Studio in Germany

Hello! :D Our band is planning to build a small studio in Germany and a friend of me recommended this forum to me. Maybe you can help us, we would be very thankful for! After searching for some rooms for a long time, we finally found two which we are very happy about. They are located in the cellar of a church (in the middle of Berlin) where we can work 24/7 and loudness is absolutely no problem. And the best - we get them for free :) Our aim is not to build a studio which is versatile enough for recording very different formations but we would like to be able to record our music (in the future maybe also some of our friends) and to rehearse there. In the attachment, there is a scetchup file of the two rooms. The room with the smaller window and the normal door shall be the control room, the room with the triangle construction on top of the door :shock: shall be the recording/rehearsal room. And yes, there is a distance of about 8m between them. I know that you guys don't like someone to build a studio without visual contact between the control room and the recording room but I believe that we can live with this disadvantage. Anyway, drums will probably be the only instrument where the one playing sits in the recording room while being recorded. ;) Actual situation: As soon as we have thrown out all stuff and cleaned both rooms, they will look like in the scetch up file (except that there are doors and windows in reality, not just holes). The floor consists of flat stone and the brick walls are untreated. This weekend or at the beginning of next week we will meet some friends who work as engineers and we will plan things like heating, electrical system and dehumidification (is this the correct word? :D ). So afterwards, everything should be ready for acoustic treatment. budget for acoustic treatment: max. 2k Euro (which is about 2,7k $) ... but the less the better! :oops: timeline: We would like to build everything on our own and from august, we all can spend the whole day for this project. It would be great if we are done till the end of september or even earlier so that we can start making music there as soon as possible. acoustic treatment: So here is where I hope that you can help us. I would suggest starting to plan the treatment for the control room - one step after another ;) I made a picture of the scetch up file where you can see the dimension of the control room. The height is 3,8m. (I know this is much... :? ) All suggestions and ideas are welcome! And please let me know if you need more details or if I have forgotten something important! Thank you a lot! Greetings, Elmar :) PS: and sorry for my English... :oops:

... no ideas? :(

Aloha and welcome to the forum, Actually, I have been working on a few ideas, but something came up. In the meantime, could you edit your profile to include your location (which you've stated is Germany), please? This is a worldwide resource and having this information may come in very handy several posts down the line. Thanks! :wink: Be back in a few... Aloha 8)

yes, of course... done :)

Aloha, Thanks for editing your profile. :wink: Perhaps something like this? Aloha 8)

Thanks kendale! In general, I like your idea. I made a scetchup file of it and will attach it as soon as I’m at home (in about 3 hours). There are only 2 issues: Firstly, we have to have access to the window because we probably can’t afford an air-conditioning system providing fresh air and secondly, there is very few space between the door and its closest wall. I changed your idea a little bit and fixed these issues. I will attach the scetchup file and a screenshot too. What do you think about it? … I know, the opposing walls are not angled as much as you suggested but I believe it is enough. Am I right or wrong? By now, we have analysed values of air humidity and fortunately, they are ok so we don’t have to change something about it and don’t have to buy an air dehumidifier or something like this. As for heating, we have decided to use one electric convertor (2 3 kW) per room and if this will turn out to be too less in winter (oh yes, it can get very cold here :shock: ) , we could add a second one to each room. Floor: We thought of laminate which costs less than parquet flooring. Will this work? Ceiling: Is it a good idea to angle the complete ceiling? (for example about 12 degrees)… Where should the lower part of the ceiling be? At the front wall or at the rear wall? Now there’s the big question how to achieve the “true balance of the high frequencies and the low frequencies with the right amount of deadness to liveness”. Which wall should fulfil which function (which kind of absorber)? Furthermore, how should we treat the new ceiling? I don’t think that we need to build a complicated construction because, like I said, isolation is absolutely no problem so only acoustics inside the room matter. What kind of absorber should the new ceiling be? Again I am very thankful for every suggestion and idea and please tell me if you need more details! Greetings, Elmar :)

so, here it is...

*push*

Elmar wrote:

Floor: We thought of laminate which costs less than parquet flooring. Will this work?

laminate should work fine.

Elmar wrote:

Ceiling: Is it a good idea to angle the complete ceiling? (for example about 12 degrees)… Where should the lower part of the ceiling be? At the front wall or at the rear wall?

the ceiling should slope from the front rising towards the back of the room. see drawing.

Elmar wrote:

Now there’s the big question how to achieve the “true balance of the high frequencies and the low frequencies with the right amount of deadness to liveness”. Which wall should fulfil which function (which kind of absorber)? Furthermore, how should we treat the new ceiling? I don’t think that we need to build a complicated construction because, like I said, isolation is absolutely no problem so only acoustics inside the room matter. What kind of absorber should the new ceiling be?

from a treatment stand point, bass trapping is important, if you have the space for a false ceiling in the control room, you can put plasic under the cloth to keep highs in the room and put insulation or hanger overhead. corners need bass trapping, first reflection points need absorbers the back wall will be deader than the front but not completely lifeless. if you can use diffusers around the back cloth wall, it will help but you need enough space (~5-6m) so the diffusers can "diffuse" instead of merely reflect...

Thank you very much! This really helps :D Here are some thoughts: We would put the convertor underneath the window because the wall is very stable compared to the other ones. But as a result, the complete wall would be reflective. Could we build the opposing wall similar? (so that it is also reflective?) Any other way would disturb stereo image, wouldn't it? concerning the 3 rear walls: as far as I know up to now, there are two ways: 1) building a rear wall absorber like this: http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm (the last one) 2) hangers behind a cloth wall same thing with the ceiling: 1) hangers above the cloth 2) filling the frames with insulation (e.g. rockwool?) I am convinced that in all cases, hangers would be the better choice but as far as I know, materials like rigid fibreglass (703, 705 etc.) are not available here in Germany. Moreover (even if it would be available), using hangers seems to be way more expensive and difficult compared to just filling the frames with insulation. Is the difference so big that the cheaper way is absolutely no alternative? I mean, please remember our budget is about 2000 Euro for both rooms... If there is no way than investing more than 2000 Euro, we would do so but if it's avoidable, we would not. side wall slat absorber: we would build them like described in kendales sketchup animation (with two small changes): http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 8&start=30 1) using cloth backing for covering the slots (like described here: http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html) 2) building one of them with a hole with solid framing for mounting the door front wall: if we make the desing like in the sketchup file, then there's only about 10 cm space for the front wall. that's not much for a helmholtz resonator, isn't it? ... so what could we do? ... or does it really have to be a helmholtz resonator?

i would build a bit around the window with absorbers and also plan on a cover for it to eliminate reflections from it since it looks like it will be a main reflection point. if you look at Kendale's design, the walls are designed to act as trapping space and would be cloth to reduce reflection. you could also add speakers there to make it a 5.1 room... the front wall doesn't have to be slats. the hangers can be very effective for trapping if you have the space but do take more time to properly build. so if you want to, you can stuff the insulation instead. mineral wool, 703, rigid fiber glass, etc. all similar materials - to a degree - see Bob Golds site on various materials. you're really looking for something to be sufficiently dense enough for bass trapping.