New basement studio. First project :D

Hello, My name is Ali and I live in Montreal Canada. I recently moved back to my parents’ basement in order to start my music production project. I have a section in the basement that I would like to turn into a sound proofed working space. I do not need a vocal room or anything like that. I just need to build a small one room studio for house music production. I drew up a rough draft sketch of what I intend to build. It includes all the measurements from wall to wall. I am not a 3D sketch wizard. I did the best I could with what I know how to use. You can click on the pic to enlarge it and see the measurements correctly. Here are the specs of the room: Length: 11.3 feet Width: 10.6 feet Height: 8 feet The ground is made out of concrete. The ceiling consists of wooden beams every 16 inches (standard unfinished). 3 concrete walls surround the room and I will be building the last wall with wood beams and sheet rock. I will be running a pair of JBL’s production speakers in the room. Here is a link with all the specs: http://www.jblpro.com/catalog/general/Product.aspx?PId=281&MId=5 I will be buying brackets for the speakers and hanging them on the wall. I was looking to get some feed back on the measurements of the wall and the overall shape of the room. Is there anything that I should adjust? Also, where is the best place to mount the speakers and what angle? And anything else you think I need to know ☺ Cheers Ali.

Here is a clearer pics with the measurements

Hi Ali. Please check the forum rules again: you seem to be missing something! :) Regarding your drawings, I'm a little confused: Which is the front and which is the back of the room? It looks like you have drawn the desk and speakers at the top of the diagram, indicating the front, but the room narrows down towards the other end, which is confusing. So maybe that's a sofa that you drew there? Also, on the side view, the way I would normally read that is that the room is higher at the front and lower at the back. Is that your intention? To clarify, please mark on those diagrams where the front, back, left and right sides of the room are. It would also be good if you could do the diagrams in SketchUp, which is kind of the standard for this forum. Regarding the structure itself: you say you have a concrete floor and three walls, and that's great for isolation, but once again please tell us WHICH of those three walls are concrete, and which one you still have to build!

I will be buying brackets for the speakers and hanging them on the wall.

There are several methods for mounting speakers, and while "brackets on the wall" is one possibility, it isn't a very good one. You say that this is going to be a production studio, which implies a commercial venture, so I'd suggest that you consider flush-mounting your speakers ("soffit mount"), or second best, put them on very heavy, decoupled stands in front of the desk.

I was looking to get some feed back on the measurements of the wall and the overall shape of the room. Is there anything that I should adjust?

Yes, but what to adjust depends on which way your room is facing! :)

Also, where is the best place to mount the speakers and what angle?

The BEST place to put them is flush mounted (sometimes also called "soffit mounted") diagonally in the front corners of the room, at an angle of between 30° and 45°, such that the acoustic axes intersect at an angle of between 60° and 90° a few inches behind your head, with your ears located roughly 38% of the room depth (distance from front wall to rear wall). They should be mounted with the acoustic axis at a height of 1.2m above the floor.

And anything else you think I need to know

There are many, many other things that you need to know, but you are in the right place to learn them! :) Anyway, please check the rules one more time for that "missing item", and clarify where the fornt and back of your room are. - Stuart -

Hi Stuart, Thanks a lot for your information. So I went ahead and applied myself for the last week and learned how to use sketch up. I attached the new sketch up file. I am looking to spend around $3000, that is including the new couch and deflector panel. I still have a lot of material left over from previous renos' so that should help with the budget. I am looking to get some help on 3 things: 1. I've read as much as I can understand about shapes and un-parallele walls. I wanted to see if the shape and measurements I did make any sense or do I need to adjust them? 2. The cieling start at 8 feet in the back of the room and tilt down incrementally to 7 feet at the front end of the room. I am not sure if thats the right angle. Should I change it? 3. Speaker placing; I own JBL production monitors. They are ported but the air duck is located in the back so the bass comes out from behind the speakers. Does that make a difference in where the speakers should be located? I attached a download link to the Sketchup file since its bigger than 500k. http://www.sendspace.com/file/naep4g Cheers and thanks a bunch Ali.

