Studio in Honduras, help with the design!

Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I have done extensive research on this matter and I wanted to share it with you all so that you could share your two cents on the design of this studio. Any ideas, commentaries and critiques will be welcome and greatly appreciated! I just got the oportunity to build my own studio in a very limited area of W 12'11" x L 19'4" x H 8'5". I must mention that I am located in Honduras and materials are very limited here and shipping can get ridiculously expensive because of even more ridiculous tax laws. Ironically enough concrete is extremely cheap and abundant so my exterior parallel walls will be built with 8" concrete brick. The floor will be a concrete slab on top of the bare ground so I will not be floating -according to some posts here, this should be best-. I will be angling my inner walls in a symmetrical shape to help reduce flutter noise and try to control some frequencies and help tune the room. There will be some separation between both walls but I didn't include this in the design. It was my first time using this Sketchup sofware. I need to be able to track and mix in this room, but it may not be prudent to build a tracking room big enough for drums since I cannot yet afford any soundproofing construction and I have neighbours all around, so I am thinking that maybe just a vocal booth would serve fine for the moment. Many questions arise at this time, I am not very experienced but I have done my homework. 1. I cannot yet afford (as mentioned before) soundproofing materials, or absorptive materials other than R-19 Fiberglass (yeah, the fluffy stuff... I know, right?), Sheetrock and a type of laminate that resembles sheetrock only with a porous surface which they use here to build broadcasting facilities. They call it Decorative Laminate, but they told me in the hardware store that some people call it Mineral Fiber (that's how I found it, looking for actual rigid mineral fiber). My question is, would this be enough to control some frequencies because of the shape of the room? I am not even sure on where to place the fiberglass to make it more effective. (against the concrete walls facing the room, in between the sheetrock and the mineral fiber, against the sheetrock?) I cannot fill every gap with it because I can only buy 5 packs of it and each cover 175 sq. ft, which is only enough to cover my 4 walls with one layer of it (which is about 3" thick, but fluffy... not compact). 2. I can decide how tall to make the ceiling and what finish to give it. The problem with this is, if I want to angle it, I can only angle it in the oposite position of what is prefered, and I can't switch listening position because the door would be in the way. If I decide to make it flat and treat it later, then it would be built out of sheetrock which I can't stuff with fiberglass because I'm only getting those 5 packs, and I have read many posts where people complain about sheetrock ceilings sounding like CRAP. What would you suggest? 3. I want to build a vocal booth on the lower right corner of the room, but it would through off my room's symmetry and if I do the same shape to the parallel corner (lower-left) then I would be sacrificing a lot of space, and I really don't need 2 vocal booths because of the space. Should I build it without a booth so it can be symmetrical and just build a Gobo to use as a recording booth? Any thoughts on this? 4. I am not quite certain which degrees of angling would serve best for a room this size. I have tried to study everything I can about this but I just don't understand many things. Are these angles OK or how would you do it? 5. My room dimmensions seem fine since they are not divisible by the same number. 12'11" is almost 13 by an inch, which isn't divisible by either 19 or 8.5, but given that I am in Latin America, we measure in meters here and the funny thing is once you convert it, the dimmensions are W 4m L 6m H 2m which are all divisible by two!!! Does this apply in meters?? Has it all been calculated for feet only and will make no difference for meters? I can't do that kind of math for how sound travels in meters haha. 6. Finally, would you suggest a different design? Thank you all for taking your time and reading through all of this and even more thanx if you post! I love this site and it has made a world of difference. I hope some day I can help you all the way you are helping me. Attached is the design for the studio with a few notes. I made a small mistake when doing it and I measured the OUTSIDE of the walls as it really measures on the inside of the walls. What I mean is, the dimensions of the room that I wrote were measured from the inside wall, not the outside as it appears on the design. I hope this does not cause confusion. Thank you all once again!! - Skai Peñalva

nice drawing. you might make the angled side walls shorter so you can increase the angle on them. the angled walls only need to extend past the primary listening position. same for the ceiling. that said, can you use steel (or wood) frame and drywall? what about plywood? if you have those options, you could build both treatment and isolation relatively easily. if not, consider make the concrete rooms rectangular with proper modes and using the mineral wool and drywall to create the treatments. you may also consider flipping the CR to face the "vocal booth" which could also be large enough for drums...

