My wife and I are buying a new house, and it has a 16' x 46' RV garage with a 16' ceiling. It has been sheetrocked/fire taped/insulated. I've drawn up a "room within a room" setup in Sketchup to try to utilize the space in a way that will work for both recording and rehearsal space. I drew this up assuming staggared 2x4 studs on 2x6 plates and dual layers of 5/8" sheetrock.The drawing has 13' ceilings, but my plan was to do an angled ceiling in each room with diffusion. I also drew in some bass traps, which I intended to cover in fabric and fill with Rockwool. There should be enough space above the rooms to handle serpentine sound dampened ducting of some fashion for fresh air circulation. Here's what I have so far (attached). I'm very new to this. I've done a lot of reading online, and have read Gervais' "Home Recording Studio..." book, but I feel like I could use the input of people who have more experience at this than I do.
Small studio/rehearsal space in RV Garage?
Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 21498.
Welcome to the forum!
Here are a few things:
- do you need the space at the front door for storage/parking?
- I'd utilize all the space if possible.
- Can you put a man door anywhere for another entry/exit to the building?
- I'd rotate the control room so that it was 16' wide and nice and long. Note: your width and height are the same. However, you can use that extra height to run HVAC duct work, so you could lose some height and not have a similar dimension problem. Basically, how you have your live room, I'd have the control room.
- You didn't draw what is around the building... is it attached to another building or is this a stand alone detached garage?
- Isolation: your current design won't work well. First off, the way the building sits as is, you have a 2 leaf system with each leaf flanking through the outer wall's studs. Adding another room in the existing building will create a 3rd leaf. 3 leafs = bad. What you will have to do is remove the existing sheetrock. If you need the isolation that I believe you do (full band rehearsals, recording drums, you've drawn a room in a room which means you're shooting for good isolation), you'll then have to add mass to the outside wall (I'm assuming it's standard 3/8" OSB sheathing like standard garages in North America??). That means cutting strips of 3/4" OSB, sealing and green gluing or construction gluing them to the existing wood from the inside, between the wall studs. This is a lot of work, but necessary to achieve decent isolation. This is still only going to give you an 1 1/8" of OSB which isn't amazing, but decent. From there, you will need to build separate rooms within your room. That means your live/jamming room will be it's own entity. Then, the control room will be it's own entity as well. That also leaves your big garage door you'll need to seal up. A quick search on the forum here will reveal how to deal with that. If you need guidance on that, I can provide you with some pics and details.
- Assuming this garage doesn't have any HVAC situation, you may have to dedicate a room in which you could have a furnace and whatever else you deem within the realm of your project for air handling.
- Regarding layout, consider some things like: exit routes, sight lines, gear loading (right now, you'll have to have your band load all their gear through your control room.. that isn't cool), ways for musicians to get around the place -- what happens if one of the band members have to go to the bathroom in the middle of a drum take? Will they have to quietly go through the live room? That wouldn't be good.
- Are you planning to have a half bath or little kitchen area? A machine room? A storage room?
- You don't need angled ceilings. You have great ceiling height as it is. The only time you need an angled ceiling is in situations like mine where the only way for me to get height is with one!
- Regarding acoustic treatment, yes you can design that before you build, but step one is getting a layout that works for your space and needs. Control room designing is the hardest as there are guidelines we all achieve to follow (ITU-R BS.1116-3 and the EBU Tech 3276). Live rooms, however, can be whatever you want them to be. Note: Diffusion only works in large rooms (like the live room you have the potential to have!), not small or even medium sized control rooms.
- For your HVAC duct work, there are lots and lots of threads on the forum covering it. Basically, you'll need silencer boxes (home made) on your outer AND inner leaf for both the supply and return of each room. That's the key. For any actual duct runs, you just need round or rectangular duct that has duct liner inside of it. We can get there in your design. You can get there by reading a ton more on the forum. But it's great that you realize it's importance at this stage!
You have a KILLER space to work in. So much potential. Your plan just isn't quite there in my opinion. I'd like to hear your thoughts on what I just wrote and I hope it forces you to do a new layout that will really utilize the space. You're blessed with a great space that could host a world class studio.