I've been doing some more research on ceilings. I am not sure whether I should keep a flat ceiling or have it come down at an angle from the back to the front. Right now, in the sketch up file above, I have the ceiling starting at 8' in the back of the room and tilting down at a 84 degree angle to reach 7' height in front of the room. I've read that this could really cause the room to have a lot of reverb. I also read that it depends on my back wall. If the back wall is a difuser, they I will def have more reverb which is not so good for recording. Can anyone confirm this? Cheers

Actually, it won't "cause" reverb! How could it? Reverb is a function of surface reflectivity and room size/shape. In fact, angling the ceiling (or a wall) helps to break up some forms of "reverb", such as standing waves (if you want to call those "reverb"). So I'm not sure where you read that angling the ceiling will "cause reverb", but wherever that was, you can probably safely ignore it in the future. Reverb depends on multiple reflections from hard surfaces. There are several reasons why you might want to angle your ceiling. The two most common are to eliminate flutter echo (which is a form of reverb too, if you want to stretch the term a bit), and to help create an RFZ design. A third possibility is to change the modal behavior of the room (yet another form of reverb!) But angling at 6° wont accomplish any of those. For flutter echo, you need an angle of at least 12°, apparently, from empirical evidence (there doesn't seem to be much research on this point). Creating an RFZ will most likely require a rather larger angle, but that depends on the geometry of the rest of the room. And messing with modal response? Put it this way: if you have a rectangular room, it is easy to predict the theoretical modal response of the room. If you angle one or more walls (floor, ceiling), it becomes very hard to predict. So if you are like some people who swear by "room ratios" and "golden dimensions" and elves and fairies, then you would probably want to keep the room perfectly rectangular with an exact 10 foot ceiling (according to some), and base your other dimensions on one of the holy grail ratios. Or if you don't put too much store in ratios, and prefer to just stay away from the bad ones and approximate a good one, then by all means angle the ceiling as much as you need to, and forget about room modes. Room modes are a fact of life: you cannot get rid of them, and all rooms have them. You can change their spread by changing room dimensions and shape, sure. But you cannot make them go away: all you can do is try to tame them a bit, with treatment in the room. And since theory is one thing while reality is another, it makes sense to actually build the room and test the the actual modal response before deciding on the best treatment for the modes you are actually having trouble with, rather than finding out that the ones you predicted would be worse are not actually an issue, while others are. So that's a long way of saying: angle your ceiling if you want, and if you understand why, but 6° isn't enough: it should be at least 12°

I also read that it depends on my back wall.

The relationship between ceiling angle and rear wall is very unlikely to cause issues. I'd be far more concerned about speaker reflections off your FRONT wall and two side walls, which is why you need absorption on your first reflection points.

If the back wall is a difuser, they I will def have more reverb which is not so good for recording. Can anyone confirm this

Nope! Not me! I wont' confirm that. In fact, I'll deny it! :) Diffusers BREAK UP reverb! They do not CONTRIBUTE to reverb. They help to create a more diffuse resonant sound field, which is definitely a good thing. Hard surfaces produce specular reflections. Diffusers produce, well, emmm, "diffuse" reflections. It seems you have been reading in the wrong places, if that's the kind of information you are finding. Do yourself a huge favor, and read the Bible. Not THE Bible written by God (although that one is highly recommended too), but rather the Bible of Acoustics, which is correctly called "Master Handbook of Acoustics", and was written by F. Alton Everest. It teaches you all the basics of acoustics, in simple, easy to understand terms. It talks about many of these concepts, and gives you the theory and the basic math behind them, so you can figure out for yourself what will work and what wont. And one thing that won't work, is most types of diffuser on the rear wall of a very small room, such as yours. Most types of diffuser (especially QRD based designs and similar) tend to create lobing close up, an that needs some distance to even out. Small rooms don't have enough distance. So a much better idea for your rear wall is thick acoustic absorption, such as mineral wool or fiberglass insulation. That helps for several reasons. - Stuart -

Thanks Stuart, I had met someone yesterday who is apparently a sound engineer. Maybe we had a bit to much to drink. LOL Thanks for the input, I was hoping you can have a look at the sketch up file and suggest any changes before I begin building the frame next week. Cheers

.... before I begin building the frame next week.

