New Studio in Design Phase

I have a friend who is building a new home with a studio in it. They haven't started construction yet, so things can be modified. Although I'm not sure how much due to where the space is being planned within the house, but certainly some modifications could be done. This home is basically "in the woods" so sound isolation isn't a factor. They can make as much noise as they like and the nearest lightly traveled road is quite a ways off, so loudness or noise aren't going to be problems to solve. The studio will be used mostly for Rock music, although some folk, bluegrass, acoustic things as well. But they aren't the money makers so mostly Rock. I have offered to help him with anything I can. We both have a quite a bit of pro/semipro equipment, measurement mics, sound cards, woodworking shops, etc., so we can get good info as we go along. Here is a pic of the studio with dimensions as a start. The broken line down the center is the peak of the cathedral ceiling. That ceiling is 9' at the sides and 15' 3" at the dotted line center. At this stage I'm just looking for suggestions and comments on the dimensions and layout. As we go along and get started on construction, I'll add more. My own first comments were that I didn't particularly care for the control room being wider than it is long. And from looking at room mode calculators, I think the live room might be better even by trimming the width to 16' instead of 16' 6". But that info is from a novice that may not know what he's talking about :) Many thanks for anyone who wants to take a look at make some general comments and suggestions to get us going in the right direction.

Hi gabo, It sounds like it's going to be a cool project out in the woods like that, a nice place to record. I would say that you might want to still have a decent level of isolation, you'd be surprised how noisy nature can be. Rain on the roof and walls, wind howling and shaking the building, trees creaking, birds singing, noisy animals, wood peckers, squirrels etc. Especially as at least some of the time you're planning to record acoustic instruments which are a lot quieter than a rockband you might be glad you did isolate at least decent enough to stop normal external noises getting in... rain on the roof is especially loud! Regardless of this, you'll definitely need to isolate between the control and tracking room(s) as well as reception areas etc. So unless you are planning to build two completely disconnected buildings with no internal common walk way linking them then you may as well isolate the whole place. Regarding lengthways/widthways for your control room, well both CAN work. It's usually best to have the monitors fire down the length of the room, but it depends on the size of the room and your design concept. If you get to the point where your width is the same as most people's length, then it really doesn't matter that much anymore as your rear wall will still be far enough away from your listening position to accommodate thick rear wall treatment and/or diffusion. There's two advantages to having a control wider rather than longer which are: 1. If you have a very wide console it will actually fit 2. Your side walls will be a lot further away from your monitors which means your first reflection points will also be further away AND further down the side walls, which means you need less treatment/angles on your side walls to deal with those early reflections reaching back to your ears. However, you have quite a lot of space to play with so I would try out all sorts of possible layouts before committing. Some things to consider are: - Having easy access to bathrooms i.e. so you don't need to walk through the control room from the tracking room in order to take a pee, or having access to wheel in big and heavy gear to the tracking room directly from outside instead of through a tiny control room door etc. - Incorporate some storage areas. If you have the space then a dedicated large room is good for this with easy access to all other rooms, but you can also incorporate some clever storage in your control room and tracking room(s) with a bit of fiddling. - Try to keep your control room rectangular if you can without any weird L shapes to T shapes. There are other designs such as a traditional RFZ shape with angled walls etc but rectangular is A LOT easier to build and predict, and usually they function better than older angled designs. - Decide early on if you're going to flush mount your main monitors in your front wall. It's highly recommended that you do, and your whole control room design will revolve around that decision. - Do not have windows or doors on your rear wall... the best place for windows and doors is usually on the rear of the side walls, always avoiding corners. They can work on the front wall too, for example a window looking into the tracking areas, and they can work as part of your geometric reflection free zone if designed properly... But not on the rear wall. Excited to see how this project develops! Paul

Paulus87 wrote:

Hi gabo, It sounds like it's going to be a cool project out in the woods like that, a nice place to record. I would say that you might want to still have a decent level of isolation, you'd be surprised how noisy nature can be. Rain on the roof and walls, wind howling and shaking the building, trees creaking, birds singing, noisy animals, wood peckers, squirrels etc. Especially as at least some of the time you're planning to record acoustic instruments which are a lot quieter than a rockband you might be glad you did isolate at least decent enough to stop normal external noises getting in... rain on the roof is especially loud! Regardless of this, you'll definitely need to isolate between the control and tracking room(s) as well as reception areas etc. So unless you are planning to build two completely disconnected buildings with no internal common walk way linking them then you may as well isolate the whole place.

Thanks Paul, yes you are correct. Since we're in Northern MI, there will be plenty of isolation to the outside world just from the amount of insulation required here these days. We average about 170" of snow per year, so it gets cold!! and of course the isolation between the live room and control room is always something to consider. I guess what I was mostly trying to say is that the overriding design consideration is for "good sound" and not isolation, but in some ways they go hand in hand so no biggie.

Regarding lengthways/widthways for your control room, well both CAN work. It's usually best to have the monitors fire down the length of the room, but it depends on the size of the room and your design concept. If you get to the point where your width is the same as most people's length, then it really doesn't matter that much anymore as your rear wall will still be far enough away from your listening position to accommodate thick rear wall treatment and/or diffusion. There's two advantages to having a control wider rather than longer which are: 1. If you have a very wide console it will actually fit 2. Your side walls will be a lot further away from your monitors which means your first reflection points will also be further away AND further down the side walls, which means you need less treatment/angles on your side walls to deal with those early reflections reaching back to your ears.

Excellent points!

However, you have quite a lot of space to play with so I would try out all sorts of possible layouts before committing. Some things to consider are: - Having easy access to bathrooms i.e. so you don't need to walk through the control room from the tracking room in order to take a pee, or having access to wheel in big and heavy gear to the tracking room directly from outside instead of through a tiny control room door etc. - Incorporate some storage areas. If you have the space then a dedicated large room is good for this with easy access to all other rooms, but you can also incorporate some clever storage in your control room and tracking room(s) with a bit of fiddling. - Try to keep your control room rectangular if you can without any weird L shapes to T shapes. There are other designs such as a traditional RFZ shape with angled walls etc but rectangular is A LOT easier to build and predict, and usually they function better than older angled designs. - Decide early on if you're going to flush mount your main monitors in your front wall. It's highly recommended that you do, and your whole control room design will revolve around that decision. - Do not have windows or doors on your rear wall... the best place for windows and doors is usually on the rear of the side walls, always avoiding corners. They can work on the front wall too, for example a window looking into the tracking areas, and they can work as part of your geometric reflection free zone if designed properly... But not on the rear wall. Excited to see how this project develops! Paul

Excellent points all. Thank you for a start on things to think about, and yes it is going to be a fun project. We had a nice day about a week ago (nice for winter here is 35 degrees, so all relative) and had a bonfire there on the property with some friends to commemorate the first trees being cleared for the place! It'll be another month or so before he can break ground, but design and "thought work" are good things to do now. gabo

It'll be another month or so before he can break ground, but design and "thought work" are good things to do now.

