One last mention before signing off. I had been reading this thread viewtopic.php?f=2&t=504 and the diagrams had all shown a three leaf system on the roof. I'm trying to wrap my mind with confidence around this before we cut or the ceiling joists from the control room outer framing. We're only a day or two away from doing that.
Multiple Room Home Studio Build - Mesa, AZ
Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 17988.
Hey, just checking in for the day. Getting ready to post new photos this afternoon of the progress. We've been framing out the live room so that we can mount quietclips and hat channel to the walls. Decided to add 2x4 studs on the brick in order to obtain a larger air gape, and space for insulation. Next up will be control room. Any final advice on the what direction to move in with the ceiling would be greatly appreciated!
That's fine, as long as you do NOT attach the studs to the brick! They cannot even touch each other: There MUST be at least a small gap bet ween the studs and the brick.Decided to add 2x4 studs on the brick in order to obtain a larger air gap
The same as the walls: fully decoupled, two-leaf MSM. :) - Stuart -Any final advice on the what direction to move in with the ceiling would be greatly appreciated!
The control room will be fully decoupled! We'll cut out the ceiling joists, and shoot for the 10.5-11 foot ceiling in the back :) I'll get the photos up next! Thank you for your guidance, Stuart!!That's fine, as long as you do NOT attach the studs to the brick! They cannot even touch each other: There MUST be at least a small gap bet ween the studs and the brick. In the area where I added the 2x4's to the brick, I am using quietclips, because detaching the ceiling was not going to be an option due to the ceiling height. I know that'll be sacrificing some isolation, and TL will be increased. I assume that this is going to give me the best bang for my buck for this particular room. Additionally, it does not have attic space and is a flat, slanted roof. We also had to beef up the roof joists due to the 14 span and plans to hang 2 sheets of drywall on clips from it.Decided to add 2x4 studs on the brick in order to obtain a larger air gapThe same as the walls: fully decoupled, two-leaf MSM. :)Any final advice on the what direction to move in with the ceiling would be greatly appreciated!
Okay -- here are the photos of what we've got going on in the live room and iso booth.
Just a reminder. Live room is not decoupled, but will be using quietclips, 2 layers of 5/8th's with green glue in between. All seams at the bottom plate have been caulked with acoustic caulking. The cinder block brick has a loose gritlike insulation inside of it, and will be putting batting between the brick and new drywall. We've scabbed 2x4's onto the cinberblock in order to give us some additional depth for batting insulation, and airgap. The West is splayed in towards the center of the room by about 6 degrees. (I think :D) Anyways, my expectations for isolation in this room aren't huge, but would be nice to be able to do simple overdubs, acoustic guitars, or the occasional daytime drum session.
The iso booth is fully decoupled, with 2x6's on 24" centers. We will be cutting out one more door way to enter into the live room from the isolation booth, along with a 2x3' window. We will also be floating new joists between the old ones this week, and breaking into the control room!
Please let me know if you see any big problems yet. Any suggestions are welcome!
Non-essential but always fun to see loads of stuff coming and going. Been through 3 20 yard dumpsters so far, and 9000 lbs of wood delivered so far.
Quick update from today. Framing in doors and windows for the iso booth and live room.
Entrance to ISO booth and live room (amp room to the left just inside iso booth) and photo of the floating joists in the iso booth.
So I've been thinking about the void space between the splayed walls in the live room, along with the splayed walls that I'll have in the control room. The research I've been doing has been leading me to just doing fluffy pink insulation in those walls, and maintain a larger air space, and maybe hang a couple of baffles in the voids from the inner ceiling joists inside of the void?
With regards to the control room... (MSM design) If I angle my walls to help achieve a more "RFZ" like environment, would this mean that I won't need bass traps in the front corners of my room, since there will be no corners for sound to build up in? From what I have gathered, placing a superchunk or something similar behind the drywall within the void of the two walls would accomplish little to nothing. Is that correct? I'd basically need to absorb my entire rear wall, superchunk the rear corners, and add diffusion to taste, if necessary? I guess I'm trying to figure out if I should splay the front and side walls in attempt to achieve RFZ, or should I spoil myself with more real estate and hang more treatments in the room? I do not plan on soffit mounting my monitors at this time, because I believe my focal solo 6's do better free standing, and I'd prefer to wait for mid or far-fields to soffit mount in the future.
