Indiana Home Studio Build

xSpace wrote:

Is it plugged in?

Damn! You mean I have to plug it in too??? Son of a gun! There goes the electricity bill! I was trying to be a bit more frugal and was hoping that I could skip this step!

you might want to check the UHF/VHF selector on that monitor. It's an important setting for the display. Maybe get someone on the rooftop to turn the antenna for you...

Ah yes! Good old Mr Gates, always pushing back the frontiers of computer technology! :wink: :roll: :wink: :roll: I wish you well good Sir! :D Regards, Lou. 8)

Ok James... :wink: State of the ART huh??? :P Looks like MORE modifications to that desk you modified are forthcoming!! Hey...like that black on gray!

BUMP!!!!!!!!!!! Lou. 8)

OK folks... Here is an update of where I am, and what has been happening... First off, once the control room was completed, gear was installed and wired (pain in the neck!). Everything was fine, until I ran into some serious computer issues. Those appear to be partially solved, however I still have some form of a hardware "issue" that needs to be resolved once I figure out what it is!!! :) I reported earlier that the room sounded great. Well, I lied! Actually, I didn't lie, but from listening to commercial CDs, things sounded pretty damn good... Until... I tired to do some mixes. I have been working on a few mixes from a band that was recorded in another studio, and I am finding out that I am just not able to get a good mix. Bass issues galore, muddy sound, etc. I finally did a room analysis using the Room EQ Wizard (REW), and found out that I have some serious problems in the room, even with all of the trapping I have put in. Here are the actual dimensions of the room: Width (L-R): 12' 9" Depth (F-B): 10' 2" Ceiling Height #1 (front 1/3 of room): 6' 4.75" Ceiling Height #2 (rear 2/3 of room): 7' 1.75" So, using the standard calculations for room modes: (I am going to assume sea level since I cannot find any calculations for elevation correction) f = c/lamda (where f=frequency, c=speed of sound, lamda=wavelength) f = 343 (m/s)/3.886 (m) = 88.27 (for width) f = 343 (m/s)/3.097 (m) = 110.75 (for depth) f = 343 (m/s)/1.948 (m) = 176.08 (for Height #1) f = 343 (m/s)/2.176 (m) = 157.63 (for Height #2) Now obviously, these numbers are approximate due to the variation in the speed of sound, but it gives me a starting point. Here is one of waterfall plots that I took of the room with REW. This is an early plot, and I had a couple of problems using incorrect calibration files, and a few other operator errors. I have more recent plots that are much more accurate, but I did not send them to this computer... they are still stored down on the studio computer. As mentioned, I have since refined this test, but that image works OK for now, at least it gives an impression of what I am facing. LOOK AT THAT BIG DIP AT 139.2 Hz!!! (the frequency 139.2 comes from more recent data) Then there are some other issues: Valleys: 44.3 Hz (big dip) (W) <---- does not show up on the above plot, but is in all the new ones. Operator error! 139.3 Hz (HUGE DIP!!!) (L, W) the rest of the dips are much smaller: 73.2 (H2) 111.9 (L) 197.9 (?) 265.5 (W, H1) 327.4 (H2) 823.5 (?) Peaks: 33.7 (?) 56.9 (L) 63.2 (?) 89.2 (W, H1) 97.0 (?) 118.7 (L) 159.8 (H2) 179.7 (W, H1) 241.1 (H2) 279.2 298.6 354.6 (W, H1) 393.8 (L) After each frequency, I tried to put which dimension I thought was causing the problem. These are only guesses as I am NO EXPERT and only trying to analyze a room that sounds bad! Take a look at this: 44 Hz dip, 89.2 Hz peak, 139.2 Hz dip, etc. Think I am sitting in a node??? ;) I am currently working on an aggressive plan to fix this. There is no way I can mix in the room as it currently sits. I am frustrated and wasting my time. So... Instead of getting the live room going, I am still struggling with fixing the control room. I keep saying that I am going to start on the Live Room, yet there always seems to be something in my way.

