new basement studio - layout advice needed

Hello everybody,   I'm happy to have found a place for a new studio in Amstetten/Lower Austria/Austria. We, me and a friend, are recording, mixing and mastering for 3-5 years now. We were doing it just for fun, as a hobby, but in future maybe as a serious job. We tried a lot different designs the last weeks, and ended up with the following design, but we would be glad for an idea for a floor plan or a construction advice.   facts:  The Room is 150m² in a cellar of an old shopping center (now there are some other things in it, a fitness center etc.…) and we would rent 90m² (to keep the rental charges as low as possible). We will get the white walls for free :D . We just have to know where the walls should be built.  We want to have 3 rooms: ctrl room, deadroom, live room. We also want to share the live room with a band (the band wants to use the live room as their practise room) just because of the lower rental costs. I think the noise from the band will be no problem in the unused 60m² part, so we decided to make just one wall (white, no double wall) to separate our part from the unused part.  To separate the live room from the ctrl-dead and chill room there is also just a single wall (white, no double wall). To separate the ctrl- room there will be an extra wall around it (brown walls) . In the chill room will be a bunk bed. The room height is 3m, the roof beam is about 30cm from the ceiling, and there is a 30x60cm column in the middle of the 150m². Budget is about 5K$     questions: - what do you think about the layout? are there better ways to have 3 rooms in this area?  - is there enough space behind the sweet spot in the ctrl room? - so we have a blank room without any acoustic treatment. Where should we install traps and   slats? - I`m not really sure about the placement of the doors….   best regards... gimmick  

Hi "Gimmick", and Welcome! You don't say what type of instruments you will be recording, or what type of band will be rehearsing in the live room, but I'm guessing that it will be typical rock/pop groups, with drums, bass, keyboards, guitars and vocals? If so, I can't see that being a successful studio without any isolation between the other rooms and the control room. How will you manage to position mics and track instruments if you can't hear the sound out of the speakers clearly, due to the sound also coming through the non-isolated walls? I'd suggest that you might want to re-think your plan of not isolating the control room. You should probably also reconsider your plan of not isolating your tracking rooms, as well: fitness centers tend to be rather noisy, and you'll doubtless be getting plenty of impact noise from the equipment. Not good.

I think the noise from the band will be no problem in the unused 60m² part, so we decided to make just one wall (white, no double wall) to separate our part from the unused part.

What do you mean by "no problem" :) A typical rock group can easily put out 115 dB of sound, and a lot of that will be in the low frequencies, which are the hardest to isolate. A typical office wall will give you maybe 30 dB of isolation, perhaps 40 if you are really luck and it is very well built. That still leaves you with a noise level on your side of the wall, or between 75 and 85 dB. That is LOUD! If that were an industrial site, at 85 dB you would have to ear ear protection all day...

- what do you think about the layout? are there better ways to have 3 rooms in this area?

Personally, I would rotate the control room 90 degrees, so that it is facing the live room, for better site lines, and better use of space.

- is there enough space behind the sweet spot in the ctrl room?

No. Right now, you have your listening position right in the exact middle of the room: that's the worst possible place. The correct location is at roughly 38% of the room depth (distance from front wall to rear wall). So you'll need to move the desk and chair forward a bit. That also means you will have to correct your speaker geometry, for the new mix position.

- so we have a blank room without any acoustic treatment. Where should we install traps and slats?

The best place for bass traps is in the corners. Your two rear vertical corners are perfect, in this design. Put superchunk traps in there, and also consider bass traps in some of the other corners, especially the horizontal ones, which people tend to forget about. Slats could go on the side walls, as needed.

- I`m not really sure about the placement of the doors….

I'd put those on teh side walls, to. One more comment: I noticed that you did some ray tracing to try to get an RFZ, but you didn't actual manage to do that: you only did HALF of each speaker! If you ray-trace the other half, you'll find that you are getting first order reflections across the room. You might want to look into fixing that too. - Stuart -

hi, thank you for your response!