If you want to start the build in a month, you're going to have to dedicate several hours a day to your design so you're ready in time! A single control room is one thing but man, to design an entire facility in that time without experience is going to be a big job. Is there budget to hire John Sayers himself to design it? He might be able to squeeze you in and have it done in time??? I realize that you might want to save money and try to do it yourself, but imagine designing it incorrectly, spending a fortune building it and then have it perform poorly! It might be cheaper to hire John in the end! If you still want to design it yourself, I recommend reading this book, then come up with some different layouts and post them here for us to give you our thoughts on the designs. http://www.roletech.net/books/HandbookAcoustics.pdf Probably one of the most important things I can suggest is to have the ceilings as high as possible... like 15 feet tall if possible. Greg

Gregwor wrote:

It'll be another month or so before he can break ground, but design and "thought work" are good things to do now.

If you want to start the build in a month, you're going to have to dedicate several hours a day to your design so you're ready in time! A single control room is one thing but man, do design an entire facility in that time without experience is going to be a big job. Is there budget to hire John Sayers himself to design it? He might be able to squeeze you in and have it done in time??? I realize that you might want to save money and try to do it yourself, but imagine designing it incorrectly, spending a fortune building it and then have it perform poorly! It might be cheaper to hire John in the end! If you still want to design it yourself, I recommend reading this book, then come up with some different layouts and post them here for us to give you our thoughts on the designs. Probably one of the most important things I can suggest is to have the ceilings as high as possible... like 15 feet tall if possible. Greg

Thanks Greg. Yes the facility is actually a "home" and there are many people involved in the entire build. The studio is a space in the house that is outlined in the drawing. There are opportunities to tweak the space to some degree, but it's somewhat constrained by the entire build, so mostly minor tweaks can be done to the studio portion. I think of this build as more like a remodel than anything else, as it's similar to having a space that is demo'd and ready to build inside of. If we wanted to move a wall a foot this way or that way, it's probably doable. And tweaking the layout of the control room or other pieces within the scope of the space is possible. The ceiling, as it currently stands, is a vaulted ceiling 9' on the edges rising to 15'3" in the center. If you look at the drawing, that ceiling profile extends through both the live room and the control room. This ceiling profile is being dictated by the truss's that are being used in the entire structure. Thanks, gabo

gabo wrote:

Paulus87 wrote:

Hi gabo, It sounds like it's going to be a cool project out in the woods like that, a nice place to record. I would say that you might want to still have a decent level of isolation, you'd be surprised how noisy nature can be. Rain on the roof and walls, wind howling and shaking the building, trees creaking, birds singing, noisy animals, wood peckers, squirrels etc. Especially as at least some of the time you're planning to record acoustic instruments which are a lot quieter than a rockband you might be glad you did isolate at least decent enough to stop normal external noises getting in... rain on the roof is especially loud! Regardless of this, you'll definitely need to isolate between the control and tracking room(s) as well as reception areas etc. So unless you are planning to build two completely disconnected buildings with no internal common walk way linking them then you may as well isolate the whole place.

Thanks Paul, yes you are correct. Since we're in Northern MI, there will be plenty of isolation to the outside world just from the amount of insulation required here these days. We average about 170" of snow per year, so it gets cold!! and of course the isolation between the live room and control room is always something to consider. I guess what I was mostly trying to say is that the overriding design consideration is for "good sound" and not isolation, but in some ways they go hand in hand so no biggie.

Regarding lengthways/widthways for your control room, well both CAN work. It's usually best to have the monitors fire down the length of the room, but it depends on the size of the room and your design concept. If you get to the point where your width is the same as most people's length, then it really doesn't matter that much anymore as your rear wall will still be far enough away from your listening position to accommodate thick rear wall treatment and/or diffusion. There's two advantages to having a control wider rather than longer which are: 1. If you have a very wide console it will actually fit 2. Your side walls will be a lot further away from your monitors which means your first reflection points will also be further away AND further down the side walls, which means you need less treatment/angles on your side walls to deal with those early reflections reaching back to your ears.

Excellent points!

However, you have quite a lot of space to play with so I would try out all sorts of possible layouts before committing. Some things to consider are: - Having easy access to bathrooms i.e. so you don't need to walk through the control room from the tracking room in order to take a pee, or having access to wheel in big and heavy gear to the tracking room directly from outside instead of through a tiny control room door etc. - Incorporate some storage areas. If you have the space then a dedicated large room is good for this with easy access to all other rooms, but you can also incorporate some clever storage in your control room and tracking room(s) with a bit of fiddling. - Try to keep your control room rectangular if you can without any weird L shapes to T shapes. There are other designs such as a traditional RFZ shape with angled walls etc but rectangular is A LOT easier to build and predict, and usually they function better than older angled designs. - Decide early on if you're going to flush mount your main monitors in your front wall. It's highly recommended that you do, and your whole control room design will revolve around that decision. - Do not have windows or doors on your rear wall... the best place for windows and doors is usually on the rear of the side walls, always avoiding corners. They can work on the front wall too, for example a window looking into the tracking areas, and they can work as part of your geometric reflection free zone if designed properly... But not on the rear wall. Excited to see how this project develops! Paul

Excellent points all. Thank you for a start on things to think about, and yes it is going to be a fun project. We had a nice day about a week ago (nice for winter here is 35 degrees, so all relative) and had a bonfire there on the property with some friends to commemorate the first trees being cleared for the place! It'll be another month or so before he can break ground, but design and "thought work" are good things to do now. gabo

Insulation (no matter how thick) and isolation are not the same thing at all. Insulation is not what does the “sound proofing”, for that you need lots of mass, then an insulated air cavity and then more mass again. I am starting to agree with Greg, you are not ready to build this place out, at least if your aim is to construct a professional facility, I fear you will make a very expensive mistake due to rushing. It would be a real shame as your building has incredible potential to be a fully pro studio! You’re lucky to have such high ceilings and tonnes of square footage and we can all help you to make it as good as it can be but it will require you to take your time. If I get time I will try to do some designs that you are free to use or not, which will at least get you started. Paul

Paulus87 wrote:

Insulation (no matter how thick) and isolation are not the same thing at all. Insulation is not what does the “sound proofing”, for that you need lots of mass, then an insulated air cavity and then more mass again. I am starting to agree with Greg, you are not ready to build this place out, at least if your aim is to construct a professional facility, I fear you will make a very expensive mistake due to rushing. It would be a real shame as your building has incredible potential to be a fully pro studio! You’re lucky to have such high ceilings and tonnes of square footage and we can all help you to make it as good as it can be but it will require you to take your time. If I get time I will try to do some designs that you are free to use or not, which will at least get you started. Paul

Thanks Paul, and Greg for the input. Based on your sound advice we'll take a couple of steps back, a few deep breaths, and take our time. I already feel like your guidance is helping get us in the right frame of mind and get us moving in the right direction. I sincerely look forward to any ideas you might have. Thanks, gabo

gabo wrote:

Paulus87 wrote:

Insulation (no matter how thick) and isolation are not the same thing at all. Insulation is not what does the “sound proofing”, for that you need lots of mass, then an insulated air cavity and then more mass again. I am starting to agree with Greg, you are not ready to build this place out, at least if your aim is to construct a professional facility, I fear you will make a very expensive mistake due to rushing. It would be a real shame as your building has incredible potential to be a fully pro studio! You’re lucky to have such high ceilings and tonnes of square footage and we can all help you to make it as good as it can be but it will require you to take your time. If I get time I will try to do some designs that you are free to use or not, which will at least get you started. Paul

Thanks Paul, and Greg for the input. Based on your sound advice we'll take a couple of steps back, a few deep breaths, and take our time. I already feel like your guidance is helping get us in the right frame of mind and get us moving in the right direction. I sincerely look forward to any ideas you might have. Thanks, gabo

Just a quick question, the studio is going to be attached to the house, right? If so, do you need a rest room in the actual studio part or can the one in the house be used? Same question regarding potential storage areas, if the studio is attached to the house then can there be storage areas for example in a room next to the studio? Just trying to gauge exactly how much space can be used for the studio rooms in stead of utility areas. Obviously the bigger the better for both control room and tracking rooms. Lastly, what monitors and console/workstation will be installed? That will be important to know for working out your RFZ. Thanks, Paul

Paulus87 wrote:

Just a quick question, the studio is going to be attached to the house, right? If so, do you need a rest room in the actual studio part or can the one in the house be used? Same question regarding potential storage areas, if the studio is attached to the house then can there be storage areas for example in a room next to the studio? Just trying to gauge exactly how much space can be used for the studio rooms in stead of utility areas. Obviously the bigger the better for both control room and tracking rooms. Lastly, what monitors and console/workstation will be installed? That will be important to know for working out your RFZ. Thanks, Paul

I'll verify, but my understanding is that there is NO need for bathrooms and minimal storage. Right now he has the one 7'10" x 4'4" room in the control room for the minimal storage needed. So basically everything on the layout is fair game for studio space. As for console, it's not a big traditional console. It's a DAW, RME UFX II interface with a 16 channel presonus faderport and several outboard racks of Neve summing mixers, 500 series rack modules, and mic pres. As for monitors, I'm not sure the brand but they are powered mid sized monitors. Thanks, gabo update - I was correct, there is no need for bathrooms or storage anywhere in the studio. There is a connecting hallway to this entire area with bathroom and storage in it. So even the 7' 10" by 4' 4" space is not needed for storage. The entire space can be studio. The monitors are going to be replaced and he has not made a decision on what to purchase yet, so that could potentially be another suggestion. update 2 - Existing monitors are Event 5" monitors with a sub. New monitors will be similar in form size, maybe a little bigger, but not really big monitors.

gabo wrote:

Paulus87 wrote:

Just a quick question, the studio is going to be attached to the house, right? If so, do you need a rest room in the actual studio part or can the one in the house be used? Same question regarding potential storage areas, if the studio is attached to the house then can there be storage areas for example in a room next to the studio? Just trying to gauge exactly how much space can be used for the studio rooms in stead of utility areas. Obviously the bigger the better for both control room and tracking rooms. Lastly, what monitors and console/workstation will be installed? That will be important to know for working out your RFZ. Thanks, Paul

I'll verify, but my understanding is that there is NO need for bathrooms and minimal storage. Right now he has the one 7'10" x 4'4" room in the control room for the minimal storage needed. So basically everything on the layout is fair game for studio space. As for console, it's not a big traditional console. It's a DAW, RME UFX II interface with a 16 channel presonus faderport and several outboard racks of Neve summing mixers, 500 series rack modules, and mic pres. As for monitors, I'm not sure the brand but they are powered mid sized monitors. Thanks, gabo update - I was correct, there is no need for bathrooms or storage anywhere in the studio. There is a connecting hallway to this entire area with bathroom and storage in it. So even the 7' 10" by 4' 4" space is not needed for storage. The entire space can be studio. The monitors are going to be replaced and he has not made a decision on what to purchase yet, so that could potentially be another suggestion. update 2 - Existing monitors are Event 5" monitors with a sub. New monitors will be similar in form size, maybe a little bigger, but not really big monitors.