In the live room where I'm employing quietclips, do I need to have insulation on both leafs with air in between, or is one layer sufficient... if so, would I want it on the drywall (interior) wall side, with the air gap facing the block (exterior) wall?
Hope the photos have been helpful, and that we haven't broken any rules yet!
Exactly. You already built the framing so it is too late to increase the air space, but it looks like you have a decent amount of air space there anyway, so just fill all of that space with "pink fluffy" that weighs about 30 kg/m3 (about 2 pcf). But do check your fire code: you might not be allowed to completely fill the air space with insulation. If not, then fill it as much as you are allowed to, but at the very least fill the stud bays completely.The research I've been doing has been leading me to just doing fluffy pink insulation in those walls, and maintain a larger air space,
What do you mean by "baffles"? There is no reason to hang anything in the air space except insulation.and maybe hang a couple of baffles in the voids from the inner ceiling joists inside of the void?
It seem to me that you already framed your control room, or at least that's what I think I'm seeing in the photos. Or not? If so, then it is too late to be changing the angles of the walls, unless you plan to take down that framing and re-build it a the correct angle.With regards to the control room... (MSM design) If I angle my walls to help achieve a more "RFZ" like environment,
You will always need bass trapping in any small room. The smaller it is, the more bass trapping it needs. Cutting off corners does not eliminate the room modes: it just makes the harder to calculate and harder to treat. Room odes are a consequence of the walls, not the corners. Yes, the all terminate in corners, but if you cut off the corner that does not make the mode go away! It just moves the termination point to new locations. It's the same as trying to cut the end off a piece of string, so that it no longer has an end... :) All you succeed in doing, is moving the end to a different place.would this mean that I won't need bass traps in the front corners of my room,
That's actually just a way of describing what happens in terms that are easy to understand. In fact, bass does not "build up" in corners. rather, it builds up against walls, but since a corner is where two walls meet, that's where it sounds louder, since you get the effect of both walls at once. And if you listen in a "tri corner" (where two walls also meet the ceiling), then the effect is really loud, because you are hearing the bass from all three surfaces at once! Chopping off a corner does not change anything: the walls are still there, still doing the same thing they did before, and all you have succeeded in doing is to change the pattern. Actually, you did one more thing by chopping off the corner: you also chopped off the best possible place for treating bass! Since corners are the place where the bass is loudest, they are also the best place for putting bass traps, since once single trap can deal with the bass on all three surfaces! But if you chopped off the corner, you lose that advantage, and now you need even MORE bass trapping, since you have removed the most efficient point for trapping bass... :)since there will be no corners for sound to build up in?
If you place a superchunk "behind" drywall, the it is no use at all! :shock: The superchunk just goes in the corner, with nothing in front of it, except for some fabric to hide it. Putting drywall in front of it would prevent the sound from getting to it, so it would be pretty useless...From what I have gathered, placing a superchunk or something similar behind the drywall within the void of the two walls would accomplish little to nothing.
Corret. For a modern RFZ design in a small space, yes, that would be the way to go.I'd basically need to absorb my entire rear wall, superchunk the rear corners,
Probably not. Your room does not seem large enough to be able to use diffusion. And adding to "taste" is appropriate for a live room, yes, but not in the control room. Control rooms should be neutral, not coloring the sound in any way at all, so diffusion should be added or removed "as needed" to get that neutrality.and add diffusion to taste, if necessary?