Greg
Greg -
Thank you for weighing in, I definitely appreciate it! I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability:
Yes, I will need the space either for parking one of my cars or for the small guitar workshop area where I build instruments. It's not feasible to have the entire space utilized for the studio, the largest footprint I can come up with is 16' wide by ~30' long. I need the live room more than the separate control room as I will be rehearsing there with my band.- do you need the space at the front door for storage/parking? - I'd utilize all the space if possible.
There is a man door at the far end of the live room, just not modeled in Sketchup. It exits into my back yard near to my back porch. I was planning to build a double-door system there to allow quick exit form the rehearsal space and back into the house through the rear entry.- Can you put a man door anywhere for another entry/exit to the building?
I don't know how that will work since I need to retain the 16' x 16' space at the front of the garage and also need to retain the live room large enough to encompass a 4 piece band. That seems to leave me with either just a rehearsal space (no control room) or attempting a live end/dead end sort of thing.- I'd rotate the control room so that it was 16' wide and nice and long. Note: your width and height are the same. However, you can use that extra height to run HVAC duct work, so you could lose some height and not have a similar dimension problem. Basically, how you have your live room, I'd have the control room.
This RV garage attaches to the side of my house and has a 10' wide opening around 6' into the garage, which takes it back to the limit of the front 16' I had reserved. Adjacent to my RV garage (spaced about 10' apart), my future neighbor has an identically sized RV garage attached to *his* house.- You didn't draw what is around the building... is it attached to another building or is this a stand alone detached garage?
I will have to dig into this. The garage is sheetrocked, insulated (R39 not sound damping insulation obviously) and fire taped. I can remove the sheetrock if need be. The plan was to have the inner room free standing and not coupled to the existing walls or ceiling of the garage, and to do staggered 2x4 studs 24" OC in two layers on 2x6 plates to try to decouple the inner and outer sheetrock layers. I hadn't accounted for the existing sheetrock to be a 3rd leaf. Hrm. Any pics would definitely be appreciated.- Isolation: your current design won't work well. First off, the way the building sits as is, you have a 2 leaf system with each leaf flanking through the outer wall's studs. Adding another room in the existing building will create a 3rd leaf. 3 leafs = bad. What you will have to do is remove the existing sheetrock. If you need the isolation that I believe you do (full band rehearsals, recording drums, you've drawn a room in a room which means you're shooting for good isolation), you'll then have to add mass to the outside wall (I'm assuming it's standard 3/8" OSB sheathing like standard garages in North America??). That means cutting strips of 3/4" OSB, sealing and green gluing or construction gluing them to the existing wood from the inside, between the wall studs. This is a lot of work, but necessary to achieve decent isolation. This is still only going to give you an 1 1/8" of OSB which isn't amazing, but decent. From there, you will need to build separate rooms within your room. That means your live/jamming room will be it's own entity. Then, the control room will be it's own entity as well. That also leaves your big garage door you'll need to seal up. A quick search on the forum here will reveal how to deal with that. If you need guidance on that, I can provide you with some pics and details.
I had planned to duct heat/AC into a space above the room and vent it down through a serpentine dampened structure with active air removal at the bottom, also with serpentine ducts.- Assuming this garage doesn't have any HVAC situation, you may have to dedicate a room in which you could have a furnace and whatever else you deem within the realm of your project for air handling.
The previously mentioned man door at the back would suffice for restroom and food breaks. That could pose an issue, but I had also planned on having double heavy glass sliding doors on the control room to allow entry into the garage area. the plan was to have a pair of these sliding doors on each side of the control room to allow passing through from the car garage/shop area to the control room and then the live room. I didn't figure it would be as much of an issue for loading in and out since these doors open several feet and I do not plan to have a fixed desk in the control room for mixing, my plan was to have a nice chair I could place in the optimal listening position and do the bulk of my mixing from my iPad (I have a digital board and DAW interface). All computers/mechanicals would be outside of the studio structure as currently laid out.- Regarding layout, consider some things like: exit routes, sight lines, gear loading (right now, you'll have to have your band load all their gear through your control room.. that isn't cool), ways for musicians to get around the place -- what happens if one of the band members have to go to the bathroom in the middle of a drum take? Will they have to quietly go through the live room? That wouldn't be good. - Are you planning to have a half bath or little kitchen area? A machine room? A storage room?