I am working with an acoustic designer to help sort out my problems, and as a part of that, I created a Sketchup file of the studio. He laughed at my lack of skills with the program, so be gentle on me! I spent a total of 30 minutes going through a couple of online tutorials, and that was it. I just stumbled my way through the rest.

James - From your charts, are you saying that you have peaks upwards of 80dB?? You also mentioned that he laughed at your skills with room testing - did he determine that the room is NOT so bad? Worse? Details, we want more details!!!

BradJacob wrote:

James - From your charts, are you saying that you have peaks upwards of 80dB?? You also mentioned that he laughed at your skills with room testing - did he determine that the room is NOT so bad? Worse? Details, we want more details!!!

Noooooo..... Sorry for the confusion. The reference tone was set to 75 dB! Some peaks are above 75 dB, and some (like that 139.2 Hz valley) are below the 75 dB mark. The guy laughed at my Sketchup skills, not my room plot!!! The room plot "is what it is". We are working to fix that through proper (and probably tuned) treatments.

looks like an OK job with sketchup - you avoided a number of classic mistakes like using individual lines instead of boxes etc... based on your drawing you're seated at about 40% so thats probably OK but it would be good to know how the monitor are situated - SBIR, console bounce, etc. also, you're seated right under the shift in ceiling height which needs a nice heavy cloud over it to avoid a big diffraction point. i think in the discussion on Fran's board, the recommendation was to lose the couch and put in bigger traps and some chairs... maybe increasing the size of the corner traps all around will help, but the wall above the couch should be heavy and as deep as you can make it since you're only about 10-11ms away from that wall... another option was to just use the higher ceiling section for an 8" thick cloud.

gullfo wrote:

based on your drawing you're seated at about 40% so thats probably OK but it would be good to know how the monitor are situated - SBIR, console bounce, etc. also, you're seated right under the shift in ceiling height which needs a nice heavy cloud over it to avoid a big diffraction point. i think in the discussion on Fran's board, the recommendation was to lose the couch and put in bigger traps and some chairs...

Glenn: Thanks for taking the time to respond. I am losing the couch that is for sure! Right now I have 8" of fiberglass on the rear wall, spaced 1.5" away from the wall, but it appears that I need more. I am looking at a limp mass design for the rear wall and side traps. Right now, I have a small cloud over the mixing position, but nothing at the transition in the ceiling heights. There was also a recommendation from someone to put some diffusion on the front wall, and make the back wall one HUGE trap. Pretty frustrating! I wish I could just wave a magic wand and have a pile of money appear that I could use to pay a professional to come do this for me!!!

Hang in there dude, you'll be fine! :wink: I've just seen your post and .skp file, if you can wait till the morning (just about to go out!) I have some very definite ideas on this which I'll happily post. "Ark at the expert!" all of a sudden! :roll: For now: I'll put my neck on the line and say NO DIFFUSION on the front wall! Since your monitoring is not soffit mounted, you'll have plenty of frequencies leaving the back of the enclosures! ABSORPTION on the front wall to stop them being thrown all over your mix position. :wink: That cloud you have: what about (don't freak), making another one full width ot the room - front to back being as deep as your ceiling transition, and the front of the cloud being angled rather acutely downwards, (possibly even lower than the top of your control room window), (possibly trapezium shaped to avoid your sconces), with the back meeting your upper ceiling height! Glenn - Please (if you have the time sometime soon) do James a favour and quickly chuck in the sort of thing I'm on about. :oops: Thanks bud, this guy has worked far too hard to feel this frustrated. Just my 2 cents, and if I'm all wrong; someone more qualified will surely put us right! :wink: :wink: Kindest regards, Lou. 8) (Just gone back through your thread, I realise your sconces are on the rear side walls - Result) :oops:

doublehelix wrote:

Pretty frustrating! I wish I could just wave a magic wand and have a pile of money appear that I could use to pay a professional to come do this for me!!!