Next WEEK!!!! ???? :shock: :!: I don't think that would be wise! You don't even have a feasible basic design room layout, let alone enough detail to be able to figure out your framing!. I just took a quick glance at your SketchUp file, and saw several major issues immediately. Please don't take this as destructive harsh criticism! I'm just pointing out what I see, and why I think you should call your contractor and tell him you are postponing the build for a couple of months, while you complete the design. All of these are big problems: 1 ) The room is practically square. 2 ) You are firing your speakers across the short axes of the room, instead of down the long axis. 3 ) Your mix position is almost dead center in the geometric middle, in all three dimensions: The worst possible place. 4 ) You have a QRD based diffuser on the rear wall: the room is way to small to be able to use that (your head is waaay to close to the diffuser). 5 ) You have chopped off the room corners, instead of using them. 6 ) There is no bass trapping in the room! 7 ) You have enough room to soffit-mount (flush-mount) your speakers, but you are not doing that. 8 ) The speaker geometry is not correct: the axes meet practically at the back wall! 9 ) The desk wings are first reflection points for both speakers, and both chairs! 10 ) In such a small room, it will be VERY hard to get the sweet spot wide enough to cover two chairs. (it will be hard enough to get it to cover one!) Etc. Those are just the biggies. Not to mention that you are asking the right questions (such as the angled ceiling), but still very basic questions. You don't even have a basic design goal, as far as I can see. You haven't mentioned how much isolation you need, how loud you will be, how quite you have to be, if you are looking for an RFZ design, or LEDE, or CID, or something entirely different. No mention of treatment at all. Etc. Sorry for piling all of that on so thick and so fast, but my purpose is to convince you that you are nowhere near ready to start framing. Weeks away, at best, most likely months away. It take a LONG time to learn the basics of acoustics, and to understand why you do certain things, and why you should not do certain things, and the consequences of doing other things, and how to compensate for those. You cannot learn this stuff in a few days! So please, please, please, slow down, call your contractor, and just concentrate on learning the basics for the next few weeks, then work on your design for a few more weeks, and only when you have your design completed, with all of the details in place, only then should you call the contractor to come over and start framing. Not before. If you were to start building now, chances are about ten billion to one against a successful result. You'd spend a lot of money, waste a lot of time, and end up with a studio that doesn't work. - Stuart -

Thanks again Stuart. I am here to learn and I am not here to take anything personally. I have been reading for more than a month right now but I am not a sound engineer. I am not having a contractor do this because I am the contractor. I am very good with sound isolation and leaking. I am here to learn as much as I can about layouts. My goal is too build my own studio but before I do so, I need to know or learn, what are the best internal dimensions possible for my room and JBL speakers. Cheers P.S I know your trying to help but still I feel I've been more critized than helped :?

I know your trying to help but still I feel I've been more critized than helped

:oops: Yeah, I know: But at least it worked! It got you thinking, an that was the point. Sorry if I was a bit too overboard there!!! OK, I'll try to be a bit more positive about what can be done to fix this, instead of just saying "Wrong! Bad! Lousy! Terrible" all the time. :) Unfortunately, I have a meeting that I need to run off to right now, but as soon as I get back I'll post some ideas for you. - Stuart -

OK, let me turn those around and re-state them positively, instead of negatively: 1 ) Square rooms have problems with the even spread of room modes, but that can be changed by moving one of the walls. The ratio of height to length to width is somewhat important, and this is called your "room ratio". There are several good ratios, and several bad ratios: Stay away from the bad guys, and get close to one of the good guys. 2 ) I is best to have your speakers facing down the longest axis of the room. 3 ) The best place for the mix position (theoretically) is to have your seat and console set up such that your ears are at roughly 38% of the room depth (front wall to back wall) and 1.2m above the floor. That's not carved in stone: it's just a good starting point. 4 ) Absorption is more useful that QRD diffusers in small rooms: diffusers are more suitable for large rooms. 5 ) The corners of the room are very useful: rear vertical corners are ideal for bass traps, and the front vertical corners are ideal for speaker soffits (flush mounts) 6 ) Small rooms need lots of bass trapping. The best idea is to put "superchunk" style traps in the rear vertical corners, and if possible in several other corners. Other forms of bass trapping might also be needed, such as tuned traps of one type or another. 7 ) You have enough room to soffit-mount (flush-mount) your speakers, so you probably should do that, for all of the benefits it provides. 8 ) The acoustic axes from the speakers should meet a few inches behind your head when seated at the 38% position, sat an angle of 60° to 90°, such that the axes just graze your ears. 9 ) Try to minimize the issue of first reflections. That includes placing absorption at the first reflection points wherever possible, and choosing a desk where there will not be reflections. :) - Stuart -