Attaching a New Studio to An Existing House

Hi Kendale, Hope your well and lovin' the sun Thanks for the dimensions mate...... Can you please tell me what those angles on both sides of my control room will be. The inner walls that are closing in to the mixing desk end. They look like around 30 degrees. Have scoured Rods book, but can't work it out....!!! Also..... someone mentioned that they also do jazz and the like and have gone from a separate drum ISO to a two roomed studio, ie larger CR and larger tracking/live area. Do you think it makes any difference to the recording of drums if I go the same route? Or would I get even better isolation with the added drum ISO? I guess I have just answered my own question, and I can just hear you say "Ahh, Life is full of choices" LOL Seriously though, in your opinion are their really any pros and cons of the different recording techniques? Mike

Aloha Mike, Thanks, I'm doing well and enjoying the sun. How's your winter going this year? The side walls are angled 12 degrees each, and the front soffit walls are angled 30 degrees each. And yes, you would have better isolation with the drum iso, but you could always leave the sliding doors open during a rehearsal/jam session to give it a "part of the main room feel." And yes, choose wisely, my friend. :wink: Aloha 8)

Hello again, My splayed walls are drawn on the floor @ 12 degrees from the door to the mixing end, and the soffits at 30 degree as suggested. However, John Sayers has mentioned that he mixed for years with the splayed wall at 22.5 degrees and the speakers at 90. Apparently this was for smaller control rooms....!!! Given the dimensions of my control room, would it be better to use Johns design as a preferred option? thanks Mike

30 deg is preferred. Your room looks right to me. One of the tricks to getting the most space out of your design is to turn your control room off to one side so that one of your existing walls becomes a side wall of the control room and you just angle the other wall between that and the recording room. You might gain a few square feet of space overall.. -bassman

bassman wrote:

One of the tricks to getting the most space out of your design is to turn your control room off to one side so that one of your existing walls becomes a side wall of the control room and you just angle the other wall between that and the recording room.

You mean like I just posted in this thread? :lol: Andre

Thanks Andre and Bassman, Yes I see what you mean by angling the c/r however, you can see in my latest drawing I have a door on the left side, and a wall that will have a sliding double glazed door. There is also the window....!!!! I'm not sure how to draw the angled c/r, but I can see by looking at Avares drawing that it would save me a few feet. Also when you said 30 degrees I am assuming that is the angle of the speakers at the sweet spot. And I am guessing that the splayed walls are still 12 degrees? I'll have to do a drawing to scale to see how it all looks with all the absorbtion and bass traps ect. If someone could look at my latest drawing the window is going to be a problem...!!! Cheers and thanks Mike

hey Ratty, could i ask who it was you got to construct your slab in melbourne, and how much it cost? my first quote came in at about double what i expected. ($6592 for a 7.2 x 4.5m - 5m³ of concrete). thanks. anthony.

Hi Anthony The drawings were done by me and checked with registered surveyor. An engineer friend designed the slab cost to me nothing. The council surveyor issued permits after he checked them to the AS standard (he was a pain in the ar*e) with modifications for consideration of acoustic tranference. Basically made the slab thicker than a normal "H" class house slab (150m/m, 6 "). Total Studio concrete area 55sq metres, excluding foyer....!!! Cost for building around $250.00 The foundations were dig out with an Bobcat cost $1000.00 including me taking away most of the dirt to tip. The leveling , boxing, moister barrier, and sand was done by me. cost for sand about $60 The concrete was delivered at a cost of around $2500. The pump was $700. My concreter only charged me $400 to level and screed the slab. He ran a whirly over it to make it even, level relatively smooth. All up charge to me about $4980 including all building permits local council and Vic building charges. I made a considerable saving by doing a lot of work on my own. Probably saved around $2000.00 because I drew all elevations for studio as well. My concreter is "Superset" Concreting, Brisbane street, Albion 3020. good luck Mike

hey mike, thanks for the information. i was thinking about doing the earthworks myself given that it's only a small amount to do...almost possible by hand. i'll get in contact with that concreter. still got another quote coming in. did i read you had a 1m deep edge beam somewhere? that would have added a bit more concrete to your job. i've also done all the plans and slab design myself, and luckily the bass player in one of my bands runs a surveying company. thanks again. anthony.