I just assumed angled ceilings so they'd allow more space for ducting, etc. above, but I'm happy to do flat ceilings. Easier to build. :D- You don't need angled ceilings. You have great ceiling height as it is. The only time you need an angled ceiling is in situations like mine where the only way for me to get height is with one!
That's good to know.- Regarding acoustic treatment, yes you can design that before you build, but step one is getting a layout that works for your space and needs. Control room designing is the hardest as there are guidelines we all achieve to follow (ITU-R BS.1116-3 and the EBU Tech 3276). Live rooms, however, can be whatever you want them to be. Note: Diffusion only works in large rooms (like the live room you have the potential to have!), not small or even medium sized control rooms.
I'm digging into that now as well.- For your HVAC duct work, there are lots and lots of threads on the forum covering it. Basically, you'll need silencer boxes (home made) on your outer AND inner leaf for both the supply and return of each room. That's the key. For any actual duct runs, you just need round or rectangular duct that has duct liner inside of it. We can get there in your design. You can get there by reading a ton more on the forum. But it's great that you realize it's importance at this stage!
Thank you, sir! I hope to make the most of it based on the limitations under which I am sort of constrained.You have a KILLER space to work in. So much potential. Your plan just isn't quite there in my opinion. I'd like to hear your thoughts on what I just wrote and I hope it forces you to do a new layout that will really utilize the space. You're blessed with a great space that could host a world class studio. Greg
So, I didn't have a way to edit Sketchup files on my iPad, and found a lot of this to be easier with a tablet/stylus than a keyboard/mouse, so I switched to AutoCAD. :D
I borrowed some design ideas from one of John Sayers' example studio layouts ("Garage 2") which I modified to work in my 15' x 45' RV garage (inside measurement). I recognize that I will probably have to strip the sheetrock off the inside of the RV garage to avoid a 3rd leaf scenario, and I'm not sure how well that will go, but attached is the updated layout I am thinking about. It enlarges the listening/control room swaps the location of the control room and live room, allows direct egress from each without having to pass from one to the other, and allows band load-in directly from the outside without having to pass through the control room.
Please, anyone, everyone, let me know what you think, how well this design might work, etc.
Thanks,
Shawn.
Try "SkethUp Free". It's a web browser based thing. Not very useful, and greatly despised by long-time SketchUp users, but it might be useful for you.I didn't have a way to edit Sketchup files on my iPad
Pity. Folks here on the forum won't be able to help you much with your design, since pretty much all of us use SketchUp.so I switched to AutoCAD.
Right! And likely also beef up the outer-leaf of the garage, using the "in between the studs" technique.I recognize that I will probably have to strip the sheetrock off the inside of the RV garage to avoid a 3rd leaf scenario,
Why are you angling the sliding glass doors? There's no need for that. It's a waste of space, and you are already very tight on space.attached is the updated layout I am thinking about
It sounds like you are thinking things through carefully. All good! But it's hard to see what you are actually planning there from a simple line drawing: I really can't make out what is what. I'm not sure if you are doing the walls right, since I can't even figure out which lines are inner walls, which ones are outer walls and which ones are just dimensions! I'd really suggest importing that back into SketchUp, and only using that from now on. - Stuart -It enlarges the listening/control room swaps the location of the control room and live room, allows direct egress from each without having to pass from one to the other, and allows band load-in directly from the outside without having to pass through the control room.
Stuart - thanks for taking the time to look this over. I know it's harder to see as it's not in your expected file format.
The change to AutoCAD was made mostly because I can't use Sketchup from my iPad (not even the free browser based version), and most of the time that is all I have access to. I can only use my PC while at work, and if I spend all day drawing my plans up at work, I'll likely get in trouble :DTry "SkethUp Free". It's a web browser based thing. Not very useful, and greatly despised by long-time SketchUp users, but it might be useful for you.
I realize that, and I may see if I can import the DXF into Sketchup Free and pull that up unti a 3D model.Pity. Folks here on the forum won't be able to help you much with your design, since pretty much all of us use SketchUp.