You don't say what type of instruments you will be recording, or what type of band will be rehearsing in the live room, but I'm guessing that it will be typical rock/pop groups, with drums, bass, keyboards, guitars and vocals? If so, I can't see that being a successful studio without any isolation between the other rooms and the control room. How will you manage to position mics and track instruments if you can't hear the sound out of the speakers clearly, due to the sound also coming through the non-isolated walls? I'd suggest that you might want to re-think your plan of not isolating the control room. You should probably also reconsider your plan of not isolating your tracking rooms, as well: fitness centers tend to be rather noisy, and you'll doubtless be getting plenty of impact noise from the equipment. Not good.

Yes. We want to record typical rock bands, and the band which uses the live room does punk rock. I do not really understand what you said, cuz there is a double wall with a air gape and 2x7cm insulation in it (white and brown wall ) between the live room and the ctrl room. Is that not enough? Ok, between the dead-room an the ctrl there is only one wall, well we know that this is suboptimal.

What do you mean by "no problem" A typical rock group can easily put out 115 dB of sound, and a lot of that will be in the low frequencies, which are the hardest to isolate. A typical office wall will give you maybe 30 dB of isolation, perhaps 40 if you are really luck and it is very well built. That still leaves you with a noise level on your side of the wall, or between 75 and 85 dB. That is LOUD! If that were an industrial site, at 85 dB you would have to ear ear protection all day...

The renter said that this is no problem. The unused 60m²room is in a cellar, and there are many more walls between us and the staircase or the other offices. Only the ceiling wall could be a problem, because there is just one thick wall between the live room and the fitness centre. yeah…as I already said, the renter said that`s no problem. I hope that he knows how loud punk bands are…. haha!

Personally, I would rotate the control room 90 degrees, so that it is facing the live room, for better site lines, and better use of space. No. Right now, you have your listening position right in the exact middle of the room: that's the worst possible place. The correct location is at roughly 38% of the room depth (distance from front wall to rear wall). So you'll need to move the desk and chair forward a bit. That also means you will have to correct your speaker geometry, for the new mix position.

we also tried this version, but then the door directly points in the ctrl room, and wh wan’t to get in the chillroom first when we enter the studio. but,..i think we have to create a new design anyway because of the sweet spot position.

One more comment: I noticed that you did some ray tracing to try to get an RFZ, but you didn't actual manage to do that: you only did HALF of each speaker! If you ray-trace the other half, you'll find that you are getting first order reflections across the room. You might want to look into fixing that too.

yes. we will do a re-design… thanks, best regars….

I agree with Stuart about the rotation of the control room, I'd even go so far as to suggest shifting it more to middle, as I think it would be wise to try and incorporate one of those windows into the chillout room. From this room there should be a door going into the rear of the control room (currently you have no entrance to the CR, but perhaps that what you meant when you said you were not sure of the door placement). If the double door shown is indeed a feature, I would suggest this go directly into the Live room to facilitate moving equipment in and out. In regards again to the CR, you should take into consideration one of the good ratios while still in the design phase! Also, try and loose some of the right angling in the Live room - here assymetry can be advantageous. Your budget as well as your plan shows you will not be using a CR window, even if you were however, the vocal booth need not be adjacent to the control room so can be on the far side - so long as visual contact exists. This room I assume will double as an isolation booth for amps on occasion - otherwise you might consider a separate Iso-vault. Also, in addition to all this, you may want to incorporate a small storage space for cable, mic stands, mic locker, stools, gobos, small amps and other devices, etc. This should be accessible from the live room and possibly the control room.

cuz there is a double wall with a air gape and 2x7cm insulation in it (white and brown wall ) between the live room and the ctrl room. Is that not enough?

No, it isn't enough. In order to isolate a room, ALL sides of the room must be isolated to the same level, and fully decoupled. Think of it like an aquarium (fish tank). To keep the water in, you have to have glass on all sides. same with your room: to keep the sound in, you have to isolate all sides. Your diagrams does indeed show two walls, but only across ONE side of the CR, and even so both of those walls are coupled at one end, and do not complete the full envelope that is needed for isolation.

Ok, between the dead-room an the ctrl there is only one wall, well we know that this is suboptimal.