Hi Gabo, With the info you provided I've come up with a rough design, just one potential layout though there are a few more I have in mind which I'll try to get round to drawing so you have some options/ideas... depending on the answer to my questions here. The main thing to establish now is what to do with your ceiling. Since it is a cathedral ceiling you have a few options how best to use it, and a lot of it depends on the design of your roof. You see it would be really great to use all of that height as part of your control room volume, and fill a large portion of it with acoustic treatment. However... 1) If you are going to isolate the space in order to get some sound reduction then you will need to decide whether you are going to have a cold roof design or a warm roof design. If the latter then this makes things easy as you will not have to deal with vents, so your isolation shell will not be compromised and you can construct your inner leaf just below the outer leaf and use all of that height. If you have a cold roof design then you will need to deal with vents. Typically you would build the inner shell below an outer shell ceiling, and there would be a loft space above with the roof and the vents. This roof is sort of like a third leaf, but a very leaky one. It does not contribute towards your isolation. This would take up a large amount of your height and so none of that height could be used for your acoustic volume for your control room. Another way to do it with a cold roof design is to attach battens to the roof rafters, leaving a 50mm gap between the battens and the roof deck and then attaching your drywall to the battens underneath. This would maintain an air gap which would create a pathway from your soffit vents to your ridge vent. So there's 3 options for you there. 2) If you go with either the first or third option that I detailed above then the ceiling profile will follow the roof profile, and therefore you only have two orientations for your control room in order to maintain symmetry (which is very important in a control room). If you go for the second option (which means less volume but a flat ceiling) then you will be free to position the control room in any orientation/angle you like, which could give you more options and better use of space. However, it would also be more complicated to build and your cavity depth would vary above your ceiling. So now on to the design I've come up with... It's sort of inspired by the balanced non environment concept, with some twists. The dimensions of your control room were worked out using an average height since it is a cathedral ceiling. These dimensions provide you with an excellent modal spread, pass all 3 critical listening environment tests, has a room volume of ~3000 cubic feet (which is excellent!) and there are no double incidences (apart from along some small points of the angled ceiling, but that is unavoidable due to it being angled). There are windows on the side walls which form a geometric reflection free zone, they are surrounded with deep broadband trapping. They allow you to see into the hallway and the small iso booth. These windows are optional and could be completely done away with if you prefer, in which case the broadband trapping would just continue straight up the walls without any cut outs for the windows. The monitors are flush mounted in a hard/soft wall. Basically a massive bass trap with vertical slats. The slats are there to make the environment more comfortable to work in as they will allow the engineer to hear 'self noise'. The listening position is 37.5% of the room length, from the front wall. Your reflection free zone is massive (about 11' wide!) due to the absorbers and the angled side windows. There are some angled slatted absorbers on the side walls behind the listening position which are there to reflect some sound to the back of the room and make it sound a little larger. There's also some slatted corner traps on the rear wall with fairly thick treatment behind the couch. The speaker soffits have acoustic hangers behind the slats, and the idea is to have more hangers in the ceiling. Your whole ceiling would be a massive bass trap. There are ceiling soffits (dashed line) which can conceal your HVAC and silencer boxes as well as double up as more bass trapping. Of course the floor will be reflective. The doors I have opening out of the control room instead of inwardly. You'll notice that the hallway and machine room/store do not have double walls. Although some people here may disagree with me I really do not see the need for you to have double walls here, the entire studio will be completely isolated from the house due to the perimeter wall and the walls for each room of the studio, and you do not really need isolation between the control room/tracking room and hallway/machine room IMO. However, if you were going the full hog you could easily just put up some more walls here and then every space would be completely isolated. You would also need double the amount of doors if you were to do this though. Anyway, hope this helps a little...let me know if you have any questions. I won't be offended if you do not use any of the design, but it's there if you want it. Paul

I forgot to mention the treatment behind the couch... I was thinking to save space and to tackle the "lack of bass at the couch" problem you could build some steel plate absorbers. These are basically 1m x 2.5m x 1mm (thick) steel plates sandwich between layers of insulation which touch the actual walls. These are effective down to 40hz and below but they only take up 20-30cm of space. Paul

Paul - First... WOW!! Thank you so much for all the work and thought put into this! Now I'll try to answer some questions and maybe have a few back.

Paulus87 wrote:

Hi Gabo, With the info you provided I've come up with a rough design, just one potential layout though there are a few more I have in mind which I'll try to get round to drawing so you have some options/ideas... depending on the answer to my questions here. The main thing to establish now is what to do with your ceiling. Since it is a cathedral ceiling you have a few options how best to use it, and a lot of it depends on the design of your roof. You see it would be really great to use all of that height as part of your control room volume, and fill a large portion of it with acoustic treatment. However... 1) If you are going to isolate the space in order to get some sound reduction then you will need to decide whether you are going to have a cold roof design or a warm roof design. If the latter then this makes things easy as you will not have to deal with vents, so your isolation shell will not be compromised and you can construct your inner leaf just below the outer leaf and use all of that height. If you have a cold roof design then you will need to deal with vents. Typically you would build the inner shell below an outer shell ceiling, and there would be a loft space above with the roof and the vents. This roof is sort of like a third leaf, but a very leaky one. It does not contribute towards your isolation. This would take up a large amount of your height and so none of that height could be used for your acoustic volume for your control room. Another way to do it with a cold roof design is to attach battens to the roof rafters, leaving a 50mm gap between the battens and the roof deck and then attaching your drywall to the battens underneath. This would maintain an air gap which would create a pathway from your soffit vents to your ridge vent.

The roof will be a cold roof something like you described in the last paragraph. What happens is, at the top of the wall, a rigid foam barrier is spaced about 2 inches off the bottom of the main roof. Once the rigid foam is constructed, the entire thing is sealed with spray foam. So it winds up pretty thin and still maintains an air gap on the back side of the roof from the vents. I have attached a couple of pics showing one. That one doesn't have a vaulted ceiling, but the concept behind the roof is the same.

So there's 3 options for you there. 2) If you go with either the first or third option that I detailed above then the ceiling profile will follow the roof profile, and therefore you only have two orientations for your control room in order to maintain symmetry (which is very important in a control room). If you go for the second option (which means less volume but a flat ceiling) then you will be free to position the control room in any orientation/angle you like, which could give you more options and better use of space. However, it would also be more complicated to build and your cavity depth would vary above your ceiling.

So yes, the concept is to keep the ceiling profile following the roof profile.

So now on to the design I've come up with... It's sort of inspired by the balanced non environment concept, with some twists. The dimensions of your control room were worked out using an average height since it is a cathedral ceiling. These dimensions provide you with an excellent modal spread, pass all 3 critical listening environment tests, has a room volume of ~3000 cubic feet (which is excellent!) and there are no double incidences (apart from along some small points of the angled ceiling, but that is unavoidable due to it being angled). There are windows on the side walls which form a geometric reflection free zone, they are surrounded with deep broadband trapping. They allow you to see into the hallway and the small iso booth. These windows are optional and could be completely done away with if you prefer, in which case the broadband trapping would just continue straight up the walls without any cut outs for the windows. The monitors are flush mounted in a hard/soft wall. Basically a massive bass trap with vertical slats. The slats are there to make the environment more comfortable to work in as they will allow the engineer to hear 'self noise'. The listening position is 37.5% of the room length, from the front wall. Your reflection free zone is massive (about 11' wide!) due to the absorbers and the angled side windows. There are some angled slatted absorbers on the side walls behind the listening position which are there to reflect some sound to the back of the room and make it sound a little larger. There's also some slatted corner traps on the rear wall with fairly thick treatment behind the couch. The speaker soffits have acoustic hangers behind the slats, and the idea is to have more hangers in the ceiling. Your whole ceiling would be a massive bass trap. There are ceiling soffits (dashed line) which can conceal your HVAC and silencer boxes as well as double up as more bass trapping. Of course the floor will be reflective. The doors I have opening out of the control room instead of inwardly. You'll notice that the hallway and machine room/store do not have double walls. Although some people here may disagree with me I really do not see the need for you to have double walls here, the entire studio will be completely isolated from the house due to the perimeter wall and the walls for each room of the studio, and you do not really need isolation between the control room/tracking room and hallway/machine room IMO. However, if you were going the full hog you could easily just put up some more walls here and then every space would be completely isolated. You would also need double the amount of doors if you were to do this though. Anyway, hope this helps a little...let me know if you have any questions. I won't be offended if you do not use any of the design, but it's there if you want it. Paul