Once again, from looking at the photos, it seems that your walls are already built. So yes, achieving true RFZ is highly desirable, and a great idea, but in order to do that now, you'd have to take down parts of the framing and put it back up in the correct place. Yes, you sure would get a better room like that, if you are prepared to change the framing. Or maybe I'm not understanding your photos, and you haven't actually framed the control room at all yet?I guess I'm trying to figure out if I should splay the front and side walls in attempt to achieve RFZ,
ALL speakers can benefit from soffit-mounting, since it eliminates the artifacts that make them sound bad! It eliminates SBIR, comb-filtering, phasing, early reflections, power imbalance (baffle step response), and all other artifacts that the front wall of the room causes. By soffit mounting, the speaker is no longer "inside" the room, acoustically, so therefore it cannot be affected by the room. Soffit mounting allows the speaker to perform at its best, without the sound being tainted by the artifacts associated with the front wall. The only speakers that cannot be soffit mounted are those that are are-ported or side ported. Yours are front ported, so they can be soffit mounted, and in fact they are designed for soffit mounting, since they have the necessary controls on the back to allow for that.I do not plan on soffit mounting my monitors at this time, because I believe my focal solo 6's do better free standing,
The purpose of the insulation inside the wall cavity is to damp the resonance that occurs in there, thus improving isolation. Some people think that the insulation stops the sound from going through, but that is simply not correct: insulation cannot and does not stop sound. Rather, it damps resonance. There are several different types of resonance that occur inside a 2-leaf wall, and the insulation is there to damp them all. The difference in isolation between a wall that has no insulation and one where the entire air gap is filled with insulation, can be as much as 16 decibels. That is huge! Since an ordinary house wall gives you maybe 30 dB and a really great studio wall might give you 60 dB, you can see that as much as 50% of the total amount of isolation provided by the wall, is due to damping the resonance inside it. That's very interesting.... So, to answer your question: put as much insulation in there as permitted by your local building code, and as much as you can afford.In the live room where I'm employing quietclips, do I need to have insulation on both leafs with air in between, or is one layer sufficient... if so, would I want it on the drywall (interior) wall side, with the air gap facing the block (exterior) wall?
It's looking good so far, and the photos sure help! But it would be good to see your final design, so we can check that before you get too far advanced with the build: there might be issues with the parts of that, so please post your final SketchUp model, and we can take a look at it for you. - Stuart -Hope the photos have been helpful, and that we haven't broken any rules yet!
Morning Stuart!
Thanks for the rapid-fire info, and for confirming most of my plans.
Thanks for the overview on bass trapping! Fluffy pink stuff behind the drywall it is.
The control room is up next, as we decided to work on the live room and iso booth until after I figured out a couple of last details on the control room. So at this point, the framing is not up yet, and it's not too late to change angles in the walls, or airspace. The best I can do for a sketchup would be my graph paper drawings in my previous post, as I'm just too illiterate to sketch something up in detail in less than a days time. Unfortunately, i don't have time to do that since I'm stuck in the heavy labor portion of this build. I'd be happy to explain more of the details of my drawings if you'd like, or re-draw anything that needs further explanation. I'll work on my modified control room floorplan and post it asap. My concern with splayed walls from front to back is of course losing tons of real estate, and also creating nasty room modes, even though I think that bob golds calc says I'm in pretty good shape based off of the room dimensions I'm trying to achieve.
Excellent! That means I misunderstood what you have framed so far, but that's good news! :)at this point, the framing is not up yet, and it's not too late to change angles in the walls, or airspace.
You don't need to splay the entire wall: you just need to splay enough of the front part to ensure that all first-order reflections are re-directed past the mix position. No more than about one third of the wall, max, and probably even less than that. From that point on, the walls can stay parallel, all the way to the back.My concern with splayed walls from front to back is of course losing tons of real estate,
and also creating nasty room modes,Splaying the walls does not create new modes: it just moves the ones that were there anyway, to slightly different frequencies. That's usually not a bad thing, since it sort of "dilutes" the modes a bit, as the length and width of the room are not constant any more, so the modes are reduced in intensity somewhat, as well as being changed.
What are the dimensions of your inner-leaf that you have planned at present? I glanced back over your thread, but didn't see that anywhere. Maybe I missed it. - Stuart -even though I think that bob golds calc says I'm in pretty good shape based off of the room dimensions I'm trying to achieve.
Here's a photo of this afternoons progress. We've removed the original 8' ceiling joists to make room for the inner decoupled frame. Getting ready to chaulk out the walls to get a feel for the rooms space.
What are the dimensions of your inner-leaf that you have planned at present? I glanced back over your thread, but didn't see that anywhere. Maybe I missed it. I'll find and repost the plans. The dimension we're shooting for is about 135" wide up front, walls splay 12 degrees out to about half way through the room, and the room will be 179" wide the rest of the way to the back. The room will be about 150" in length total, inside of the drywall. Additionally the ceiling will start out from the front at about 8" and slant up to about 10-10.5' in the rear and come straight down at the back wall.even though I think that bob golds calc says I'm in pretty good shape based off of the room dimensions I'm trying to achieve.
