paying recording last week with a great bunch of kids in a punk band. Hoping to get their CD out for about $500 CDN or so.

Ha! I finally found John's .skp file for the slat (slot?) wall. This is kind of what I was thinking of when I got the idea in the first place. http://johnlsayers.com/Stuff/components.skp Took hours to find it again...lol. I must be getting old and the memory is failing....That, and I don't write things down or bookmark them (pretty bad at organizing links, etc. too)....lol.

While I am thinking about it I have another question. As you can see, where I want to set up in the "big room", the ceiling is open joists. The roof sits on top of them, so it is a single leaf, uninsulated roof. Going on the premis of "hard floor, soft ceiling", would it be OK to just install some Roxul insulation in the cavities, then a vapour barrier, then just cover it all with fabric? I not really looking for a lot of isolation (although you can occasionally hear people walking on the roof, and the rain on it too), just a nice listening environment.

the roof is directly on the other side of the ceiling joists? what are you doing now about air flow and vapor seal?

Yes, the ceiling is the roof sheathing, it has a flat part, farthest from the camera in the pic to the beam farthest from the cam. From there is slopes up gradually (2:12 slope maybe, have not measured, you can see the angle at the ceiling joist ends). The retail space is kind of behind the camera, it is heated with radiators and water. The forced air unit can be seen for the "big" room. Yes, it gets cold in there in the winter, and warm in summer. The place is old and leaks enough air to get fresh stuff. Sadly, it is not up to me to do as I want, the boss comes before me, and the landlord before that. Behind the wall on the left (the stage wall) is about 8-10 more feet of space, the boss put the wall up and has a small shop, vocal booth, behind there (the drum riser goes into it too). The room sounds good for live performances, which is it's main function. We (I) am slowly going to try and get it modified and "spruced up" so it will look a little more slick and function better for both live shows AND recording. Short term is to just get a good space for listening as I have just started to learn mix downs and my balances sound so different from mixing to listening in the car, on the stereo, etc. Then on to mastering lessons. We have our first paying customers recorded and next is mixing and mastering. We want a good product at a low price. Once money starts trickling in, more things can be done. Personally, I'd like to gut it, get rid of the posts, and start from there, but that is for another day (and being able to get a structural engineer to look at it). I would put up interior walls about 5 1/2" off the cold exterior brick walls (that would be, brick wall, 5 1/2" space, then 3 1/2" stud, for a total of 9" from inside of drywall to brick wall) and have them sprayed with 2" of "Walltite" closed cell foam, then fill the rest with Roxul or fiberglass (behind and between the studs). The ceiling would get the same Walltite/Roxul treatment. But do I need to drywall the ceiling? Can't I just vapour barrier it and cover it with fabric for a soft ceiling?

maybe consider running 600mm strips (separated by 600mm) of 100mm cloth covered absorbers perpendicular to the joists leaving open space between them for air and this could help keep the ceiling from becoming completely dead and avoid enclosing those spaces where it could end up moldy... plus would save some money...

Like Glenn is saying, the thermal insulation is going to be a part of the interior climate so a vapor barrier would not need to be used.

Very clever solution....thanks guys!!! I like the "low budget" approach.

It isn't low budget, from where I stand, just something that you do not currently need.:)

Well said. Sometimes the line between "need" and "want" gets blurred.

I have been hearing that from my wife for years:) I think I >need< a new tool...she says we >want< to pay the bills first!!