Right! And likely also beef up the outer-leaf of the garage, using the "in between the studs" technique.
I angled them specifically because, in his online studio flood plan examples, John always seemed to do so. This is basically what i modified/redrew for my garage studio space:Why are you angling the sliding glass doors? There's no need for that. It's a waste of space, and you are already very tight on space.
External image, not preserved — original: http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Images/Garage%202.gif
If that's not necessary, that's an easy change.
I will see if I can't import the DXF into Sketchup Free. Structurally speaking, the outer two sets of lines are the pre-constructed garage walls (2x6 construction, insulated with R21 fiberglass then sheetrocked/fire taped per local building code) There is a air gap of 3" all the way around the inner construction, and all inner walls are drawn as 2x6 plates with 2 staggered sets of 2x4 studs 24" OC at each edge to provide isolation between the two layers of sheetrock attached to each side of those walls. The garage has a 16' ceiling, and I was planning to build the studio space with between 10' and 12' ceilings, and use the remaining space above for fresh air ducting/HVAC. Thanks, Shawn.But it's hard to see what you are actually planning there from a simple line drawing: I really can't make out what is what. I'm not sure if you are doing the walls right, since I can't even figure out which lines are inner walls, which ones are outer walls and which ones are just dimensions! I'd really suggest importing that back into SketchUp, and only using that from now on.
Update: Looks like DXF files can only be imported into Sketchup Pro. May have to look at a different method.
OK, but that design is from a long time ago. John no longer does that. See here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14215&start=4I angled them specifically because, in his online studio flood plan examples, John always seemed to do so. This is basically what i modified/redrew for my garage studio space:
Nice! REALLY Nice! Having that much ceiling height bodes very well for good acoustics. You probably won't need that much in the CR, but for the LR, use all that you can.The garage has a 16' ceiling,
Smart move. That's what I normally do. But you won't need 4 feet for that: maybe 2', or a little more. - Stuart -and use the remaining space above for fresh air ducting/HVAC.
Great work so far! I'm really glad to see you're considering everything I mentioned!
So, like Stuart said, the CAD drawing is really hard to understand. However, I THINK I see you have your control room facing the right side of the picture. That means you have your sliding doors on your rear wall? Maybe this is wrong. Maybe those two chair looking objects are actually speakers? And maybe the couch is actually a desk? Either way, having entry doors in corners is a bad idea (if you can avoid it) because it will impede on your ability to put super chunks or hangers there where you have the best ability to deal with ugly bass information. The same can be said about your live room entry door.
The other thing I noticed was your live room length is 17'. Your ceiling is 16'. That's getting close to being within 5% of one another. Maybe lengthen your live room a bit more if you feel you can give up some of that load in/storage area. Remember, bigger is pretty much always better.
Also, food for thought:
What if you slid both rooms to the far left and had the storage room on the far right. You could still use it as a sound lock/passage but also build a mechanical room in there. That could hold your furnace/air conditioner/HRV, etc. Then, you could plumb it through the ceiling to provide your air for both CR and live room! Since the ceiling in your CR will (like Stuart said) be a bit lower, it will have room for all of the duct work and silencers for both rooms. That would then allow you to maximize all 16' of height in your live room (jealous about that height by the way).
That sucks about your computer situation. Maybe spend like $300 and by a crappy laptop for home usage so you can SketchUp at home.
Greg
Thanks, Greg! I'm trying... I have construction experience but nothing specific to this level of isolation. It's definitely been a learning experience. :shock:Great work so far! I'm really glad to see you're considering everything I mentioned!
Yeah, I threw the couch and chairs in there for scale so I could judge the size, they would go at the opposite end. I've redrawn the room using just the glass sliding doors to enter/exit the live room. I plan to put a door on the flat side of the control room at the bottom right side of the control room in the attached updated design. The opening at the bottom left opens directly into my 2-car garage. All of this is attached to my house along the bottom wall.So, like Stuart said, the CAD drawing is really hard to understand. However, I THINK I see you have your control room facing the right side of the picture. That means you have your sliding doors on your rear wall? Maybe this is wrong. Maybe those two chair looking objects are actually speakers? And maybe the couch is actually a desk? Either way, having entry doors in corners is a bad idea (if you can avoid it) because it will impede on your ability to put super chunks or hangers there where you have the best ability to deal with ugly bass information. The same can be said about your live room entry door.