I think you need a pile of rockwool!! As in every available inch of space should be crammed with fuzz. It shouldn't take that much cash to do it. In that small of a room, the low modes are gonna be killer, as you have measured. I think in this case, a dead room that is well trapped will serve you best. I would also consider orienting yourself longways with the door at the rear of the control room. You could then make some real good corner superchunks on either side of the door. You could also take the whole front wall and do an 8" thick panel all the way across that wall for starters. You're gonna need some serious trapping. Good luck!!! The place looks sweet. :shock: :shock: my $.02 -bassman

Thanks Lou. I am making some progress, which I will post later when I have more results to share. Bassman: Thanks for your comments, however... I cannot orient myself the other way due the ceiling anomaly. If you look at the pics, you will see what I mean. Also, I already have corner traps in all 4 corners, and "tons of fuzz" on all walls.

Yea, I had been following your thread, just needed to go back a couple pages and refresh myself. those damn sconces! What about the space in front of your console? Any room there for some trapping? Your ceiling is low so the cloud is gonna hurt over the transition but I agree you need that. If the sconces could get moved (I know, last thing on your list) you could make that whole back wall a false one filled to the brim with fuzz. Of course a cutout for the window, but I would build a matching plug for it as well, for mixing. Have you tried stomping around your room and hitting walls and such while looking at a ref mic in a spectrum analyzer? You might find some other mechanical systems have these resonant points that you could tackle. the desk? the glass? As a note to self others, you can't always predict how acoustic treatment will work out in any particular room. Make sure your plans have some amount of flexibility in the design so that you can meet the changing needs as you test your room. It is easy to test low end modes in a room with just plain bales of rockwool still in the packaging. You can move them around to see how they affect the response of the room before committing to a treatment design. Anyhow, I hope some of this helps you out. Tuned treatments are hard to do correctly. Having professional help is a top notch idea. Best of luck. Don't know where you are in Indiana, but if you come down to Cinci, drop me a PM. -bassman

Hey Bassman, thanks for your comments. I get down to Cincy fairly often, so maybe we can hook up some day... I have been getting quite a few emails and PMs inquiring as to my progress, so here is a partial update: At the current time, I am working on two fronts at once: 1) Fix the control room acoustical issues 2) Get the live room up and running Unfortunately, these projects have had to take a bit of a back seat for a while due to a busy work schedule the last couple of weeks, and then family commitments on the weekends. I wish I could get down to the studio and just hammer things out, but it is always more complicated than that! I am making progress however, and hope to have things well in hand within about 3 weeks. The control room is making great progress, and for those of you who have been following the never-ending saga of the wall sconces, they are GONE! It was a necessary solution. I should have some control room updates within a few days. Here are a few pics of the stripped out live room. We should have the walls ready for painting by tomorrow. The carpet has been completely removed along with the carpet tack around the perimeter, and all of the NASTY foam from the old studio has been peeled from the walls (Well, most of it! ;) ). This room is 29' X 12' x 7.5'.

James - You just made my day dude! Naturally we were all wondering what was going on. Hang in there buddy, you'll be fine in the end. Remember when you said exactly the same to me? :wink: Nice to see you post again my friend. Much love, as always, to you and yours. Regards, Lou. 8)

