Video Editing Suite - Design Phase

Hello all, I've been lurking on the forum for the better part of this year, and I'm finally ready to begin the design phase of my editing suite. I run a video production company that specializes in dance and music recitals, as well as commercial work. My needs are a little different than most of you since I do very little studio recording. Aside from the occasional voice-over recording, most of my studio work is either MIDI music production and mixing audio for 5.1 surround. I'm currently working out of a 10' x 10' bedroom with no acoustical treatments. I've gotten fairly good at compensating for my room, but I recognize some serious limitations. The third bay in our garage was enclosed when we bought the house, and I plan to convert that room for use as my studio. Because I do no live recording in my studio, I am not concerned with isolation. I do most of my work late at night, and I rarely disturb my family in the room next to me. I do, however, want to build the best sounding room I can. I've attached a Sketch-up file with my room layout as it is today, and a JPG file with my first stab at the layout. I'd appreciate any input as I go through the process of designing this new room. I'm sure there's a better way to lay this out, and I'm hoping some of you experts might be able to point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance! Rick

Rick - what is the size of your garage? we really need some measurements to start with.

Hi John, Thanks for taking a look at this. The internal dimensions are 15' 9" x 9' 4 1/2", with 8' 4" floor to ceiling. The sketch-up file in my original post is to scale. Rick

Aloha, 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 8’4” x 9’5” x 11’6” Fire your monitors down the length of the room

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. John Sayers http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

Perhaps something like this? Aloha 8)

Aloha Kendale, Thanks for looking at this. The B variation is probably the best fit for the space I have. I was planning to soffit mount my left and right speakers. Would it make sense to soffit mount my center and rear speakers as well, or keep them on stands? BTW, I followed your build thread for your studio. The cloud you built was fantastic.

Aloha,

Thanks for looking at this. The B variation is probably the best fit for the space I have.

Okay, cool. :wink:

I was planning to soffit mount my left and right speakers. Would it make sense to soffit mount my center and rear speakers as well, or keep them on stands?

Ah, if you are mixing for 5.1, the geometry will change slightly. Sorry, I missed that in your initial post. Personally, I would soffit mount the front left, center, right speakers, and depending on the geometry, if it's possible, the rear left/right as well, but that's up to you. A couple of questions come to mind, though: - Is it possible to position the control room all the way to the west wall and position your voice over booths and entry to the rear? How will this affect your work flow? - How many video monitors will you be using and where do you prefer to position them? Let me do a little tweaking on the geometry and repost a design.

BTW, I followed your build thread for your studio. The cloud you built was fantastic.

Thanks. :wink: All things considered, I enjoyed the build process and the way things turned out. Back in a few, Aloha 8)

Kendale, The west wall has a large window that takes up most of the wall. I'm not sure if we can work around it if we move the control room to that side of the room. The east wall is not load bearing, and I would need to relocate the door if I go with your B layout. The other side of the door is open to the garage. There is also a 3 1/2" step down into the room. I have a 22" LCD computer monitor and a 20" LCD TV monitor. I've attached a picture of my current workstation. I'll be replacing it with something similar when I complete the control room.

Aloha, Okay, here are a couple of preliminary views of a 5.1 setup and a few notes: - It's a tight fit, but if it's a viable option for you, perhaps we could get John to take a look at the design to verify. - Left, Center, Right speakers are soffit mounted - Rear speakers are @ 135-150 degrees each and are on stands. - You have about 3'11" of space that could be used either as a small voice over booth (once access/exit is resolved) or perhaps a machine room to house noisy CPU's and/or storage.

The east wall is not load bearing, and I would need to relocate the door if I go with your B layout.

If that is a viable option for you, it would allow for the bass trapping in the right rear corner floor to ceiling. :wink: That said, perhaps something like this, then? Aloha 8)

Aloha Kendale, I really appreciate the work you've put into this. I think this design is very doable. I have a couple of questions regarding this layout. I'm assuming the slanted walls are slat resonators. Should they extend all the way to the front wall, or only as far as the edge of the soffit frame for the speakers? (See ex.1). The center speaker appears to be protruding through the wall into the next room. Would it make sense to pull the soffits further back from the front wall? (See ex.2). Thanks! Rick

Aloha,

I'm assuming the slanted walls are slat resonators. Should they extend all the way to the front wall, or only as far as the edge of the soffit frame for the speakers?

That is correct on both points.

The center speaker appears to be protruding through the wall into the next room. Would it make sense to pull the soffits further back from the front wall?