The planned ceiling height is 12', though I could step the live room ceiling up but I don't want to create any weirdness... my room dimensions other than height are 17.25 x 13.5... both the live and control rooms are the same base footprint. I have added wedges to the control room to *mostly* avoid parallel reflecting surfaces.The other thing I noticed was your live room length is 17'. Your ceiling is 16'. That's getting close to being within 5% of one another. Maybe lengthen your live room a bit more if you feel you can give up some of that load in/storage area. Remember, bigger is pretty much always better.
I'm planning to tap into the house HVAC for heating/cooling with a serpentine dampened path. I *really* need the space at the front end of the garage, I can't dedicate 100% of the space to the studio. After I build the hell out of the ceiling I should still have 2' - 3' of space above the studio for the ducting, etc.Also, food for thought: What if you slid both rooms to the far left and had the storage room on the far right. You could still use it as a sound lock/passage but also build a mechanical room in there. That could hold your furnace/air conditioner/HRV, etc. Then, you could plumb it through the ceiling to provide your air for both CR and live room! Since the ceiling in your CR will (like Stuart said) be a bit lower, it will have room for all of the duct work and silencers for both rooms. That would then allow you to maximize all 16' of height in your live room (jealous about that height by the way).
Are you able to have a man door at the far right hand side of the picture? I really think you should try to maintain all/as much height as possible in your live room and run all of your duct work and silencers over the control room. So, maybe a solution would be to flip the control room and live room, have an entry into the live room at the right of the picture. Then, in your storage area you could have your air handling unit. So, basically a mirror image of what I described before.
It seems as though you're arbitrarily throwing up angled acoustic treatment walls in your control room. Do you want a super awesome control room? If so, you probably want to build an RFZ style room. And with that, comes some design specifications to follow. We can help you with that, but the first step is laying out your rooms and ventilation (size, location, and where doors are).... sadly, I don't think we're done that stage yet.
Let me know what you think about flipping the rooms and having an entry door into the live room from the right side of the picture (preferably not in a corner)
Greg
Greg - Thank you for taking a look at these things. I had absolutely planned to run the duct work and silencers above the control room. I am hoping I won't need much of a separate air handler as I'm planning to tap into my houses HVAC to provide fresh air. More on that in a minute. There is actually going to be a 32" man door at the far right around 2/3 of the way down from the top right corner. My plan had been to hinge the angled acoustic baffle at the far right/bottom to allow access out through the man door if needed. The place where I would need to tap into my house HVAC calls above where the control room currently sits, which is one reason the control room is now on the right. The other reason for the current control room vs live room orientation is that, in previous comments on the thread, it was suggested that the live room be on the bay door side, so that loading/unloading of amps, etc, not have to pass through the control room to get to the live room. Regarding height, I was concerned with having the full height of ~15' for the live room, simply because the room is 13.5' wide and 17.25' long. I don't know what weirdness would happen having it taller than it is wide. Of course, that is a subject about which you know way more than I, and if it sounds good and is feasible, I'm all for it.Are you able to have a man door at the far right hand side of the picture? I really think you should try to maintain all/as much height as possible in your live room and run all of your duct work and silencers over the control room. So, maybe a solution would be to flip the control room and live room, have an entry into the live room at the right of the picture. Then, in your storage area you could have your air handling unit. So, basically a mirror image of what I described before.
The angles I used were borrowed from the (fairly old) "Garage 2" studio layout John S has posted on his website:It seems as though you're arbitrarily throwing up angled acoustic treatment walls in your control room. Do you want a super awesome control room? If so, you probably want to build an RFZ style room. And with that, comes some design specifications to follow. We can help you with that, but the first step is laying out your rooms and ventilation (size, location, and where doors are).... sadly, I don't think we're done that stage yet.
