Live Room In A Concrete Water Tank!

Hey guys! Ok here we go, I bought a house around a year ago, spent 6 months renovating the damn thing an exciting experience indeed! The cool thing about this house is that it has plenty of room underneath for a mixing room and a vocal booth but that's another chapter... It also has is a large round deck and underneath that deck is a very large water tank 4.6 internal length and a 3 meter internal height, 6 inch thick concrete!!! The tank's also sunk nearly a meter into the ground, and its next to the mixing room location! Because we have town water I decided it "could" be a good live room but we all know water tanks are full of bad reverb or good depending on which side of the fence you sit on haha! So where i'm at, the water was drained I then used a concrete cutter to cut a doorway in.. I have had a rough plan for a while so I knew where it had to go...it was very hard to cut took over 4 hours because of the concrete being so hard from having (i'm told) the water activate the lime for 40 years, then I shoveled out 2 feet high of mud from 40 years of it not being cleant out, once cleant it dried, then me and a builder friend john put a support beam in for good measure, engineered specified (the tank actually does'nt need it but we took the precaution). Then there was the rising damp and water proofing factor I wont go into it in full detail, but I have dug around the tank put plastic against the outside of the tank, agline then blue stone over it so the water can drain away to a lower point. The ceiling ever so slightly leaks but thats around 90% fixed thanks to a product called mr crystal which make concrete grow crystals in the cracks.. you paint it on, amazing stuff.. Then I hired a concrete grinder to level the floor off a bit and get some of the crusted gunk off.. OH THE FUN haha! next step was to lay some thick black plastic on the floor up to where the ground height on the outside would be, I duct taped it all together! step 2 was laying the floor battens down and making sure they are level etc... dynabolting etc...I did not use rubber as I dont care much for the feel and i'm not sure flanking with be a huge issue through the floor when its on 8 inch thick slab 3 feet under the ground.. SO that's where i'm at today! I have the insulation for under the floorboards so I have to deal with some electrics etc then lay the insulation in..I'm NOT building a room within a room as there would really be no space left by the end (currently its 20m2, 12m2 after internal walls if I did room within room) so i'm going to see how it goes for sound volume outside then if need be put an extra wall around of bricks with a 12 inch airgap etc. :roll: So what i'm really hoping I can get help is with acoustics!!! this is not a noraml calculation situation the room im wanting to sound live-ish but not quite bonham it's already bigger than bonham now haha! I have an acoustics plan so I will post pictures then write something more about my idea and if anyone would like to share or help out that would be Great! Thanks, Govinda

more more of the past

So heres a design..not sure if its the right one but in theory I need alot of hermoltz and angle changes to change the focus..right now ithas extrem focus to the center! so you can see the hermotls and the panels furthest down are absorbtion ones, fabric and semi rigid fibreglass.. the gaps inbetween the panels I'm thinking of large random round stones?? any ideas? cheers Govinda

You bastard! I love that water tank/studio concept space... :) Just had to tell ya

Bastard i am! haha :twisted:

WOW!, It could work and even if it does what a great concept. Even with the baffles in your plan, I'm guessing the sound will still be quite focused :shock: . What where you planning for the ceiling? Who could try a concaved cone to force the sound waves towards your absorbers. I would skip the "stone" idea and use something warmer sounding like natural timber diffusers.

haha yes yes! the ceiling: I have a good idea but 1st I have to build bulkheads for the air ducts and lights, ceiling acoustics will comprise of angle panels, as of now inbetween the bulkheads.. i will try and draw this up in archicad to show my concepta.. as for the baffles there are only 2x1200mm wide absorbtion baffles for behind the drums, the rest are timber hermoltz slat resonators at 1200mm wide, they also diffuse, the use of rocks is to get rid of all concave walls in the room and disperse reverb evenly... it will be brightish sounding! concave is what gives this water tank the focusing 5 second reverb (concave focusses convex diffuses) its actually a great reverb kinda like a plate reverb..only usefull for one sound not versatile enough...I put some panels and panels in just to experiment one day and it is amazing how much the acoustics change, just a couple of absorbtion panels made the sound quite pleasant...something funny however is when you go to the centre of the room and speak or play guitar all the concave "focusing" comes at you at once its like surround sound reverb with short flutter echoes, you kinda hit a zone and its such an ununusual sound...my bigest challenge in this room will be low end and even reverb dispersion.. I may even have to do things slowly, measuring the room as I go... Painful! WOW hehe

govinda, what a neat concept... how tall is your ceiling currently? does the pole in the center need to stay? (probably right?) you'll definately have a unique sound on your recordings... what do you plan on recording in your room? drums? i see a piano in your sketch... and stairs?? I have about half your problem with room acoustics :) http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... highlight= if you look through the post, you'll see what john recommended for me, not sure if he'd recommend more of the same, or something entirely different...

hey sandlefoot! wasup? Yeah I have seen your post! looking good man! i got a simalr thing going down but a little more crazier as its a full concave circlular tank...the final stages of a studio build are always the hardest! As for the pole in the middle that has been pulled out the only reason it was there was to stop the formwork from collapsing from the weight of the original ceiling concrete pour! it has no structural significance it was so easy to remove it was'nt funny.. a few sledge hammer hits and viola! the reason I have the iron beam in is for precaution as it is a deck also, I dont wanna have some party and have it collapse....yikes! I plan on recording Drums mostly, some piano, maybe acoustic guitar or amp with room mic that kinda vibe! Thanks Govinda

heres a bit more detail of ze plans! having a hard time resizing! G

Aloha, Here you go, G :wink: Aloha 8)

Hey Thanks kendale! Aloha to you my friend! my sister lives on oahu! hope the weather isnt to cold for winter :P hehe G

Aloha G,

my sister lives on oahu!

