I really hope this isn't a stupid post.......

.....but I'm pretty sleep deprived so if it is just delete it. This will be pretty long, I'm gonna tell ya what I'm trying to do then get to the question (which actually isn't really specific to what I'm trying to do, but I can see myself spending a lot of time on this board over the next 12 months so I may as well write it down now so I can link to this thread later :lol: ) OK, lemme give you a bit of back story...the short version.... - Built a studio (fairly low budget but it sounded pretty cool) about 5 years ago...actually it will be 5 years to the day on the 14th since I started that. It was all DIY, and built based on what I could learn from reading combined with a bit of trial and error - Closed it in May this year to take a year out of the studio game and be a normal person for a year, then build a new one next year. - It's July and I've pretty much decided to start a new one :lol: The real world aint working (I should've warned before, I'm a rambler.....see my posts at Mixerman's Womb.....on second though, don't......it's for your own good) OK, I own my old premises and will be selling the place to build the new place as the old place as leased and small. Within my budget I'm gonna have about 100 square metres to play with. Just a regular factory probably, maybe 4 metres high and roughly squareish. My needs are: - Biggest live room possible. No booths necessary. I'm the kind of guy who likes to cut as much as possible with the band in one room together live. So I'll have baffles handy if I want to isolate - More traditional size control room in the sense that I'm not gonna be running a DAW. It's basically gonna be a Toft ATB32/Radar 48 type deal with a few racks of outboard. Therefore I can't build a pokey thing for one guy and a computer screen. I can't have every room huge but the bigger the better - Office/bedroom. Must fit double bed. If I build this studio I'm gonna have to live in the office until I get the place making money. Sucks but whatever. Later down the track it could be converted to another tracking room or something or kept as a big office - Lounge area. Just needs to fit a couch and a TV to entertain bands. I learned the lesson of not having a place like this in my last studio. - There will be basic bathroom stuff (toilet/shower). This will most likely already exist in a corner OK, so I'm trying to pack a LOT into 100 metres square so I can't stuff around much size wise. The ideas so far have been that the live room will be roughly 6mx6m, control room 5mx4m (this is worrying me a little), office/bedroom 3mx3m. I won't bother posting layout ideas because it's still totally open and I want to keep experimenting for a couple months to find the absolute best layout possible (and I still don't know exactly what the new areas dimensions will be anyway). So here's where I finally hit my question. Room design from scratch. On a totally clean slate, ignoring the actual floor plan. I'm just doing my head in trying to read and learn about designing with specific goals in mind acoustically. I know it takes years to learn, but I can't find the starting point! Examples: - Control room design. Symmetry......On so many plans the symmetry is there, yet I've seen a bunch of rooms (designed by acousticians, not DIY accidents) that are NOT symmetrical. Can you design non-symmetrical rooms that are acoustically symmetrical with treatments (and why)? Sizing control rooms- the ups and downs of going too far either way etc - Designing live rooms for certain sounds. I've noticed a few patterns by punching different stuff into the reverb time calculators on the web and stuff, but I'm not learning how to predict very well. I'd like to be able to say "I want my room to be quite live, with a fairly long decay time in frequency ranges X to Y but shorter around Z". How the hell do you learn to predict materials/sizes for different goals??!!! I understand experience is a huge part but you need to start somewhere I could go on and on, but I'm rambling deliriously from being over tired. The point I'm trying to make is I don't so much want specific questions answered as much as being pointed towards good places to educate myself so I can ask more intelligent questions here. I've searched for things, I've read stickys, I've read threads about peoples individual rooms....these have all been great teachers and there's plenty more here. But I can't seem to find anything about designing for a specific goal in a totally empty space. I've found and tried to absorb the acoustics 101 type stuff and I think I get the basics but I don't really understand how to use it well in designing rooms yet. I hope this makes sense, my brain is fried. Acousticians are smart. Rather than pay one to do the hard work (which I can't afford anyway) I'd rather learn how to do the hard work as much as possible so I understand it myself (and I can't imagine how this couldn't help my audio engineering skills a bunch anyway)[/i]

i'd say you can do speaker placement within a room to compensate for room modes and balance it for listening but i don't think that's the "symmetry" you'd necessarily want in a mixing situation. maybe you could post some examples where the CR didn't appear symmetrical since it may be that its just not obvious how the designer made it symmetrical. here's my thought on layout but as you note it's early in the process...