gullfo wrote:

nice drawing. you might make the angled side walls shorter so you can increase the angle on them. the angled walls only need to extend past the primary listening position. same for the ceiling. that said, can you use steel (or wood) frame and drywall? what about plywood? if you have those options, you could build both treatment and isolation relatively easily. if not, consider make the concrete rooms rectangular with proper modes and using the mineral wool and drywall to create the treatments. you may also consider flipping the CR to face the "vocal booth" which could also be large enough for drums...

Thanks gulfo for your fast reply. I don't quite understand what you mean. Making the angled side walls shorter? In which direction? I do have access to those materials you listed and that's how I was planning to build the inner walls if you look closely at the drawing. How do you suggest I do both treatment AND isolation with those materials? The only concrete I will be using for building walls is the concrete bricks for the outter walls. I cannot build inner walls or other rooms out of these bricks because they are too tick. About flipping the CR, I won't be able to considering the entrance is right there and it would be rather uncomfortable for me as well as for artists. I can also NOT record drums because I cannot afford soundproofing and I will have issues with my neighbours if I try to record drums so making a booth to fit drums in is out of the question also considering that it would take up a lot of space I don't really have and would compromise my listening room. Maybe I'm just not understanding well what it is you mean exactly. Thank you for your fast reply!

if you start your angled walls (from the front) at the same position they are, but terminate them at the mid-point of the room, the angle will be steeper. you could also turn the CR sideways and get a decent sized room for drums or vox etc. if the walls are concrete, and you build an inner set of walls with a decent air gap between them, plus insulation and well sealed, as well as multiple layers of drywall, you can achieve pretty decent isolation.

Wow Glenn, this looks awesome. I guess I didn't think I could have enough isolation to record drums with a single layer R-19 and drywall without having problems with my neighbours. But wouldn't such a small control room give me a lot of bass problems?

the isolation is going to be tough for a live drum kit. you'll need multiple layers of drywall, proper sealing, a drum riser to reduce structure borne noise, etc... lots to consider. Check out Rod Gervais's book Home Studio Construction Build It Like The Pros to a look at all the details... the bass in the CR here wouldn't be too bad since the walls are primarily treatment walls with bass trapping behind them. mode wise its the right size for the space, but of course there's no substitute for room volume and size to make things better. it ultimately boils down to what your needs are WRT isolation and budget.

I thought about the design you proposed and it just seemed a little crowded when having clients over. Another design was proposed to me and I wanted to run it by you to see what you think about it.

that looks like a nice design. i just wonder if the concrete inner walls will be problematic for treatments because it would seem likely to be very lively and not have good bass absorption properties.

the inner walls would be drywall (maybe 2 layers) filled with R-19 fiberglass insulation. would this work?

you might check out Joh's insider out walls on the SAE site which has drywall on the outside of the frame and slats on the inside. this provide a measure of absorption and isolation in a single construct.

man, that sounds very interesting. i saw john's designs on walls and i wanted to have some drywall and maybe slots on the corners and on the first side reflections. i'm gonna check that out great tip thanx! Do you have a link? I can't seem to find it.

Thanx for the link it's very useful! Where would be the best place to put slot resonators? I was thinking maybe the corners and the sides of the listening position. What would be the effects of doing these with drywall instead of wood?? I can use wood, I was just wondering what would be the difference...

drywall tends to crumble and would likely not have a good edge. wood is generally nicer to work with. that said, in theory you could build the resonator/absorption into the concrete. there are a number of places like churches and thing where Helmholtz resonators are built into the blocks and walls. from a practical standpoint, wood will be easier to work with, have a nice wood tone/finish, and you could adjust later if you need to. i think you'd want the slats running down each side like how you have the walls already, but make them inside out using the framing discussed on the SAE site.