Hi Guys Although I am constructing, I really need help with a design/framing/acoustic problem. Below is a pic of my control room to date. Although I have done a great deal of reading, I still don't know what to do with the framing detail to accommodate "B" as in the picture. Assuming I soffit mount my speakers in "A", how could I design and frame "A" and "B" in terms of framing for the to follow acoustic treatment. The frame you see where the second isolation door will butt up to is yet fixed into position. The design will obviously influence the acoustic treatment so I want to get it the best framing option. all the best Mike

because you're (i'm assuming) putting in the second slider as part of the isolation setup, then you need to box off the area around the doors to ensure they match the mass (plywood and drywall) of the isolating walls (use an inside-out wall on the inner door side). this will leave section B wide open to your control room (and if section A is your monitor soffit - it looks a bit small dunno). in section B you can create a nice bass trap - add some hangers, or some frames supporting R19 batts to fill it, while lining it with mineral wool.

Hi Glenn, Thank you so much mate. I did not expect such a great and detailed response I am very greatful. Yes I am fitting another "slider" it's double glazed, we spoke some time ago about these doors and they are very solid and extremely well made. Anyway section "A" will be quite a lot larger than in the pic....!!! and also I have changed the design somewhat. The frame that is the inside wall part of the B section and extends to the A section will at that point turn left and continue on at 30 degrees and form the front for the soffited speakers, instead of continuing on to the end wall. Like in most control room designs I've seen, would this be the optimum corner design I can use? Also any idea on the bass trap sizes and distance apart. Like is there any set distances and number of ? I can build them myself out of insulation and lightweight fibre board as suggested on the site. And will bass traps/hangers be sufficient on their own as you have mentioned frames and R19 batts? In other words which would be best suited? I'm thinking B/traps would be better....!!! What do you think? all the best Mike

ideally bass trapping should be placed at key mode points to ensure the absorption works as well as it can, but in practice its often the corners that work out best - one being that modes terminate in corners and also when you build out angled treatment walls for RFZ purposes you have that space available. as far as spacing etc. i generally start by finding the right locations for speakers and seating and then build out from there in terms of baffles, traps etc. so if you have the listening triangle defined then work out the baffle angles, and from there the remaining walls. if you have a 3.3m wide space, and you put your monitors on 2.31m spacing, you then have 500cm on each side for "purely" trapping, but with some other clever bits (like John's soffits) you can add a lot more trapping into the space. as far as whether to pursue hangers vs. insulation batts - its a discussion thats been going on for a while. Eric D. is a strong advocate of using bass trapping made from rigid and lighter insulation within a defined cavity as its more predictable (from his experiences), and there is also a lot of people using the "wave guide"/"hanger" approach - but for which there is little hard data and no reliable means of predicting its behavior as hangers seem to have a number of interactions with not only the traps but with other sections of the room (check out Phillip Newells latest on building recording studios version 2 which has a number of bits about hangers explained but still much more to learn).

Hi Glen, Thanks again....!!! My control rooms total width is only 3.6 metres. With the angled walls at only 10 degrees and the soffited speakers at 30 degrees from the mixer end walls centre, I will only have 1.8 metres between speakers when they are soffit mounted. Also the distance from the centre of the mixer end wall to the sweet spot will also be around 1.4 metres

if you have a 3.3m wide space, and you put your monitors on 2.31m spacing, you then have 500cm on each side for "purely" trapping, but with some other clever bits (like John's soffits) you can add a lot more trapping into the space.

As you can see in the post below there has been a slight change....

Hi Glen, I'm hoping you can help me. I am a little stuck as what to do I have changed the design a little and as you can see in the pic below there is a soffit wall where behind the wall I will be putting full length bass hangers, so that the soffited speakers are isolated from the hangers. Is this correct? If not I can remove the panels like the one where you can see the red arrow. Finally the hangers will be hung on white hooks and are 110 m/m thick and are about 150 m/m apart...!! see Pic 2 Bass hanger hooks all the best Mike