New Mix and Post Studio

I am building a small mix and post room in my house and would love some input on my plan thus far. I have found this forum pretty helpful in laying out my studio but this is my first post. The room is really only intended for mixing (2 ch and 5.1) which is what I specialize in. I have been working out of other studios for a few years now but have decided to open up my own mixing room so I can better accomidate the other studios I work with. I may have a small overdub area but I'm not trying to have a full blown recording studio here. My main questions are regarding the splayed walls. I want to use splayed walls to create a nice acoustic environment to mix in as well as to house some type of bass trapping. I am not decided on how, and at what angles to splay the walls. The first picture shows a multi-splayed wall, but I was also thinking of just doing one splay and at a lower angle (8 degrees per walls - 16 degrees total). Any thoughts on this project?

If you want to get a 5:1 setup maybe try something like this which has a rear wall without doors ;) cheers john

Thanks for that. I never really thought of a layout like that. What is the benifit of keeping doors off the back walls? Also, one thing that I have never really understood and was one of my reasons for posting in the first place, is what do you do with all that wasted space that you use up when you splay walls in or orrient a room on a slant like you suggest? I understand you would build some sort of bass trap or slot resonator or somthing but I have never really been clean on what those look like in this context. As far as the soffit mounted monitors that you have illustrated... I have Makie HR824's with a passive radiator in the back of them. Has anyone installed those in a "built in" situation? Is it advisable. I have always worked on nearfields when mixing.

In your plan the right rear speaker was where the door is which would inhibit you using a true 5:1 setup and as you mentioned that you did 5:1 it would be prudent to have a proper 5:1 setup. the spaces at the rear allow for rear trapping which is where it should be and you plan didn't allow for that. Many have soffit mounted those Mackies with good results. What you lose in the rear port you gain back in the soffit mount, and better IMO.

So, what type of "traping" goes in that back end? I have never constructed any type of acoustic treament before and have been scouring this site as well as many others for details on this. I have seen lots of stuff on treating exsisting rooms (absorbtion on the walls/ceiling, all kinds of crap stuffed in corners, etc.) ,but not much on what goes on in a new construction when you splay walls and end end up with those big empty gaps in a room. Know of any good resources that illustrate how to build this stuff? Oh I forgot to mention, my ceiling height is 8' 9" as of now (exposed floor joists). I was planning on using resiliant channel and possibly sheet block (MLV product) so as not to lose much more then an couple of inches in height.

I am really liking your concept for my space and have been going non-stop on sketchup to try and figure out how it would work. How does this look? Here is the original sketchup file, if anyone wants it to fool around with.

Here you go cheers john

Fantastic! Thanks for that! I'll definately play around with that model. I am very much sold on that room set up. I have been researching the whole soffit mount thing and I think that it may cause as many problems as it would fix. I've seen some stuff on people soffit mounting them but mackie says that it should not be done and tend to trust the guys who designed the things. I think if I just move those walls back to accomidate stand mounting then I should be ok. What do you think? I would love to have a soffit mounted set up due to the acoustic and space saving advantages, but I think stands are what I am going to have to go with in this case. I looked at your site and others on the bass traps with the slats on the front. Is this a helmholtz set up? I understand the principle behind it, but how do you know that you aren't causing more problems when you introduce traping at specific frequencies? Do you estimate based on the dimension of the room and then calculate your slats based on your predicted problem areas? This whole area of translating acoustic design principles and guidelines into actual application is very grey to me. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems that a lot of guys are taking the approach of just loading a room full of as many bass traps and absorbers as possible in an attempt to cover a variety of presumed problems, but without any real acoustic design insite into their specific room. I am always intrigued when I see pictures of those beautiful control rooms on the cover of industry mags where they have a hard wood floor and not much absorption to be seen anywhere. I assume that this is because they have such well designed RFZ's and need little extra to make it perform well.

Actually antho, they do. They have bass traps designed into the rooms but they are a part of the construction so you don't notice them if you don't know what to look for at least. How big are those rooms you're talking about though, too? For a small-ish room though, like you're going to get in a residential space, you'll need much more bass trapping, and broadband treatment because you have much more potential for acoustical problems.

I guess my main area of questioning on this issue pertains to the process of designing and building an acoustic space. I feel I have a good grasp on all the basic principles as well as the application of different types of acoustic treatment. What I am not clear on is the process that brings all of these elements into the design process. I would imagine that all professional studio designers, arcitechs, acousticians and the like, have a process that they work through to create an excelent acoustic space. What types of feedback loops are there and how do you respond to them? For example, when do you take acoustic measurements of your space (rta or otherwise) and how do you go about using that information for, say, constructing a slat resonator or choosing locations for diffusion and absorption? What is your process John? Anyone else have a specific process that they have stuck with through multiple construction projects? I am sure someone is thinking, "it's part art, part science." I totally accept that and would say that the entire process of acoustic design for criticle listening could be described as an objective process for ariving at a subjective end. So what is that "objective process"?

John, I have been comparing the new layout that you recomeded vs. my original and am wondering if the advantage of positioning the rear speakers outweighs the loss in room size. The new layout makes a smaller room. Is it worth it in your opinion to go with this set up when I only use a 5.1 set up 5% of the time? The vast majority of my mix work is in stereo. I really like your layout for a number of reasons but I'm not sure if it is the best option, given the small space. I do not think that I will soffit mount the monitors, now that I have researched it a fair bit. Since I will need to stand mount the monitors, does the splay in the walls matter as much? This was my original train of thought when I first posted the floor plans with the simple splayed walls. At any rate, I just want to construct the best sonic workspace I can within the space I have available. Thoughts?

If you turn it around and remove the 5:1 you still end up with a room only slightly bigger. cheers john