It has been a while since I have had a formal update with anything worth while, and this post is probably no exception! Lou: Thanks for the kind words of encouragement buddy! What is up with your place? I have not seen anything for a while! Update us!!! The sound is really starting to come together finally. It has been a boatload of work, but well worth it. We have been busy working on the live room, doing all the mud and tape and sanding required to get the walls prepped for painting. As per my last post, the carpet was stripped out along with all of the floorboards and carpet tack. At the same time however, I have been working hard on taming the frequency issues in the control room, so we have been on this two-pronged attack for a couple of weekends now. OK, starting with the control room... I finally took down the sconces ( :( ) that I loved so much so that I could make the back wall corner traps go floor-to-ceiling. For those of you with bad memories, here is an older picture showing one of the side walls. The wall to left is the FRONT of the control room, the wall to the right is the REAR of the control room. Here you can see one of the back corner traps (the one to the right next to the ugly couch!) that has the sconce light above it. You can see that it does not go all the way to the ceiling. Here is a shot showing the sconce removed (replaced by a wall plug), and framed in and ready for the rigid fiberglass. You can also see that I added a wood batten to the bottom of the cavity with some fabric attached to it so that I can "wrap" the top half of the trap. Due to cost savings issues, I decided not to re-wrap the entire trap. You can also see that I routed an electrical cable out the side of the trap from the old sconce plug. Since the sconces were wired to a wall switch, I wanted to have the ability to switch on/off some small table lamps or lava lamps or something when it is all said and done. I will clean up the cable routing later... Fiberglass added... And wrapped (nice blurry picture, eh?) In the meantime, work continues in the live room. The first picture is of my son Pierce, the second is of his friend, Brent. They are both hard at work doing the mud and sanding work on the walls. Left rear trap complete. Right rear trap complete. In addition to the finishing the corner traps, I also built another 8" trap for the back wall to cover the "ugly window". This trap, just as with all of the other back wall traps, have 7" of rigid fiberglass, spaced 2.5" from the wall (9.5" total thickness from the wall). I wish I didn't have to cover the window, but it was necessary to get the room under control. I will probably take it down during tracking (after we have got our mics placed and dialed in), and then put it back up for mixing. Here is the window BEFORE: And AFTER: I also made another 4" trap to hang over my head at the ceiling transition boundary. This actually really helped the room response quite a bit! More than I expected! As I was messing around placing some movable traps around to see the difference it made, this spot made a HUGE difference. I built a trap to place there right away! I also made some small spacers to place on the back of my existing traps on the front and side walls to get them off of the wall another inch. I still have two more 4" side wall trap to make, and then I will step back and re-evaluate things in more detail. Initial readings however show some GREAT results! I am getting a pretty flat response pretty much all the way across the spectrum other than at the pesky 130 Hz dip. I have raised it almost 25 dB however with the adjustments shown here... I still have about 15 more dB to go to get it flat, which may never happen due to the shape of the room and financial considerations required to get it there. I still want to get it closer however, so I have I few things to do before I call it "a day". The rest of the room's response had really tidied up however!!! Much better than it deserves to be for such a small room! This final picture shows a section of the live room. The ceiling is now painted, and all of the walls have been primered except for the back wall that you can see in this picture as it will eventually be covered with wood paneling.

Well... we painted the room (first coat), and the color is hideous! Crap! Back to the paint store for another color...

Dude, with a name like hideous crap, what did you expect?

xSpace wrote:

Dude, with a name like hideous crap, what did you expect?

Haha! You are killing me here!!!

LMAOROFL :)

THIS IS A GREAT THREAD. Forget all the great info and detailed pics, how bout the DRAMA! I spent a couple of hours reading this thread yesterday and it has somewhat of a roller coaster effect, specifically because it spans over a year and comes to present time. Bloody toes, the scones from hell, and what can only be described as a great season finale: the grand canyon of all dips at 139.2HZ. What a story! Of course it's all revolving around the hero doublehelix and his nemesis drywall. Just wanted to thank doublehelix and all other contributers for a great read and tons of priceless info. This is a great resource. I'll be starting construction on my studio soon and will start a post for all the questions i want to ask. Later :D

Ha! Great post Eran! Yeah, we have been through a lot, and I am glad that some of my many mistakes might be helpful to someone else so that they don't repeat any of my blunders. The toe is much better, thank you!

:D Thanks. You inspired me. I just finished posting my thread. http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 6732#76732 When ever you get a chance... Later E