Here's today's progress report. We started the front wall and prepped for the 3x6' window, however did not cut it in fully, yet. The side walls in the front of the room have a 12 degree splay in them about 6' out, and then the walls will be parallel the remaining 6' or so. I intend on stacking superchunks in all 4 corners due to the room resonances that I expect in the low end.
The ceiling start out at 8' and will work its way up to somewhere between 10'-10'6" depending upon how much height we can get. Is there a particular amount of space I should leave between the ceiling joists and the roof's 2x6 rafters? Right now, there's at minimum 1" between the bottom of the rafters and the top of the independent ceiling. Am I good?:D
So we ran into some snags today. We decided to move the main air duct supply back about a foot in order to squeeze about 8 more inchest of length out of the room. We build the walls, and put one side up, but the other will have to wait for the heating and air contractor as well, because there is a gas line that sticks into the room and in the way of the inner wall studs and top plate. Photos attached.
After chaulking up the room and building the framing, the room dimensions, from stud to stud are as follows...
13' 11' wide
12'7 long
10'3' tall (7'8" in front 10'3 in rear"
Walls front sidewalls splayed 6' back at 12 degrees and then run parallel. Superchunks will be placed in all 4 corners to help manage low end resonances.
What's your take, Stuart?
More photos with comments attached.
Is there a way to rotate images on the site once attached?
Hey Stuart, I just wanted to make sure that I gave you all of the dimension info needed to double check the room modes.
Also, my contractor is concerned about attic heat coming down between the two walls in the control room and cooking the control room, even though we'll have central air, and a minisplit in there. While we don't want to be running both units to keep the room cool during the summer, I wanted to make sure that we did not need to consider putting up some thermal foam board between the roof top and the outer walls to help keep the bulk of the hot attic air outside of the airspace between walls. I have not seen anyone make any such provisions, and I don't know what effect putting thermal boards up would have on the MSM design. Any advice in this arena?
Today the heating and air contractor is here moving our gas line and main air duct out of the way for the control room walls. The rest of the control room walls should be up by this evening, and ceiling tomorrow. We're also framing up the amp room today while the lines are being relocated, and will have some photos up soon. We're following the same design plans in the amp room as we are in the live room -- with regard to isolation methods.
Is your attic space properly ventilated? I mean, there should be some place where outside air comes in, probably through vents under your eaves, and some place where hot air can leave, probably through a ridge vent or gable end vents, or some such. If you don't have a properly ventilated attic space, then you should fix that before you go any further. - Stuart -Also, my contractor is concerned about attic heat coming down between the two walls in the control room and cooking the control room, even though we'll have central air, and a minisplit in there. While we don't want to be running both units to keep the room cool during the summer, I wanted to make sure that we did not need to consider putting up some thermal foam board between the roof top and the outer walls to help keep the bulk of the hot attic air outside of the airspace between walls. I have not seen anyone make any such provisions, and I don't know what effect putting thermal boards up would have on the MSM design. Any advice in this arena?
Thanks! The attic space is well ventilated. In fact, on of the roof vents sits right above the control room :? It looks like things are coming together here. Also, any suggestions on glass distributors in Arizona? I'm not having much luck at all. The one supplier who I thought could help me, nearly doubled their prices on me in just a couple of weeks from $1500, to $2800 for 1 pane 3'x6' 1/2" laminated, 1 pane 3x'6' 3/4 laminated, 1 pane 2'x4' 1/2" laminated, and 1 pane 2'x4' 3/4" laminated. Does this seem in the ballpark? I did not budget that much for glass! *yikes*! :oops:Is your attic space properly ventilated? I mean, there should be some place where outside air comes in, probably through vents under your eaves, and some place where hot air can leave, probably through a ridge vent or gable end vents, or some such. If you don't have a properly ventilated attic space, then you should fix that before you go any further.Also, my contractor is concerned about attic heat coming down between the two walls in the control room and cooking the control room, even though we'll have central air, and a minisplit in there. While we don't want to be running both units to keep the room cool during the summer, I wanted to make sure that we did not need to consider putting up some thermal foam board between the roof top and the outer walls to help keep the bulk of the hot attic air outside of the airspace between walls. I have not seen anyone make any such provisions, and I don't know what effect putting thermal boards up would have on the MSM design. Any advice in this arena?