Aloha,

I'd rather learn how to do the hard work as much as possible so I understand it

Here is one perspective, a few excerpts from the SAE website and a few more links that may be helpful - http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

I suggest that a control room ideally should be at least 6m x 5m with a minimum ceiling height of 2.4m. This size room means a good sized working area with space for the musos, friends and hangers on. Also because you don't want rear reflections to interfere it is better to start with a longer front to back dimension than the side to side dimension. i.e. 6m x 5m. The studio, on the other hand, requires a different set of considerations. The first to consider is do you want just one room or more? The trend nowadays is for more than one studio so the you can get isolation between players and different acoustics for each room. The acoustics you want for a live drum sound is totally different than you want for a vocal for example. I recommend at least 2 rooms. You can put drums in one, guitars in the other, keys, vocals and bass (DI) in the control room or maybe the band in one and the vocalist in the other. Getting separation between guitars and drums is usually OK in a good sized room but keeping them out of the vocal track is hard if they are all in the same room. – John Sayers

Room Ratios In Rod Gervais’ book “Build it Like the Pros,” http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5670 he points out both L.W.Sepmeyer’s & M.M. Louden’s formulas most widely used in professional studios worldwide. He also notes that the orders listed are (top to bottom) the first to third best ratios in both cases. L.W. Sepmeyer Height Width Length 1.00 1.14 1.39 1.00 1.28 1.54 1.00 1.60 2.33 M.M. Louden Height Width Length 1.00 1.40 1.90 1.00 1.30 1.90 1.00 1.50 2.10 SAE Institute Reference Material Center http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html Be sure to click on the “acoustics”, “absorbers”, and “construction” tabs at left, and then tabs that show up at the top. 5.1 Surround Sound Guidelines http://content.grammy.com/PDFs/Recordin ... _1_Rec.pdf Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros (Paperback) by Rod Gervais http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5670 The Very Efficient Carpenter: Basic Framing for Residential Construction by Larry Haun http://www.amazon.com/Very-Efficient-Ca ... 156158326X Studio Design drawing programs used on the forum http://sketchup.google.com/download.html www.smartdraw.com Hope these help, Aloha 8)

Bingo! That's the kind of stuff I'm after! I found the SAE thing years ago before building my last one, so I've read that a few dozen times. I even re-skimmed it the other night but I might give it a full read again in case I missed something there. I think I'll be ordering a copy of Rod's book too. I downloaded sketchup when I first found this forum ages ago, but I'm still battling to learn it. I mean I can get a basic design happening, but the stuff you guys do is way outta my reach in that program at this point! The control room size thing is bugging me though. My last control room was 35 square metres so the size thing wasn't an issue, but this time round I might need to reduce. Is there an acoustics reason not to go smaller than 6x5 (obviously problem frequencies would change and you'd adjust treatment accordingly), or is that mainly to accommodate "space for the musos, friends and hangers on"? Cause that is the whole point in my mind to have a lounge area this time around- to keep them out! If they're in the control room I want it to be at the end of a take/session to listen to the final thing, but that's it. Band only. Unless of course there's an important reason acoustically to keep it bigger. And gullfo, thanks heaps for drawing that up. That's a layout I hadn't thought of yet, really damn cool too! I'll put that in the ideas list

Aloha, Glad that helps.

The control room size thing is bugging me though. My last control room was 35 square metres so the size thing wasn't an issue, but this time round I might need to reduce. Is there an acoustics reason not to go smaller than 6x5 (obviously problem frequencies would change and you'd adjust treatment accordingly), or is that mainly to accommodate "space for the musos, friends and hangers on"? Cause that is the whole point in my mind to have a lounge area this time around- to keep them out! If they're in the control room I want it to be at the end of a take/session to listen to the final thing, but that's it. Band only. Unless of course there's an important reason acoustically to keep it bigger.

I think an important point to note is that John stated "I suggest that a control room ideally should be at least..." Not only does the larger size (with best case ratios) accommodate the extra (albeit sometimes unwanted) bodies, but I think it's important to consider that the smaller the rooms get, the more the modal issues are going to be compounded by way of being so close together. While acoustic treatments help, in as much as is possible, try to start with a room size that has a better modal response. I think you'll find less work, frustrations and complications in applying those treatments to even out your room/s response. It certainly is a better starting point to begin with rather than having to apply tons of treatments to remedy a less than perfect situation. Happy reading, Aloha 8)

Okey dokey, time to trim some fat off other rooms....... ...do people REALLY need toilets? :lol: I do see your point though, just wanted to confirm

David Aurora wrote:

do people REALLY need toilets? :lol:

depends on the clientele... ;-) maybe just a single large wash sink for everything works :shock: one thing nice about more volume (room size) is that modes become more even, bodies and equipment shifts impact the room qualities less, and its, er, more roomy...