Small control room opinions

Just wanting opinions on this layout for a control room in a 10.5'x15' space. Should the back panels be Bass Traps or Resonators? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Mate - turn it around 90 degrees so the speakers fire down the long length. Also, the others in the room want to be in the center of the speaker field, not out to the sides as you've depicted. cheers john

My space is 10 feet by 16.5 feet. Check out studios under construction for the plans. I'm using boxed absorbers instead of solid walls because it gives the effect of the splayed walls without taking as much space away. In my case, I'm trying to do both mixing and recording in the small room. In your case, if you are doing mixing only, you have a lot more options. I'm building a big ugly desk on wheels to move around to reconfigure my room for different situations. I totally agree with John (always wise ;) ) about running your monitors into the long direction of the room. Regarding the back wall - as I understand it, if your room is less than 22 feet long from the monitors, you need absorbtion behind the mix position. Just some options, -lee-

Thanks - it just felt too narrow when I turned it 90 degrees, but if that is how it will sound better, I guess I need to rework it.

Here's where mine is at so far. Looks like your door is farther from the back than mine, so you should have room for some serious bass absorption. Best, Dave

Would this work better? This is going in half of a garage and the back angle is to accomodate an existing exterior door.

Check mine out as well, it was a 10.5 x 13.5 space http://www.johnlsayers.com/Studio/Pages/Giles.htm Bryan Giles

Billins, That looks good, why don't you post a measured drawing of the space your working with? Maybe it could be better:)

Here is the space that I have to work with - I want to keep access to the outside door so this is why I put the angle in the back.

why not turn it around?? cheers john

I thought the more sq. footage I could give the control room, the better. Will this not help the room sound better? Is the bass trap in the center an ok design or is it better to put them in opposite corners? Thanks, Dave

I thought the more sq. footage I could give the control room, the better.

yes - but the small addition at the rear in your plan won't make that much difference and that extrememly small booth wouldn't be much good compared to the booth I've added. You've got the corners and the ceiling for trapping in this new design You could also consider flipping the control room so the door enters the control room and the booth is at the top. It's not cool to enter a studio via a live room or booth. cheers john

Would the first design in this post sound bad from the mixing position? I'm wondering why it is better to run the speakers in the long direction because that layout seems to be the best for what I want to do in this amount of space. Thanks, Dave

The ubiquitous Vocal booth :roll: Do you really need it? Perhaps better to have one good sounding room? What kind of music are you doing? As far as shooting the sound down the 10.5 ft direction, the 21' space is desirable because you need the space behind the monitor position to catch the reflections created by the angled walls (RFZ -Reflection Free Zone). This improves the monitoring by putting the direct sound to your ears and keeping rear wall reflections from bouncing back to you and causing phase cancellations at the mix position. (see first drawing) I don't know how small you can go -- maybe John has a few rules of thumb, but you do have the garage ceiling to absorb/redirect frequencies as well, and maybe you don't need a rear couch listening area. (see 2nd drawing) Best, Dave

oops - pictures posted in reverse order :lol: - you get the idea. Dave

Well put Dave :) that's the two options I see also. cheers john

This might explain what I'm trying to figure out a little better. The studio is going to be on a floated floor with walls separated from the outside wall and door, so I need to work around the outside door or totally block it off. I was thinking that having the control room bigger and the "vocal" room a little smaller would allow me to have smaller things like guitar amps in the vocal room, while being able to put a drum kit where the couch is in the larger room if I needed to. I want to be able to come from the house into the studio, but it would also be nice to let people in from the exterior door - by putting an additional door into the studio on the other angled corner. This just seems like a lot of doors into the studio.

I don't know, I think I might loose the door to the outside -- might be better for security anyhow. Any chance of taking up more of that garage space? That could really open up some possibilities. :lol: Dave

It would be great to take over the whole garage - maybe in the future :D Maybe I just need to sacrifice the outside access. Thanks, Dave