OK, so the room is wider than it is long? So the front wall, where the speaker will be, is 13'11", and the distance from that wall to the one at the back of the room, is 12'7"?After chaulking up the room and building the framing, the room dimensions, from stud to stud are as follows... 13' 11' wide 12'7 long 10'3' tall (7'8" in front 10'3 in rear)
So that implies that the front wall is actually LESS than 13'11"? And when you say that these are the "stud to stud" dimensions, do you mean the front face of the stud (facing the room) or the rear face of the stud (facing the wall cavity)? And what are your plans for the drywall? How many layers? How thick? Are you gong to build "inside out", or conventionally? All those things make a BIG difference in the actual dimensions for predicting the acoustic properties, especially the modal behavior. I'm also not clear on the basic design principle here: Is this going to be an RFZ design, or some other concept? You say you are splaying the walls 12°, but is that 12° total, or 12° per side, total 24°? Will the speakers be soffited? I'm having a hard time getting a handle on this room shape/size/dimensions! I'd suggest that you model it in SketchUp, then post that here. As it is, assuming that I understand you correctly, the room ratio is reasonable but not fantastic, and the floor area falls a bit short of the minimum recommendation by ITU/EBU/AES/etc. Not far short, but not there yet. So it is not ideal, but is useable.... probably! Assuming I understood your measurement descriptions. - Stuart - PS: I noticed that you STILL have not re-sized your photos on the first page of this thread! :shock: I went looking to see if you had already posted the final design, but I stopped looking as soon as I found those huge photos... :( Please fix those.Walls front sidewalls splayed 6' back at 12 degrees and then run parallel.
Correct. I drew and attached updated sketches on paper to illustrate better what we've done so far. If we need to make a greater angle on the front walls, we can likely fix it still.OK, so the room is wider than it is long? So the front wall, where the speaker will be, is 13'11", and the distance from that wall to the one at the back of the room, is 12'7"?After chaulking up the room and building the framing, the room dimensions, from stud to stud are as follows... 13' 11' wide 12'7 long 10'3' tall (7'8" in front 10'3 in rear)So that implies that the front wall is actually LESS than 13'11"?Walls front sidewalls splayed 6' back at 12 degrees and then run parallel.
Correct. Front face of the stud, the inside of the control room, minus drywall.[/quote]And when you say that these are the "stud to stud" dimensions, do you mean the front face of the stud (facing the room) or the rear face of the stud (facing the wall cavity)?
2 layers of 5/8ths on the walls with green glue in between. 3 layers on the ceiling with green glue in between. Insulation on both wall leafs, batting between ceiling studs, and will eventually blow more insulation back into the attic cavity if necessary.And what are your plans for the drywall? How many layers? How thick? Are you gong to build "inside out", or conventionally? All those things make a BIG difference in the actual dimensions for predicting the acoustic properties, especially the modal behavior.
I'm trying to go for an RFZ design. We splayed each wall out 12 degrees about 6' out from the front wall., for a total of 24 degrees between the two walls. Thought that rather than going with a 30 degree "corner" up front that I would be better off with super-chunks in the 12 degree front corners to help with low end resonance. Should this be re-thought? As far as soffit mounting, my builder is willing to soffit mount them, but my knowledge is just too limited in instructing him how to built the soffit correctly for my speakers. Also, I had just been under the impression that my monitors would work better free standing, and that I could soffit mount the far fields once I purchase those in the future. I'd soffit mount the solo 6's if I knew we could pull it off without making a huge mistake!I'm also not clear on the basic design principle here: Is this going to be an RFZ design, or some other concept? You say you are splaying the walls 12°, but is that 12° total, or 12° per side, total 24°? Will the speakers be soffited?
I've redrawn the most up to date design. Let me know if that works!I'm having a hard time getting a handle on this room shape/size/dimensions! I'd suggest that you model it in SketchUp, then post that here. As it is, assuming that I understand you correctly, the room ratio is reasonable but not fantastic, and the floor area falls a bit short of the minimum recommendation by ITU/EBU/AES/etc. Not far short, but not there yet. So it is not ideal, but is useable.... probably! Assuming I understood your measurement descriptions. PS: I noticed that you STILL have not re-sized your photos on the first page of this thread! :shock: I went looking to see if you had already posted the final design, but I stopped looking as soon as I found those huge photos... :( Please fix those.