Offended!! Oh my gosh NO!! Thankful, yes... offended, NO. The one thing that we'll have to mull over a bit with this design, is that the control room winds up some 3+ feet longer than the original thoughts. Which is great for the control room, but it shrinks the live room down to about 13 feet wide. That's something we'll have to talk through a bit. These days there are lots of things that get done in the control room, so maybe that's a good thing. Just need to envision it a bit. The steel plate absorbers sound interesting, definitely up for something like that. Once we get the room dimension settled, I'll have plenty of questions about trapping and other ideas. One thing we're keen on is to make the "live" room as live as possible within reason. I have some diffusion and other ideas, but all in good time. Thanks, gabo

Paul - On a personal note, I hope you and all your family and friends are doing ok in Wales with the virus. Fortunately I live on a dead end road in a remote area and have a lot of space and toys, so all is good here. In my past life, I worked in Northern England for about 3 years back in the early 2000's and have lots of friends over there. Hopefully we can get past all this in a reasonable time. gabo

Well I'm learning a bit, still a very long way to go, but you gotta start some where, right? I took Paul's drawing and ideas and tried to work up something that keeps the live room as big as we would like. I'm trying to keep a lot of the ideas Paul presented. But angled the side walls, took out the windows, and left an open space on the sides at the back of the control room. I have no idea what the open sides will do to the acoustics. The ceiling height is not shown on the drawing, but it's 15' down the centerline of the control room and that extends through to the live room. The ceiling at the far left/right sides is 9'. Any feedback on this layout would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, gabo

Hi Gabo, Thanks for the kind comments. Yes thankfully we're all fine, the country is in lockdown now but we've been in our own self isolation for a few weeks already as a precaution due to a lot of pre-existing medical issues. Which part of northern England? I am originally from Bristol in England. I hope you're all safe and well too. It's just rough, but how about something like this instead? It would give you a bigger tracking space, and you would actually be able to utilise the entrance space to the studio as a second tracking space. The idea is there is a sliding door between this entrance tracking space and the control room, with a 3' door between the entrance tracking space and the main tracking space. You could easily put a small sliding door there too if you prefer, the main advantage being you can see through into the main tracking space, or use doors with windows. On the control room side walls there are angled windows/sliding doors so that you can see into the tracking space/control room/outside. The angle will prevent flutter and also extend your reflection free zone. My thinking is the roof/ceiling line won't be a problem since I neglected the fact that you have trusses and not a cathedral ceiling, so if you decide you want to fully isolate the space then the bottom of those trusses (-2" or so) will be your internal shell ceiling height anyway. If you decide not to isolate leaving the trusses exposed then you can fill that area with treatment anyway, so the angle won't be a problem, and the angle at the front of the control room will help with your reflection free zone. I have one more idea that I'll try to draw up for you soon, I'm a little busy with my own build right now taking advantage of all the extra isolation time. Paul

Paulus87 wrote:

Hi Gabo, Thanks for the kind comments. Yes thankfully we're all fine, the country is in lockdown now but we've been in our own self isolation for a few weeks already as a precaution due to a lot of pre-existing medical issues. Which part of northern England? I am originally from Bristol in England. I hope you're all safe and well too.

Very glad you are good, stay safe for sure. We are also well and here it's pretty much the same, in lockdown now for just over a week. There are still no cases in the county I live in, so pretty safe here, but still locked down. I am lucky and have a few acres, a big workshop, a big music room (I'm a semi pro drummer), a small gym for workouts, and lots of toys. Plus we're the type of people who don't mind staying home, so it's no problem for us at all. I actually worked at Pinewood studios in London for about a year, then at Alton Towers, the theme park for about 3 years building and installing a video system. A great project that actually led to a couple of video patents that I was a part of, so really cool stuff.

It's just rough, but how about something like this instead? It would give you a bigger tracking space, and you would actually be able to utilise the entrance space to the studio as a second tracking space. The idea is there is a sliding door between this entrance tracking space and the control room, with a 3' door between the entrance tracking space and the main tracking space. You could easily put a small sliding door there too if you prefer, the main advantage being you can see through into the main tracking space, or use doors with windows. On the control room side walls there are angled windows/sliding doors so that you can see into the tracking space/control room/outside. The angle will prevent flutter and also extend your reflection free zone. My thinking is the roof/ceiling line won't be a problem since I neglected the fact that you have trusses and not a cathedral ceiling, so if you decide you want to fully isolate the space then the bottom of those trusses (-2" or so) will be your internal shell ceiling height anyway. If you decide not to isolate leaving the trusses exposed then you can fill that area with treatment anyway, so the angle won't be a problem, and the angle at the front of the control room will help with your reflection free zone. I have one more idea that I'll try to draw up for you soon, I'm a little busy with my own build right now taking advantage of all the extra isolation time. Paul

That's an interesting idea. I had thought of rotating the control room space before, but thought with the ceiling that it might not work. But Maybe it could. My original thoughts were that with that control space being naturally wider than deep, that it was going to be an issue trying to get it right. So flipping it 90 degrees solves that problem, but then you have the ceiling to deal with. In my other rough attempt above, I had thought the room to the right could be used as a vocal booth. Which might still work. The openings on each side might actually be ok, with traps in the corners that are through and to the side of the opening it might actually work well, and even give a more open feel to the control space. Sorry, all my drawings are "rough," I'm not the person who is doing the actual plans and haven't learned enough about drawing packages to do that right. So I'm just doing rough drawings and dimension in a non-cad drawing package that I already know how to use. It'll work to get a design, then we can go from there. gabo

The more I study this, it seems to me that construction techniques are possibly more important than the actual design layout. Does the following make sense? Am I off base on my thought process? If I take the last layout I posted, with the side walls at an angle. The side walls and the walls to the live room are all internal walls, and as such can be constructed basically as traps. Actually they can be constructed to be dual sides traps, maybe 8+ inches thick. There are several different styles of doing the construction, I'm still learning what might be best. But right now I'm thinking about a wave guide style wall traps. John Brandt has some plans on how to construct these on his web site. If all that is built correctly, plus good/substantial corner trapping in the front, I think that's going to go a long way. Then the problems shift to the back wall, which is going to need some substantial trapping to get where we need to be. Maybe membrane trapping there to deal with the low freq? The corners of the outer building, at the back of the control room, will also be super chunk traps. The sloped ceiling might have some 4+ inch hanging traps, maybe down the centerline of the ceiling peak? The floor somewhat reflective, probably wood. The goal would be to get the RT60 down to around 0.25. What are your thoughts and suggestions? Thanks, gabo Paul - You mentioned steel plate absorbers behind the couch. Do you know where there is a calculator for the frequency on those? I've found a couple of youtube videos of someone building them, but I've yet to find a calculator for the size, depth, construction, and membrane as they relate to absorbed frequency.

