Studio building for the first time.

Hello everyone. This is my first post on this forum First of all I wish you a happy and above all musical new year! Second I want to thank John for setting up a forum like this. This is what internet is for; a huge resource of information for us to grow into wise old men :wink: I`m going to (at least trying to) start building a semi-professional studio for the first time. It will be situated on the attic of my newbuild house. Unfortunately the builder of my home wouldn`t build me a studio too, so I`m going to try for myself with, I hope, a little help from you. After reading the posts on the forum, I`ve downloaded sketchup free (which is fantastic) to draw the floorplan, shape and furniture of the room. The walls are from big cell-concrete(is this a correct name?) blocks. I have timber-constructed roof which is finished with a sort of MDF panels laminated with plastic.The flore is from solid concrete I would like to divide the room in 2, allowing an Isobooth and a controlroom/electronic Instrument room to be build. Main music will be electronic. The Isobooth will allow me to record singers and acoustical instruments. From floor to the highest point is 4 metres and I have a sloping ceiling which ends 1,15 m above ground which should be clear on the pictures. I have also included the skp-files. I would like to know how I can position all parts at best for optimal use. Should I soffitmount my nearfields (preferrably not)? Also I noticed a lot of designs with acousticpanels mounted in different angles on the wall creating non-parallel surfaces. Is just any angle ok, as long as it makes the room non-paralell? Or are specific calculations needed? Do you advise cloudpanels and lower the ceiling or acoustic panels mounted on the ceiling to keep the height? Should I put in a laminate floor or carpet? I would prefer to not deaden the room too much. Ok this is a long post with a lot of questions, and I hope you didn`t fell asleep during reading, but I hope any of you can help me further. If you need any information I haven`t put in here please let me know. Pascal

The google sketchup file seems to be too big to attach. It`s over 6 Mb.

Aloha and welcome to the forum, Here's the info I got from John on posting Sketchup files:

when you've completed a drawing go to window/model info/statistics. Here is where you can purge the whole drawing. It removes any components that' you may have tried but aren't in the final drawing, similarly with materials and layers that aren't used.

Hope this helps, Aloha 8)

Hi Kendall, Thank you for your fast reply. I did what you suggested, but unfortunately it didn`t work. It still is araound 4 mb. I`ve tried removing components one by one to see which one takes up a lot of space. That didn`t work either, so I made a new file, importing every part by hand. Now it`s smaller, but I didn`t get the parts fit as nicely as in the original. I hope it`s usable though.

Anyone any ideas?

you could try it like this - basically your existing idea only replace the window and door on the isobooth with a single slider (or double for more isolation). it would have been better if you could put a full dormer on the back sloping part... add a lot of hangers, bass trapping, and some angles to keep things moving in the right direction... also need additional reflection controls.

Hi Gullfo, Thank you very much for your effort. I have a couple of questions. What is your motivation for a slidingdoor in stead of the normal door and window? Doesn`t this introduce unwanted reflections of certain frequencies inside the booth? The black layer you`ve drawn on the ceiling, is that a sort of cloth? With adding angles you mean on the parallel walls?Those aren`t in the drawing you made right? Also I noticed you didn`t draw suffit-mounting of the nearfields (ADAM P11a) which I prefer. Have you done this intentionally? So it`s ok to place them on heavy duty monitorstands? Again thank you very much for your effort.

if you open the sketchup you can see the walls. yes i'd recommend a false ceiling to add additional trapping because its such a very small space. the sliding door (esp if you make them pocket or french doors) would open up that wall for when you don't need the isolation. i think the single door and window will cause reflections as well. will the slider introduce more resonances or not? hard to say, the iso booth is very small and the angle wall will make things tight as it is. if you could do a full dormer on that back roof you'd get a lot more space and flexibility... the roof angle on the front would require you to push back your desk 5-6 feet to get enough height on any soffits. you probably should just use stands.

Hello Glenn, Thanks for your superfast reply. Unfortunately a dormer is out of my league right now. I was thinking that the door in the booth could be treated with acoustic diffusors to minimize reflections. I think this will be difficult with sliding doors. The window can`t be treated with diffusors so that won`t make a difference. Should I make the booth with an angled wall, or would you advse a straight wall for more spave in the booth. I was thinking to make it an angled wall so I won`t have a parallel wall on the front and back. On the other hand I will mostle use the Isobooth for single-artist recordings, so as long they aren`t 6 feet tall the space should be adequate ;) Are the dimensions of the boothok? I was reading some posts by Kendall saying you should use only uneven dimensions and all dimensions should be different (like 3,5 and 7 foot), but I`m used to the metric system, so I don`t know how this goes with metres. Als I have a sloping roof which makes things a little more complicated. Thanks again, have a nice weekend!

Gullfo, Can you please tell me what material the marbled pieces are? Can anybody tell me why the ceiling absorbers are placed vertical? Is it possible to make a cloud absorber (ie horizontal placement) or will vertical absorb better? Is it best to use mineral wool with equal density everywhere or do you advise to use different densities (and if so where should I place what density)? What would be the ideal dimensions of the vocal-booth as close as possible to the dimensions as it is in the drawing? Best wishes, Pascal

the "marble" is actually insulation... you'll need a bunch to tame things. the clouds are horizontal and angle to keep things moving in the direction of the hangers. the hangers shown here are simply to point out the use of them, not the actually full design. you would actually want to put up a variety of sizes and directions to accomplish the task. do a search here and check some of John's studios to better understand what you need to do WRT to the hanging trapping.

So when I understand it right, I have to make both a horizontal cloud and vertical hangers?

yea. just do a search. John has some good examples in his studio's built section.

Ok. Thank you very much for all effort!