You sir, have a very good eye. :wink: Yes, it would, if you can spare the room. Give me a few & I'll post a revision. Aloha 8)

Aloha, Here are a couple of views: #1 - soffit walls pulled in to accommodate center speaker - 2a, 2b (mix position @ 38%, very tight space to work with, Sepmeyer ratio of 1.00 1.14 1.39) #2 - front wall pulled out to accommodate center speaker - 1a, 1b ( mix position @ 38%, more room, slight deviation of Sepmeyer ratio) Your thoughts? Aloha 8)

I think I'm better off sticking with version 2 so the room is more acoustically sound to begin with. I'm sure it will make things easier in the long run. Can I get a copy of your skp file? I have a couple more questions regarding the resonators and bass traps. I came across your animated build sequence for the resonators, which was extremely helpful! My understanding is the resonator should be sealed against the wall. If this is correct, would the resonator unit be anchored to the wall with bolts and L brackets, then sealed around the edges with caulk? Or is there a better way to seal them? The sample resonator you showed is only 4' high. Would two units be stacked together, or could this be built as a single 8' unit? Or is the resonator not supposed to extend floor to ceiling? The in the drawings you did, the soffits seem to intersect the resonators, and the resonators and bass traps intersect the walls (see image 1 below). Should there be any space between the soffits and the resonators? The resonator unit has a 4" wide edge (see image 2 below). Should the front edge of the unit be flush with the untreated side wall, or should be back of the unit be flush against the untreated wall? Sorry for all the questions. I hope I didn't confuse you with what I'm asking. Thanks again for your time on this. Rick

Aloha,

I think I'm better off sticking with version 2 so the room is more acoustically sound to begin with. I'm sure it will make things easier in the long run. Can I get a copy of your skp file?

Cool. Here's the file :wink:

I have a couple more questions regarding the resonators and bass traps. I came across your animated build sequence for the resonators, which was extremely helpful! My understanding is the resonator should be sealed against the wall. If this is correct, would the resonator unit be anchored to the wall with bolts and L brackets, then sealed around the edges with caulk? Or is there a better way to seal them? The sample resonator you showed is only 4' high. Would two units be stacked together, or could this be built as a single 8' unit? Or is the resonator not supposed to extend floor to ceiling? The in the drawings you did, the soffits seem to intersect the resonators, and the resonators and bass traps intersect the walls (see image 1 below). Should there be any space between the soffits and the resonators? The resonator unit has a 4" wide edge (see image 2 below). Should the front edge of the unit be flush with the untreated side wall, or should be back of the unit be flush against the untreated wall?

Since you are building your room from scratch, so to speak, you may want to check out this link and download John's skp file. In it, you will find a lot of the answers to your questions on how the room is framed, insulated and slat resonators, soffits, etc might be accomplished. http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5457 Upon opening the skp file, you should see 18 or so tabs across the top just under the tool bar. (If not, look to the far right of the described area and click on the small arrow.) If you then click on each tab, you should see the different stages of build. Hope this helps, Aloha 8)

:mrgreen: Finally I know what Aloha stands for. A guy managing emergency operations http://www.epa.gov/ceppo/cameo/aloha.htm

it actually means hello and goodbye - maybe that is emergency management? :shock:

Excellent! The studio buildup file John put together is very helpful, as is all your work on my design. I really appreciate it. I'm going to spend a few days adapting what I saw in John's buildup file to what you sent me and make sure I have the design down. I'll post my results in a few days and see if I can get you to give it another review. If I have the design correct, I'll probably start the build in the next couple of weeks. Thanks again for all the time you've spent on this! Aloha!

It took me a while longer than I thought it would to wrap up my design for this room. Real life has a way of doing that to you. I have what I think is the final design for the room, and I've attached the skp file and a couple of images below. I had to fudge a bit on the length of the room that Kendale had laid out, but the total difference is all of 4 inches. We're clearing out the room today, and I'll be starting construction next weekend. If anyone has any comments, questions, or concerns with this design, I'd really appreciate hearing from you. Thanks again to Kendale for all your help with this design! Thanks mucho! Rick

where are your other 2 speakers? looks good.

Thanks Gullfo. I considered soffit-mounting the rear speakers, but ultimately decided to keep them on stands. I'll be starting a thread in the construction forum this weekend with pics of the early stages of the build. Stay tuned...

I've finally started my construction thread, and you can follow my progress here.

I am curious with such a small space, wouldn't it be better to use the entire space and fill a large amount of it with effective bass trapping instead of optimizing the ratio and leaving that large empty space? My understanding is that with such small dimensions, the modes will be so high in frequency that they will be more noticeable and destructive to mixing. In any small room you need a great deal of low freq absorption which we all know takes space. Perhaps just move the room more in the middle of the space and have all the extra area filled to the gills with rockwool to damp the place down? Just a thought.... -bassman

generally speaking, good ratios can help more in smaller spaces (but not too small) because of imbalance in the low frequency spacing that causes the major modal response to become apparent (and disruptive). of course the closeness of the space adds a proximity effect (like comb filtering) at mid-high frequencies so even if you get the modes right, there is still absorption needed to control the nearest reflections, SBIR, and rear wall reflections. it also all depends on how you're using the space... and once you get too small in size, then low frequencies below the room cutoff is just a big press-and-release feeling than an actual discernible sound (which still impacts your judgment and equipment performance)... so you will still need bass trapping and other controls in the small room but good ratios cannot hurt...