Paul - You mentioned steel plate absorbers behind the couch. Do you know where there is a calculator for the frequency on those?

f = 170 / SQRT (M * D) where M = lb/sq foot D = inches or f = 60 / SQRT (M * D) where M = kg/sq meter D = meters Greg

Thank you Greg! gabo

gabo wrote:

Thank you Greg! gabo

Hi Gabo, Yes you can use the formulas that Greg generously shared above. I would just use 1mm steel, 1m x 2m sandwiched between 100mm rockwool (1 layer per side) make sure the layer on the back of the steel is up close touching the actual rear wall panels. This is a simple design based on the RPG modex plate, someone online made them and found them to be extremely effective over a broad range of frequencies down to 40hz. You could also use Isobond foam for the back layer, but it’s a bit more expensive I believe. Anyway. That’s getting way ahead of yourself. Your comment about the construction methods being more important that your design and layout in my opinion is worrying. Yes of course it’s important to learn how to construct things correctly but your design is the most crucial step in this whole process. You should design every detail, every stud, every seam before you even pick up a hammer. Otherwise you will make an expensive mistake. Those John Brandt style wave guide absorbers are actually what I had planned for in the designs I shared with you, I just didn’t draw them in detail. Yes on the side walls. They’re good because they take up less space than hangers but work in a very similar way, the concept is the same, the main difference is the wave guides are fixed and rigid instead of freely hanging. I am also using them in my own studio build on the side walls. I’m using hangers on the front, rear, corners and above in the ceiling and then the slimmer fixed wave guide absorbers on the side walls. The questions I have are 1. Do you want angled walls? And 2. Do you really want that extra wide space at the rear of the control room? If those are constraints then going forward I can incorporate them into some designs, but if they are not restraints then I would ask you why do you want to design it like that? The very first thing we need to establish though is have you decided whether you’re going to do a fully Isolated studio with double walls for every room or is every room just going to be single partition walls, all connected? If the latter then that’s fine as long as you fully understand the implications of building it like that. Paul

Here's another really rough idea using a geometric RFZ concept control room, it's a more complicated design to get right, and I haven't drawn in any details just some basic shapes to give you an idea of what else could be possible... Paul

Paulus87 wrote:

Hi Gabo, Yes you can use the formulas that Greg generously shared above. I would just use 1mm steel, 1m x 2m sandwiched between 100mm rockwool (1 layer per side) make sure the layer on the back of the steel is up close touching the actual rear wall panels. This is a simple design based on the RPG modex plate, someone online made them and found them to be extremely effective over a broad range of frequencies down to 40hz. You could also use Isobond foam for the back layer, but it’s a bit more expensive I believe.

Thanks, I think I understand how to construct these, at least on paper before I actually start working on them. Which will be something like 5+ months down the road. There area a number of factors that have delayed the start of the house a bit, and even the start just means a bulldozer moving dirt. We're hoping to get much of the control room work finished within the next year.

Paulus87 wrote:

Anyway. That’s getting way ahead of yourself. Your comment about the construction methods being more important that your design and layout in my opinion is worrying. Yes of course it’s important to learn how to construct things correctly but your design is the most crucial step in this whole process. You should design every detail, every stud, every seam before you even pick up a hammer. Otherwise you will make an expensive mistake.

No worries, not getting ahead of myself. In looking and thinking about the details of layout and design, I sometimes like to step back and understand what the bigger picture is and imagine how the construction and full project will play out.

Paulus87 wrote:

Those John Brandt style wave guides absorbers are actually what I had planned for in the designs I shared with you, I just didn’t draw them in detail. Yes on the side walls. They’re good because they take up less space than hangers but work in a very similar way, the concept is the same, the main difference is the wave guides are fixed and rigid instead of freely hanging. I am also using them in my own studio build on the side walls. I’m using hangers on the front, rear, corners and above in the ceiling and then the slimmer fixed wave guide absorbers on the side walls.

Yes, for the walls on the side of the control room, my thoughts are to use those wave guide absorber walls. What I have in mind is to construct them 12" thick and have in my mind a method to easily build them that thickness. They really wouldn't have any sheetrock on either side, more likely rustic vertical slats/boards with space between them. This also falls into part of the reason behind looking at construction techniques. Unfortunately this is not a multi-million dollar project. Everything that is done here will need to be things we can build. Buying very expensive panels and treatment is not going to be an option. So I'm trying to understand what can be done with hard work. Luckily, it's all doable by the people we have involved at reasonable prices.

Paulus87 wrote:

The questions I have are 1. Do you want angled walls? And 2. Do you really want that extra wide space at the rear of the control room? If those are restraints then going forward I can incorporate them into some designs, but if they are not restraints then I would ask you why do you want to design it like that?