External image, not preserved — original: http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Images/Garage%202.gif
I had planned to build them very much like the old plan indicated, as slot resonators, but these are not a fixed item, buy any means. I'm wide open to suggestions on this as I have no real world experience with it. The angle and construction can be changed/finalized as needed. Obviously room placement, HVAC, etc. have to be determined first, anyway. It appears so far that I will have easy access to tap into the HVAC above the second floor near the back of my house and pipe a zone into the top of the RV garage. The house will be setup for multi-zone heating and cooling, so I figured I'd just add this as a zone and keep a wifi-connected thermostat in the control room.
I can swap the room layout back to how I had it, but because of the limitation to the access to the man door (which opens to my fenced back yard) any large equipment would need to pass through the bay door at the front, through the reloaced control room, and into the live room. I feel like the placement of two glass sliding doors on in the control room to facilitate this access would have a profound negative effect on the reflections there. I have no easy walkup access from the street to my back yard (just a narrow grassy walk down the side of the garage to a narrow gate). Unfortunately, I have no control over the placement of the man door, the spacing from my RV garage to the adjacent property line (5 feet), the proximity of my RV garage to my neighbor's mirroring RV garage (10 feet total gap), etc. The builder in this subdivision has been very clear that no modifications can be made to the placement of any of these things, and no structural, electrical or HVAC changes can be made during the building process. They actually had us sign a *56 page contract* before starting work (8x longer than *any* other builder in the area, we have come to discover) that basically locks everything down on day 1 and allows no real changes until we take possession of the house. Which is why I will have to pull off hundreds of square feet of sheetrock in the RV garage instead of just asking them to not install it. :roll:Let me know what you think about flipping the rooms and having an entry door into the live room from the right side of the picture (preferably not in a corner)
Simply put, area is area. Tall and narrow or short and wide, it still adds up to area and more area = better. As long as you don't have any dimensions the same or within 5% of one another, you're good to go. So yes, keep it as tall as you can.Regarding height, I was concerned with having the full height of ~15' for the live room, simply because the room is 13.5' wide and 17.25' long. I don't know what weirdness would happen having it taller than it is wide. Of course, that is a subject about which you know way more than I, and if it sounds good and is feasible, I'm all for it.
This isn't an RFZ design. You can totally do it like you have it, but you will have to deal with all sorts of issues that come with having your speakers inside your room. RFZ design removes the speakers from inside the room and basically eliminates all of those issues.The angles I used were borrowed from the (fairly old) "Garage 2" studio layout John S has posted on his website:
Unless rules are different where you live, I've always been under the impression that garages cannot share the same ventilation system as your home. That's why I keep suggesting running it's own system in the storage space. A lot of people run mini split systems but due to them being electric and not gas, they are way more expensive to run. Plus, they don't provide fresh air like a forced air system.It appears so far that I will have easy access to tap into the HVAC above the second floor near the back of my house and pipe a zone into the top of the RV garage. The house will be setup for multi-zone heating and cooling, so I figured I'd just add this as a zone and keep a wifi-connected thermostat in the control room.
I'm dealing with my crappy builder and architectural requirements on my place too. At least you were able to get and afford a big awesome RV garage! GregThe builder in this subdivision has been very clear that no modifications can be made to the placement of any of these things, and no structural, electrical or HVAC changes can be made during the building process. They actually had us sign a *56 page contract* before starting work (8x longer than *any* other builder in the area, we have come to discover) that basically locks everything down on day 1 and allows no real changes until we take possession of the house. Which is why I will have to pull off hundreds of square feet of sheetrock in the RV garage instead of just asking them to not install it. :roll:
Also, even if it is allowed, that's a very large extra volume that the house system was probably NOT designed to handle. Don't ever overload your house HVAC system by trying to extend it to cover areas it was never meant for. You'll end up with lousy HVAC in both the house and the studio.... The difference in cost for adding a proper HVAC system vs. trying to adapt one that wasn't meant for the purpose, is probably negligible, when compared to the total cost of building the studio. - Stuart -Unless rules are different where you live, I've always been under the impression that garages cannot share the same ventilation system as your home.