Yes, it should be re-thought. 12° is usually not enough to create a true RFZ. RFZ can only be attained by actually ray-tracing outwards from the acoustic centers of the speakers, in three dimensions, and confirming that you really have created a reflection free zone, or adjust the wall and ceiling angles if you didn't get there yet. It's hard to ray-trace in 3D on a flat piece of paper! :) That's why SketchUp is recommended for doing the design, as it makes it much easier to check this type of thing in 3D.I'm trying to go for an RFZ design. We splayed each wall out 12 degrees about 6' out from the front wall., for a total of 24 degrees between the two walls. Thought that rather than going with a 30 degree "corner" up front that I would be better off with super-chunks in the 12 degree front corners to help with low end resonance. Should this be re-thought?
You could just use John's design. If you read over a few threads here on the forum, you'll find many successful soffit builds that you could show to your builder. The basic concept is simple.As far as soffit mounting, my builder is willing to soffit mount them, but my knowledge is just too limited in instructing him how to built the soffit correctly for my speakers.
What monitors do you have? The only ones that should not be soffit mounted are ones that are rear ported or side ported, or with extra drivers firing out the sides. Most proper studio monitors can be soffit mounted, and many are actually designed to be soffit mounted, since the benefits are just so tremendous.Also, I had just been under the impression that my monitors would work better free standing,
That's fine, but in order to create your RFZ properly, you do need to know where the soffits will be, and where the acoustic centers of the speakers will be, since that is the starting point for your ray tracing. So I'd suggest that you should do the model in SketchUp so you can ray-trace it correctly to make sure that you actually do have an RFZ, or if not so that you can figure out how much to adjust the wall and ceiling angles to get there. Then, when you have that figured out, let me know what the final dimensions and angles are, so I can double check the acoustic predictions for you, especially regarding the modal response (room ratio). - Stuart -and that I could soffit mount the far fields once I purchase those in the future
I'll be angling the front wall and ceiling angle more with soffits, and will be hanging a cloud over the listening position. Additionally, I don't think that I'll be soffit mounting these monitors. I'm not sure that my focal solo 6's will be my mains for long term or not, and I think that I can soffit mount monitors once I've finally made that commitment. I've looked at some of the threads as per your suggestion RE: John's soffit design, and it looks to me like the soffit is installed on top of the inner layer of drywall -- so it shouldn't be a problem to soffit mount in the future as long a I make electrical and cable provisions now? Can I obtain an RFZ without soffit mounted monitors?Yes, it should be re-thought. 12° is usually not enough to create a true RFZ. RFZ can only be attained by actually ray-tracing outwards from the acoustic centers of the speakers, in three dimensions, and confirming that you really have created a reflection free zone, or adjust the wall and ceiling angles if you didn't get there yet. It's hard to ray-trace in 3D on a flat piece of paper! :) That's why SketchUp is recommended for doing the design, as it makes it much easier to check this type of thing in 3D.
I can't tell you how many hours I've banged my head over sketchup. It has officially made me feel like (even more of) an idiot! I simply can't figure out how to make these sketchups in such detail that I see in other threads. :( For now, my graph paper drawings are as good as it gets. I've even put out a call onto facebook to ask if any of my friends can help me with this, to no avail yet. Thank you again for putting up with my ignorance and posts which lack basic information in order to answer my questions. I usually get in trouble when I sit at the computer to post or read anything, and after a 12-14 hour build day -- I can barely keep my eyes open to pay you the respect of a thoughful post. My apologize. Thanks again for your assistance, as we've been working at this build at a rigorous pace.So I'd suggest that you should do the model in SketchUp so you can ray-trace it correctly to make sure that you actually do have an RFZ, or if not so that you can figure out how much to adjust the wall and ceiling angles to get there.