Nothing special about the angled walls. And the wide space at the rear of the control room is desired. This is the source of why I've been looking at construction and how to deal with things. We have a few issues here that bother me a bit. The full outer space pretty much is what it is and changing it in any way that helps isn't possible. The issue revolves around the dimensions and ratios. As you correctly pointed out in your first design, the proper way would be to make the control room much longer. But that takes too much real estate from the live room. Having a live room that size is highly desirable for many reasons. So the next option would be to enlarge the space out the back. But due to budget and other issues around the entire structure, that's not possible. The other option would be to shrink the size of the control room to build proper desirable ratios. But doing that shrinks the control to a very small size, and means that the ceiling would be too high to create good ratios as well. The ceiling could dealt with, but losing all the space around the studio is not desirable and having a big control room is very desirable. The style of music, and the way the producer/engineer likes to work, means that a lot of recording work is actually done in the control room. That work is all "direct in" work, so acoustics of the room don't come into play for the actual recording. But the size of the room, to fit 6, 8, 10, even 12 persons in the room while they work on parts is highly desirable. Which brings me back to the angled walls and the construction techniques. The angled walls was my first (very novice) and poor attempt to try to create a space that had better room ratios while still preserving the space at the back of the room. But after studying more and thinking about construction techniques, I now understand that doesn't really do anything for the room ratio to speak of, especially if we build the walls like I mentioned. With walls that are 12" thick and no sheetrock/gypsum or other full coverage on either side, the size of the room becomes the outside walls anyway. The ratios still aren't great, but with 12" thick walls and a huge airgap of 5+ ft to another wall that will have treatment, maybe the modes can be controlled? None of that can be understood until you think about what type of construction you are going to use on those walls. And with this latest thinking on the construction and size of things, then no the walls do not have to be angled at all and are possibly better just straight. Which for the most part, just puts me back at the same layout as the original that was in the very first post. It all comes down to answering this question. Is it possible to build a really good control room space given the dimensions and layout in the first post? If the answer is, "no it's not possible," then we have 2 more questions. Are we willing to live with a less than good control room in order to have the space in both the control room and live room we desire? Or, are we willing to live with less live room space and constraints in order to have the great control room we desire? In the name of "have your cake and eat it too," I started studying construction techniques, trapping techniques, and treatment options, trying to determine (in my own little pea brain) if it were possible to build a satisfactory control room given dimensions and space similar to the original layout. Which led to an initial bit of work using ray tracing, which is what originally led me to the angled walls. If you don't have the ability to do optimal treatment, the angled walls do appear to help create a better RFZ, or at least it seems that way using ray tracing. But then learning more and studying the type of walls/treatment possible, and understanding as to whether they are things we can build, I have come to the conclusion that NO the angled walls really don't help. Because I think we CAN do proper treatment. So that's all led me to believe, at least at this point, that with proper construction and treatment, a pretty good control room can indeed be done using the "less than great" ratios of the original room layout. Which preserves both the large live room and also the large control room space, both of which are very desirable. Just another point... having had a previous studio with drum room, vocal booths, etc. The owner/engineer/producer has very little desire for those any more. His work wound up rarely using those, preferring the larger live room for drums/vocals/full bands. So the desire is to have a large control room and a large live room. Also just FYI, the owner/engineer/producer has been doing this for about 30 years and has owned his own studio for the past 12 years. He has a long list of clientele and a lot of repeat business. Believe it or not, he's actually recorded/mixed/produced 2 albums in the past 6 months working out of a rental house! Hopefully we're finally going to give him a proper place to work after all these years! He will probably do some amazing work if we can pull it off, he's already done some great work with terrible tools! I really think the guy could mix in a phone booth, it's uncanny how he can make things sound great no matter what the situation, but I digress :)

Paulus87 wrote:

The very first thing we need to establish though is have you decided whether you’re going to do a fully Isolated studio with double walls for every room or is every room just going to be single partition walls, all connected? If the latter then that’s fine as long as you fully understand the implications of building it like that. Paul

So the above gives you some more info on the latest thoughts on the walls in the control room, albeit often changing based on gaining more knowledge. The walls in the live room will also be double walls, so the walls that are depicted are the "outside" walls and there will be walls inside those. My current thinking on the live room walls is similar wave guide trap/walls, but the front of the walls might be alternating sections of diffusion and absorption. But of course that is current thinking without studying it enough. Thanks so much for all your continued help! If nothing else it challenges me, and I've never backed away from a challenge :) gabo

Ok cool, so that helps a little. Room ratios are useless to dwell on too much as they are not scalable. I.e. if you take a good room ratio of 1:1.6:2.33 it won't always give you a great modal spread, it depends on the volume of the space. Have a look at the room calculator here: https://www.bobgolds.com/Mode/RoomModes.htm Don't worry about the ratio, worry about the modal spread, the 3 critical tests, the room volume, the bonello criterion chart. Green = good, red = bad You want your bonello chart to be a smooth curve gradually getting higher with no zig zags. Room mode calculators also only work for completely rectangular rooms, they're no good for angled rooms. You should only really worry about the room dimensions of your control room, not so important for your tracking rooms, although it's a good idea to avoid double incidences and multiples of each other there as well (10x20x15 would be pretty bad). Once you have your room sizes then you can work out the details. There are 3 distinct types of walls/ceiling that you will use to construct your studio: 1. outer 2. inner 3. acoustic The outer and inner are what actually do the soundproofing, and the inner walls is what defines your room dimensions. Your acoustic shell within the room itself do NOT define your room dimensions. Sometimes the inner and outer shells are angled, sometimes they are rectangular, sometimes the acoustic shell has angled sections, sometimes it is rectangular, it all depends on the design concept (RFZ, NE, BNE, FTB, LEDE, CID etc) When you are talking about building 12" thick walls I do not know whether you are referring to the outer and inner or the acoustic shell or all 3 combined... It is easier to talk about the solid inner and outer walls separately to your acoustic treatment walls. Once these solid boundaries are established then you can work out your treatment. So, can you clarify a few things: So, your tracking room is going to be fully isolated with double leaf assembly through out? Your control room is going to be just single leaf assembly? The open area at the back of the control room is a constraint and cannot be changed? It cannot even be partitioned off? Paul

Paulus87 wrote:

Ok cool, so that helps a little. Room ratios are useless to dwell on too much as they are not scalable. I.e. if you take a good room ratio of 1:1.6:2.33 it won't always give you a great modal spread, it depends on the volume of the space. Have a look at the room calculator here: https://www.bobgolds.com/Mode/RoomModes.htm Don't worry about the ratio, worry about the modal spread, the 3 critical tests, the room volume, the bonello criterion chart. Green = good, red = bad You want your bonello chart to be a smooth curve gradually getting higher with no zig zags. Room mode calculators also only work for completely rectangular rooms, they're no good for angled rooms.

Yea, that's really what I mean by ratios, not really the book ratios, but the ones calculated from the room mode calculators. I like this one, https://amcoustics.com/tools/amroc Although I also really like the excel spreadsheet one from John Brandt's site as it gives you a lot more info. It's just a bit more difficult to run quick tests and what ifs.

Paulus87 wrote:

You should only really worry about the room dimensions of your control room, not so important for your tracking rooms, although it's a good idea to avoid double incidences and multiples of each other there as well (10x20x15 would be pretty bad).

I worry about everything :) although I don't take it too seriously.