Alright, I have updated the live room and control room ceiling heights (live - 15', control 10') and have changed the geometry of the control room. I have also added some gear for visual scale including my needed small workshop area. My plan is to put air handling/climage control equipment above the control room, as I will have just over 5' of space to work with up there, depending on the thickness of sound damping insulation I need up there. Thoughts?
I'm really wondering about that setup! You seem to have no console/desk/DAW, the listening position appears to be on the couch, which is in the geometric center of the room (the worst possible location), and the room is narrower at the back than the front. Is there a good reason for this layout? It doesn't make much sense acoustically, so I'm assuming there must be another reason for this unusual layout. - Stuart -and have changed the geometry of the control room.
Stuart - I was aiming for no parallel walls, which is why I angled the sides that way. I can change the angles of the speaker soffits and modify the side walls easily enough. That's why I asked - so that someone who has more experience will prod me in the right direction. :) You're right about the desk/DAW/console. I will be running everything from a PC hidden in one of the soffits, and both my mixer and DAW are remotely controllable by iPad so I will likely be going that route. I have no plans for any physical faders or a desk of any kind, rather the plan is to kick back on the couch or one of the wingback chairs (the furniture can be easily rearranged) for mixing, etc. This space is more than a control room, it's also essentially a "man cave" where I'll be hanging out, having whisky and cigars with the band/other friends, listening to some vintage vinyl, etc. It would also give the band a comfortable place to hang out and listen while one member is tracking individual parts in the next room.I'm really wondering about that setup! You seem to have no console/desk/DAW, the listening position appears to be on the couch, which is in the geometric center of the room (the worst possible location), and the room is narrower at the back than the front. Is there a good reason for this layout? It doesn't make much sense acoustically, so I'm assuming there must be another reason for this unusual layout. - Stuart -
But your actual walls are still parallel! You are only angling the TREATMENT that is inside the room, next to the walls. It's also a myth that walls have to be angled... They don't, unless there's a very specific reason for doing so....I was aiming for no parallel walls,
:thu:I can change the angles of the speaker soffits and modify the side walls easily enough.
Fair enough! :) What I would suggest is that you should first choose the overall design concept for your room. There are many different concepts for control room design, and each has it's own specific specifications, methods and techniques. For example, 30 years ago the LEDE concept was used widely, where "LEDE" stands for "Live End - Dead End". The room was built with the front end totally dead acoustically (highly absorptive, broad-band) and the rear end very live (highly reflective). There were good acoustic reasons for that concept, but it turned out to be very unnatural to mix in, and fatiguing. So nobody builds pure LEDE rooms any more. There are many other concepts these days, some of them extensions or modifications of the LEDE design, some using totally different concepts. So you should first define what the purpose of the room is, how accurate you want it to be, how you will use it, and then settle on the design concept that best fits your needs. So you'll need to do a bit of research on concepts such as RFZ, NER, MR, CID, and others, to figure out which way you want to go. Personally, I'm a huge fan of RFZ, and almost all of the rooms I design are based on that, since in my opinion it's the best one out there right now. Maximum accuracy, cleanest sound-stage, broadest stereo image, tightest bass, least artifacts, etc. But more complicated than the others to design properly.That's why I asked - so that someone who has more experience will prod me in the right direction.