Exactly. You need fully decoupled walls around all sides of the room, and the same for the ceiling. For example, if you build a room that has four walls and a ceiling, and the isolation of three of those walls is 50 dB, the isolation of the ceiling is 40 dB, and the isolation of the other wall is on ly 30 dB, then the total isolation of the complete room is roughly 30 dB: All the money and effort spent on the good walls and the ceiling is totally wasted: the overall isolation is defined by the weakest point.

The renter said that this is no problem. The unused 60m²room is in a cellar, and there are many more walls between us and the staircase or the other offices.

Walls, floors and building structure in general are really good at conducting sound (especially impact noise) if they are not properly decoupled and isolated. Technically, this is called "flanking": sound going through the structure of the building itself.

the renter said that`s no problem. I hope that he knows how loud punk bands are

I always get worried when I say statements like that: "Someone said that it is OK". 99% of the time, that means it is NOT OK, because the person who said it actually doesn't understand acoustics at all! The only way to tell for sure if it is "OK", is to do a real test with real sound and a real sound level meter. Anything else is just guessing or hearsay, and therefor is meaningless. - Stuart -

hmm.... thank you stuart! so,..: - we will try to do a real test with a real sound source and a sound level meter. if it`s still "ok" for the renter, then --> - redesign an decoupling the CR.... best regards,...

Yeah, I've learned the hard way to do a full sound check before getting a neighbor's approval! I once asked a neighbor if they'd be cool with the presumed noise level before I was done with my San Francisco remodeling project and of course they said it would be fine. Needless to say, when the project was done and the music was streaming, they were not happy campers. I had to think hard to come up with a solution for that one! [SPAM LINK REMOVED BY MODERATOR]

...so, we did a real test, puted a drum kit in the cellar and went through the building. even in the yoga room in 4th flour we could hear the drums well. so, it`s defenitly too loud in all other offices when sombody plays drums in the cellar. our budget is too small to fix this problems. we have to look for another place :(this project is cancelled :( thank`s everybody for the support. lg, gimmick

Hey Gimmick, that's unfortunate. :( :cry: It looked like a nice sized space for you guys. But at least you did the test and didn't waste money on trying to do this with too little budget. Thanks for letting us know. I do hope you guys find something that fits your needs and your budget! We'll be here to help if you need a hand in designing the treatment for that one! :) - Stuart -

hi, so, we have found a new place, and i will start a new topic with some questions. but i have also a question about what soundman sad in this thread: "One more comment: I noticed that you did some ray tracing to try to get an RFZ, but you didn't actual manage to do that: you only did HALF of each speaker! If you ray-trace the other half, you'll find that you are getting first order reflections across the room. You might want to look into fixing that too" how can i fix the reflections across the room? the plan was to have slat resos on the side walls. i checked some (many) other designs, also the sample plans from this forum. but it seems that everybody has the same problem?!?!?!? so, how could i, or how would you fix the reflectiosn across the room? thx! gimmick.

how could i, or how would you fix the reflectiosn across the room?

You angle BOTH sides of the front wall / side wall to make sure that sound going BOTH ways from the speaker will be reflected away from the mix position. - Stuart -

hi, but isn't it the same with the sample plans from this forum? there are also reflections across the room!? that's what i'm wondering about. greets, gimmick

but isn't it the same with the sample plans from this forum?

Those are not RFZ rooms.... :) Different design philosophy, different treatment. (In the first image, you seem to be ray-tracing from the front of a bass trap, not from the speakers. John doesn't even show the position of the speakers on that one, but I would assume they go on stands in that room.) There are many different design philosophies for studios: RFZ is just one of them. Currently, it seems to be the best one out there, but there are others. Sometimes it just isn't possible to implement a true RFZ design in a room, due to the physical limitations of the room dimensions, orientation, volume, or other factors (type of speaker, construction cost, or build complexity, for example). The two you show there are for specific cases, and John drew them up as examples of how good rooms can still be fitted into not-so-good spaces. - Stuart -

ok,...thx to you, Stuart, for the explanation. i think i understood now! greets, gimmick