Paulus87 wrote:

Once you have your room sizes then you can work out the details. There are 3 distinct types of walls/ceiling that you will use to construct your studio: 1. outer 2. inner 3. acoustic The outer and inner are what actually do the soundproofing, and the inner walls is what defines your room dimensions. Your acoustic shell within the room itself do NOT define your room dimensions. Sometimes the inner and outer shells are angled, sometimes they are rectangular, sometimes the acoustic shell has angled sections, sometimes it is rectangular, it all depends on the design concept (RFZ, NE, BNE, FTB, LEDE, CID etc) When you are talking about building 12" thick walls I do not know whether you are referring to the outer and inner or the acoustic shell or all 3 combined... It is easier to talk about the solid inner and outer walls separately to your acoustic treatment walls.

The 12" walls are the walls on each side of the control room, the ones that don't go all the way back where the couch is in the back. Don't know if you call those inner walls or acoustic walls. Probably acoustic walls as they aren't really walls from the perspective of room modes, etc because they are basically constructed like a large trap. The walls that are on the very outside of the drawings would probably be called the inner/outer and possibly a combination as some of the decision on that construction might come down to taking measurements after the outer wall is constructed and seeing where we are. The outer wall will obviously be there and will have some type of treatment and the corners will have traps. Whether we then construct an additional wall in front of it, with more treatment might be a question that is answered after we get measurements. Adding those walls would not be too difficult, just expense and time.

Paulus87 wrote:

Once these solid boundaries are established then you can work out your treatment.

Yes, this is why some of this will most likely remain in flux. Which is why I would like to learn and understand a lot about treatments, what they do, how they work and basically build a toolbox to be used to tweak things once we get there. All the acoustic walls, treatments, and design are being done by the same two people. So there is easily the ability to build, measure, build, measure, tweak, etc. I want to be flexible and not say "we're going to build it like this." :) I'm more of a "here are some concepts and things we're definitely going to do for starters. Then we're going to test, measure, and evaluate and build a plan for what we're going to do next. rinse, repeat, until we get it like we want it.

Paulus87 wrote:

So, can you clarify a few things: So, your tracking room is going to be fully isolated with double leaf assembly through out?

YES. I assume by double leaf, you mean having an outside wall that is standard house construction and and inside wall that I would say is an acoustic wall, but maybe I don't understand. The three wall thing sort of throws me off a bit. The tracking room will have two walls. The outside wall, which will be standard house style wall construction with heavy insulation (which for here is standard). The inside wall will be solely for acoustic purposes. In addition to the inner wall, which will largely be acoustic in nature, there will also be treatments of varying types, corner traps, hanging panels, diffusion, etc.

Paulus87 wrote:

Your control room is going to be just single leaf assembly?

NO. The control will have at least an outside wall and an acoustic wall. Those are depicted on the drawing. The front wall to the tracking room will be double. The walls down the sides of the control room will effectively be traps, then some 4-5' out from there is the outer wall. Whether there is also another acoustic wall immediately in front of the outer wall is what I'm not sure of yet. Build, measure, build, measure.

Paulus87 wrote:

The open area at the back of the control room is a constraint and cannot be changed? It cannot even be partitioned off? Paul

I assume you're talking about the open areas to the right/left of the back of the control room. The thoughts there are this. The space on the left contains the hallway to the house/bathrooms. That space will also be a coat room, as we need big coats here in winter (and hats, gloves, etc.). The thought about leaving it open to the back of the control room is so people can come in without disturbing a session (to/from bathroom, outside people, etc.) as well as having additional space in case of larger groups. So no opening of a door or knocking or whatever, just come into the coat room and peek around the corner. The space on the right, would be for storage/staging of musicians equipment. A place to put guitar cases, extra guitars, drum cases, whatever, as well as some storage for mics/cables/stands/etc. Again, the thought behind keeping it open was for easy access, spillover for musicians, etc.. Both spaces combined also would give the control room a more open and nice atmosphere. So, is it a constraint that cannot be partitioned off?? NO. The question would be "what problem are we solving by closing it off?" The answer to that question would have to be balanced against the above. Since room mode calculators and other standard tools don't really tell us what that open space is really going to do, it becomes hard to answer that question at this point. Although maybe people who've done this many times over can say, just from experience, "yea, that's not gonna work." One likely scenario might again revolve around building and measuring. Build the walls to where they are in the drawings, do some measuring and see where we are. If there are bad things, then do some test to see what might resolve the issues. There are a few ways I can think of testing to see whether extending those walls would correct a problem. One way would be to stack packages of roxul to the ceiling from the end of the wall to the back wall and taking more measurements. Even if it doesn't solve the problems completely, it would give you a good idea what building the rest of the wall would do,and whether that addresses the problems you have. Of course if there are minimal to no problems, then you know you can just leave it open. All just thoughts... Great discussion by the way, I'm learning a few things. By the way, another bit of personal info. Although I don't have experience building studios/rooms, I do have some knowledge in general acoustics and also a degree in engineering. I have used REW quite a bit, but actually have used a package called ARTA a bit more. It's a nice piece of software, but more for general acoustics, measuring speakers, etc. So there are a few things REW has specifically for rooms that are good, but ARTA also has some things that REW doesn't that are likewise very useful for rooms. Also as a hobby, I do a lot of electronics. Designing, building, modifying, amplifiers and the like. I just finished building a nice tube amp that is performing quite well in my house. Thanks again for all your help!! gabo

Hi Gabo, Okay, so I think I am understanding more of your concept and needs. First, let's go back to basics - you need to get your head around how double leaf assemblies are constructed. These assemblies are what people are talking about when they say "room within a room". They consist of an outer leaf and an inner leaf. (this is what I am referring to with inner and outer wall) A typical construction of such an assembly would be like this: Outside world - Cladding - OSB - Drywall - Insulated air cavity - Drywall - Drywall - Inside room So you would have two timber frames, separated by an air gap (which is the insulated cavity) and you would ONLY have paneling (the drywall, osb etc) on the outer and inner most faces. Nothing in between. This is a fully decoupled 2 leaf wall (or double leaf) which is what you need. If you have 3 leaves, or 4 leaves, or 5 leaves etc then your isolation (sound proofing) will be much worse. See the assembly on the far right in the attached diagram? That is how all your walls/ceiling should be built. I'm mentioning this because from what you've just told me in your post above you are planning to build two sets of normal residential partition walls, with panelling both sides of the studs on each wall, with bass trapping and other treatment in between those walls.... That would be a 4 leaf assembly with acoustic treatment in the wrong place! All your treatment (acoustic shell) is not really a wall, it's just a third frame that holds all your treatment inside of your space. But for now let's just concentrate on the inner and outer walls, and the dimensions of those. If you only have your acoustic shell walls on the sides of your control room then you will have absolutely zero isolation between your tracking room and control room, so those 12" trap walls you're talking about would need to have proper solid walls behind them. Paul