How will you deal with the heat issue? This is often overlooked, but there's a very real effect to having hot air flowing up in front of the speaker. It distorts the sound, in exactly the same manner as hot air rising of a hot road distorts the view. If you do want to mount a major heat source, such as a PC, amp, or other piece of gear, in your soffit, then you'll need to deal with that problem: the heat cannot be allowed to rise in front of the speaker. Also, if you use the space inside the soffit for a PC, then you will be eliminating that space for use as acoustic treatment. The areas above and below a soffit-mounted speaker are extremely useful locations for acoustic treatment. If you use those for something else, then you will need MORE treatment in other parts of the room, to make up for the lost effect. And since room corners are the most effective locations for treatment, if you put treatment elsewhere, you will need a lot more of it.I will be running everything from a PC hidden in one of the soffits,
Where will the mixer be located? Outside of the room, I guess, based on what you say?and both my mixer and DAW are remotely controllable by iPad
Question: How do you plan to mix if you are not in the sweet spot? :) Think about that. The entire purpose of a control room is to create the best possible acoustic environment at one specific location in the room, so that the engineer hears only pure, clean, unmodified, perfectly balanced, perfectly smooth sound at his location. It is only possible to achieve that for one point in the room: the sweet spot. All other points in the room have less pure, less clean, colored, unbalanced sound. If you sit on the couch or in one of the easy chairs, then your head will be "off-axis" to the speakers, so you will not be hearing them both equally. If your head is above or below the acoustic center of the speakers, you will not hearing the direct sound. If you are too far back in the room, or too far forward, then the sound field will be distorted in one way or another, enhancing some frequencies while attenuating others, as well as having artifacts on the time and phase domains.... You cannot easily and successfully mix if you are not in the sweet spot. There's a reason why control rooms all follow the same basic pattern, with the same general layout: because that's the only one that works! I'm sure it would be nice to sit over in the far corner with your feet up, and mix from there, but that isn't realistic at all. There is always uneven bass distortion in the corners of the room, even a well treated one, and being so far off axis means you wont even be able to HEAR the stereo image, let alone mix it. I'd really suggest that you should follow the conventional layout for your room, and set up a chair at the sweet spot, so you can track, mix and master successfully. You can get a really nice, very comfortable chair if you want, and you can go without a desk in front of you (although you'd have no place to put your coffee mug, or rest your iPad when you aren't using it....), but the mix position still needs to be in the optimum location. Here's a graph that very clearly illustrates the problem. This shows a series of frequency response readings that were taken at many different points in a control room, part way through treating the room. You can clearly see the vast range of "sounds" that the room has, depending on where you are sitting in it. All of those readings were taken at the same height above the floor (ear height of a seated mix engineer), on the front-back center line of the room, and at various points between the front wall and back wall. So this is a very controlled test, in a partly treated room that was specifically designed as a control room, and even so there's a huge range of variation just from sliding back and forth along the center line. Take a look at around 130 Hz: at some locations in the room, those frequencies are up around 95 dB SPL, while at other locations they are down to only 55 dB SPL. That's a difference of 40 decibels! In other words, at some points in the room 130 Hz is EIGHT TIMES LOUDER than at other points. Could you mix properly, if you happened to be seated at the wrong spot? Obviously, no. Not a snowball's chance in hell! I often do these tests in rooms to help find the optimum listening position, before finalizing the treatment and room tuning. Now, that shows the huge variation along one specific, carefully chosen axis of the room, where every effort has been made to get the response as flat as possible: imagine how bad it gets over in the rear corner, where no effort at all has been made! There's no way you'd be able to mix accurately if you are not seated in the sweet spot.rather the plan is to kick back on the couch or one of the wingback chairs (the furniture can be easily rearranged) for mixing, etc.
:shock: I hope the "cigars" part was just a joke! :roll: I mean, it's your room, for sure, and you can do what you want with it. But if you have any respect for your expensive equipment, then you'll do what most studios do: ban smoking in the control room. To get an idea of how this plays out, take a look at used professional audio gear on e-bay, and see how many of the items clearly state "only used in smoke-free environment". Compare the prices for those against the prices for the exact same model that does NOT say it was used in smoke-free environment... I think you'll get my point. Many high-end studios do also have a "green room", where musicians, artists, WAGS, engineers, producers, etc. can hang out, smoke, eat pizza, get drunk, throw up on the floor, and do all the other things that they do. But NOT in the control room! It is called a "control room" for a reason: it is a precision room, with tightly controlled parameters, where accuracy is worshiped, and expensive gear is enshrined. Not a place for cigar smoke.This space is more than a control room, it's also essentially a "man cave" where I'll be hanging out, having whisky and cigars with the band/other friends, listening to some vintage vinyl, etc.
That's what the Green Room is for. Not the control room. It seems to me that you might want to reconsider your design, and add a green room to it. A control room can be used for other things than just a control room: for example, as a home theater, or for tracking vocals, perhaps acoustic guitars, and some other instruments, or as an audiophile listening room, or a TV room, etc. But NOT as a green room! - Stuart -It would also give the band a comfortable place to hang out and listen while one member is tracking individual parts in the next room.