Not just electrical and cabling, but also acoustics: If you install soffits later, the acoustics of the whole room will change, drastically, and you will need to change all/most of your existing room treatment. The entire basis of your room acoustics, and especially of the speaker / listening position geometry (which is absolutely critical in any control room) depends 100% on the front end of the room. Change anything in the front end, and you change the entire room. The sides and rear of the room are basically just "complements" to the front, and just "help" the sound on its way, bu the front end is what defines the room. So that has to be done right NOW, or you will waste a lot of time and effort later, when you have to pretty much tear down most of your treatment, and start all over again. So at least build the soffits now, even if you don't put any speakers in the yet. Trying to add them later will be a huge pain, and a major expense. Doing it now is a piece of cake.so it shouldn't be a problem to soffit mount in the future as long a I make electrical and cable provisions now?
Yes, but it is much harder to do. And since the entire purpose of soffit mounting is to take the speakers "out" of the room (acoustically speaking) so that they cannot interact with the front wall, you will not be able to get the same benefits and the same control room acoustics without soffits. Basically, soffit-mounting eliminates pretty much ALL of the artifacts associated with having speakers close to walls: No more SBIR, comb-filtering, phase shifts, other phase related issues, reflections, or baffle step power imbalance. All of those just cannot happen with soffit-mounted speakers, and most certainly will happen without them. It's just the nature of the laws of physics, and the way sound interacts with surfaces. So my advice would be to design and build the soffits now anyway, just with blank front panels, then mount your new speakers in them a few months down the line.Can I obtain an RFZ without soffit mounted monitors?
Maybe these will help you: http://www.sketchup.com/training/videos.html http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ ... 514c21d975 http://www.mastersketchup.com/sketchup-tutorials/ http://www.aidanchopra.com/ There's nearly 7 MILLION hits on Google for "sketchup tutorial", so I'm sure there plenty more websites that provide the same assistance! :)I can't tell you how many hours I've banged my head over sketchup. It has officially made me feel like (even more of) an idiot! I simply can't figure out how to make these sketchups in such detail that I see in other thread
Please don't take this the wrong way! But unless you design your studio completely in advance, taking into account all of the details before you even lift a hammer, the result will not be good. If there's one thing that I have learned about studio design over the years, it is that "everything affects everything". Making one apparently minor change to something can have a snowball effect on things tat you never would have expected, and you need to take everything into account before you even start. For example, one thing I don't see any sign of at all in your build so far, is HVAC. This is a critical, and I do mean CRITICAL aspect of studio building, and is very different from normal HVAC installation for a house or office. The ducts have to be over-sized to reduce the airflow to much lower speeds, you need silencer boxes at every point where a duct penetrates a leaf (ans silencers take up a lot of space), and you need long straight runs into low-noise registers (grills), among other things. The calculations for the HVAC system (flow rate, flow speed, cooling capacity, humidification capacity, latent heat, sensible heat, occupancy, change rate, fresh air intake, stale air exhaust, equipment, etc., etc. are all extremely important. Your studio is basically a triple-insulated double-hermetically sealed isolation chamber. Without proper HVAC, not only will it become unbearably hot and stuffy inside, in just a short period of time, it will also be a health hazard: without oxygen, you cannot stay alive for very long, and since each of your rooms has two complete, very effective air-tight seals around it, there is no way that oxygen is getting in there by itself (like it does in normal house rooms): you have to make it happen. If not, you die. It really is that critical, but I don't see any signs of that on your plans, and it is a bit late to be thinking about that now! In fact, it is way too late, just like it is way too late to be thinking about control room ratios, wall angles, RFZ, soffits, ceiling angles, room volume, and acoustic prediction. All of those should have been carefully thought out, planned on paper, and calculated in every detail, long ago. Yes, I understand you are in a hurry to get this done, and are working many hard hours every day, but with no design behind it you are working much harder than you need, and will have to spend a lot more time (and money) fixing things along the way that would never have been wrong in the first place if they had been properly planned. I would really urge you to stop building for a while, take a step back, and complete the FULL design, properly and in complete detail, before you do anything more. If you can't do the design yourself, or don't want to, then hire someone to do it for you. The money you spend on design fees will be saved, many times over, from NOT making mistakes that need correcting. You are at the stage where you can still do that and fix things that become apparent. If you advance much more with the build, it becomes harder and harder to go back and fix things, and less and less likely that the place will be great. Anyway, please don't take that as insulting or a put-down, but more as constructive criticism to help you! I want to see your place turn out well, just as much as you do! - Stuart -For now, my graph paper drawings are as good as it gets. ... we've been working at this build at a rigorous pace.