Hey, good on ya!

hope the weather isnt to cold for winter

Yeah, it's currently a bone chilling 77 degrees under sunny skies! :P Looking forward to hearing how your room sounds. :wink: Aloha 8)

hehe COLD I cant wait to hear it im scared!:lol: My lounge sounds great! if ya wanna hear my lounge room drum sounds listen to peace of mind and come with me on www.myspace.com/crowfeatherband myspace has crapp mp3 conversion but you will get the idea! bigger than bonham>? big wood floor room with plasterboard walls and a few baffles got me a big drums sound..but maybe it was too big haha hehe enjoy! Govinda

Govinda - in a water tank all the walls are parallel. Adding the slots like you suggest just creates slots that are parallel to each other. :wink: Think about breaking it up, even if it means using concrete block walls to stop the whole room ringing like a drum ;) cheers john

Hey john, Thanks for your suggestions! so right now the hermoltz are like 12 degrees or more angled off to one another in my pic its hard to see.. but inbetween the slats/behind them its still circular.. is this kinda what you mean? I'm guessing that even if my hermoltz etc are off even by 12 degrees that they are still in a circular patern.. :roll: I can post a dxf file i thinks! I got an idea of 2 types of paterns for the walls... I will post within the hour, see what you think? Any ideas on how I would break up the walls with out losing to much floor space? thanks again, Govinda

Ok heres original plan! Plan 2 coming soon Note: Inbetween panels are large rocks which I cant show on this plan! Govinda

Ok that was a long hour.. :roll: hehe John here a couple of rough ideas... this is a tough one... what would happen if i made most of the room a massive diffuser like alot of large random round rock faces?? wouldnt that be changing the parallel effect in the room?? It's a really confusing one to really imagine how it would sound... am I heading in the right direction with any of these rough ideas?? thanks Govinda

If I had to chance a guese, I'd say picture 5, something that you could put a lot of airspace and insulation behind, and break up the room... I;ve been thinking of how to treat use the super wedge bass traps in my room, which functionally only has one useable corner (the other is by the door, and the other two are curved walls:) and I've been thinking of using the horizontal corners of the room (ie along the ceiling). I'm thinking you could apply some room divisions (in 3D), on your ceiling, instead of on the floor. You could really break up the space using maybe 1 meter bulkheads (small walls) coming down from the ceiling, which would allow you to retain floor space... just an idea? btw, the last sketch is awesome, did you hand draw that? kevin

Hey kevin, thanks for the feedback..yeah 5 could be the go!?? !! ??:roll: It's just so hard to say, I really wanted to have some rock diffusion, some of my favourite drum sounds have been recorded in timber and rock rooms! re: the 1 meter bulheads: I think they could help but.. in my experience my walls seem the bigest concern..because they are making standing waves turn into reverb, and this is scary! yeah your situation seems tough i'm gonna take another look at your sitch and see if I can suggest anything, thanks again for your cool ideas! btw I used archicad for the sketch and you can render concept like drawings within that program and all sorts of interesting things like this one hear...its even seems human like?? hehe Govinda

SO yes 2 days of excitement :x Insulation laying, comes free with itchyness! Glueing and nailing of some really old recycled 100 year old hardwood boards! Have had some bad weather (good really we need the rain) and its prevented me from finishing the floor (boards were cut outside) but I have got halfway at least! Wont be long then I will have to make some exciting decisons on walls and angles, acoustics. Any help would be appreciated! thanks for everyones input, Govinda

okies I have racked my brain.. I thinks this be finals... Any thoughts on life, love and water tanks that arent used for what they are supposed to be used for?? hehe Govinda

one comment about your rock idea... If there was rock in a studio being used for a diffuser, I would think those rocks would have to be something similar to riverstone, not sandstone, unless the sandstone pieces are very small and have alot of irregularity (so not like the sandstone in the picture, which is relatively flat). http://www.advancedrock.net/ This link shows a couple pics that i stole and posted to illustrate. however, Im no expert :)

Hey Sandlefoot! Yeah looks good..what im actually gonna use is not actually sandstone its called shellstone... i could only find one pic of it and it isnt the exact type im using this one has a flater profile, the one im using is much more rounder and sticks out alot some peces of rock are quite large like 600x600mm 2ft and come out 20cms or so! yeah so that stuff its polyurethane or something or foam>? sure would be good to keep the weight down on all the walls...hmmm its got me thinking! By the way I finished my floor, it was a bitch it still has to be sanded etc but its layed and I even have my wall lines marked out for studs! I will post some pictures soon its starting to look good in there, sounding alot better already! cheers Govinda

Yeah yeah! finally im posting some pictures.. i know im slack but hey.. been a busy boy! so the floor is layed and the edges are level ready for walls to go on.. next step is electrical and frame work which will hopefully start in the next few days! I will keep you posted on the progress! G :twisted: