My long, one-car garage studio, construction phase

[Bigsby]

I just saw an announcement that John posted that definitely applies to me:

Ok, so now it's Christmas time, the time of good cheer.

maybe it's time to reflect on the unending contribution to your studio designs that Stuart, soundman2000 has offered you, free of charge, throughout 2013.

The donate button on my site has contributed maybe $200 throughout the year, yup really, (it goes to the data fees) yet you have all, especially some of you, received ongoing contributions from this site and Stuart to your studio designs.......... you know who you are.

I would like you all to contribute to the PayPal donation button on my site and I will guarantee that the contributions will go to Stuart so he and his family can enjoy a happy Christmas for his ongoing consistent contributions to this site.

He's been unrelenting over the past year in answering all your requests and he truly deserves a generous donation from all of you.

Donate to my Stuart Xmas appeal by donating via the paypal link on my main page.

I guarantee it will all go to Stuart and his family.

Cheers
john

I have to second what John says above about Stuart and this site in general. It's been a long time since I've donated to the site--it's long overdue for me to do it again. Thank you John, for creating this community, and for sharing so many of your great design concepts with us. And thank you, Stuart, for stepping up the way you have over the last few years! I know that I would be lost without this site and all the good advice I've received, as John rightly observes, all free of charge!

Mark

[Bigsby]

Happy New Year, All!
Here's a quick Live Room treatment update. I decided to cover almost all of the live room ceiling (except for about a 10" perimeter all the way around) with clouds. I built a center section from which I attached "wings," as follows:

Center section 1.jpg

center section 2.jpg

I then attached the center section using long screws drilled into the center beam:

center section installed.jpg

The following are typical for how the side sections were built….

side sections.jpg

side section 2.jpg

I then attached the side sections to the center section using 1/4" diameter lag screws. I forgot to take pictures of how they attached along the lower edge; I'll do that next time.

sides installed 1.jpg

sides installed 2.jpg

sides installed 3.jpg

Next, here's a couple pictures of the slat wall. I used the same dimensions as the Control Room: 2", 3", and 4" slats with 1/8", 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" slots. The slats will extend the entire length of the wall.

slats 1.jpg

slats 2.jpg

So, that's about where things stand presently. More to come soon in the New Year!
Mark

[Soundman2020]

More to come soon in the New Year!

Well, it's New Year already, so where's the "more to come"?

Seriously, Mark, your place is looking awesome. It sure has come a long way! And even better: the end is in sight...

- Stuart -

[Bigsby]

Well, it's New Year already, so where's the "more to come"?

Hah! Well, I need to recover a bit, first….
Thank you for your kind words, Stuart, it means a lot coming from you. And this studio would be nowhere near where it is now without your help!! I hope you have had a wonderful holiday season, and are having a great New Years Day!

Mark

[Bigsby]

Well, I've made more headway on the live room, so here we go…

Once I had "dry-fit" the clouds I took them back down and installed the Roxul Safe 'n Sound:

clouds with safe n sound.jpg

Then stapled some strong netting across the clouds to prevent sagging of the Roxul:

clouds with netting.jpg

Finally, I added plastic to help keep the room bright (and fibers contained!) and a wood strip around the perimeter to give it a clean edge once the cloth was attached:

cloud with plastic and trim.jpg

Here's a detail of the lower edge "attachment system" for the clouds; basically eye screws that are bolted to the ceiling. Once the cloud was lifted in place, I used a bolt with a large washer to go through each eye screw into the cloud itself. I did seal each penetration around the eye screws with caulk, although that's not shown in the photos:

LR Cloud support.jpg

LR cloud support 2.jpg

I placed the clouds on the drywall lift to make it easy to position them in place:

cloud on drywall lift.jpg

cloud on lift 2.jpg

Here's a shot of the center section frames, painted and ready for cloth:

center cloud frames.jpg

…and then lifted into position:

center cloud on lift.jpg

I also finished the wall treatments for the live room. Here's some shots of that….

The wall below was covered in plastic, with strips cut out to keep it from becoming an incorrectly-placed vapor barrier (same as CR). The slats I installed are only for protection of the cloth, not for any acoustic purpose:

LR plastic .jpg

LR CLoth 1.jpg

LR spaced slats 1.jpg

More to follow….

[Bigsby]

…some more wall treatment shots….

LR all slats.jpg

Here's the finished resonator wall:

LR resonators 1.jpg

LR resonators 2.jpg

And with that, the walls are complete, except for the filling of many, many, many nail holes!

Next, I worked on the window opening. Many people on this site have decided to place dessicant in between the panes to mitigate any condensation that might somehow get in there. I decided to do the same, even though the gap between the LR and CR leaves is well-sealed with a strip of rubber in the window opening.

My approach was to use styrofoam with holes cut out to hold the dessicant. This would then be covered with cloth for a clean finished product, as follows:

window dessicant 1.jpg

window dessicant 2.jpg

window dessicant 3.jpg

I then dry-fit the styrofoam pieces to be sure everything was fitting properly:

window foam dry fit.jpg

Then, I covered the styrofoam with black cloth, permanently installed it, and put up my second piece of glass, forever sealing in a smudge between the glass panels BE SURE you've cleaned your glass thoroughly before installing it!! Actually, the smudge is hardly visible, but still, I know it's there!

So I think that brings us up to the present day. Getting really close!!!!!

Thanks,
Mark

[simo]

Hey Mark,

Fantastic work man, really !!!

It's all great but the slat wall is just something else , very very precise - !

Keep up the good work…SO much work BUT SO close to the end, right?!!



Simo

[sandledfoot]

This has been a great thread, thanks for posting. I've been lurking again on the forums looking for ideas about a future studio, and your slat walls just look awesome. well done!

kevin

[Bigsby]

Thanks for the kind words Simo and Kevin!

SO much work BUT SO close to the end, right?!!

...truer words have never been spoken, Simo!

[Bigsby]

Hi Folks--

A quick question (I hope): I've been building a desk for my control room and I'm wondering about the potential for reflections off the top. I've got a couple of filing cabinets to the left of my listening position and my 19" rolling rack to the right. The grey rectangle in the center is the slide-out computer keyboard tray. The desk as it's currently configured will be about 3" away from the bezels and about 5" below the bottom of the speakers. Here are some photos:

desk 1.jpg

desk 2.jpg

desk 3.jpg

desk 4.jpg

I don't have a lot of "real estate" for my desk, and I'm hoping that the current shape will be workable. However, if it's a really terrible idea to have it this way because of reflections, I could square it off and end up with a rectangle that extends about 3" in front of each bezel. The desk needs to be this close to the front wall in order to keep my listening position in the proper place. I'm also wondering that even if I changed it to a simple rectangle shape I might still get reflections given the angle of the speakers(?)

Anyway, any thoughts/advice are much appreciated as always.
Thank you!

Mark

[simo]

Hi Mark,

nice desk!


The top surface of the mixing console (or a desk in your case) for sound is still a surface thus another source of early reflections. So I reckon it should be treated the same way you've done with all other surfaces (i.e. walls) in your room

What about angling it 12-15 degrees? would that be feasible?

you could also place some rigid insulation covered with cloth behind it (facing the speaker)

besides acoustics, if you will end up having rack of equipment on your desk angling it can make things easier to see and access...

… just an idea


Simo

[Soundman2020]

Simo is spot on! It's not just the desk, but also what goes on top: usually the console. Angling the console (or even angling the desk itself a bit in extreme cases) is a good idea. Another idea is to lower the desktop as much as you can comfortably, so reflections hit your chest, instead of your head. I have even had to embed the console in the desk surface in some cases, to get the reflections under control.

The best way to figure all this out is by ray-tracing (either on paper or in SketchUp), to see where your first reflections are really going, and try out all options. To me, from what I can see in the pics, it looks like you are OK with just the desk, but putting a thick console on top might be an issue.

- Stuart -

[Bigsby]

Thank you, Stuart and Simo, for the quick replies. I should have posted a bit more info to show how the desk will be used, so I'm attaching a few more photos. The frame for the desk is one that I cannibalized from an old IKEA desk:

desk frame.jpg

There won't be much on the desk--my antique Radikal Technologies controller (if it still works--if not, I'll probably buy a Mackie controller eventually), my Drawmer monitor switcher/talkback, and my computer monitors (although looking at them right now makes me think I ought to mount them to the wall to get them out of the way of the speakers--thoughts on that?). I also have a pair of Avantone Mixcubes--not sure where I'll put those yet.

I doubt I'll ever get a big console; my mic pre's will live in the rolling rack to the right of my chair. The rest of the desk space will be handy for note-taking and things like that--not planning on having much more on the desk.

I'd rather not angle the desk (rolling pencils, etc). I suppose I could lower it a bit, but I'm pretty tall, so I don't think I could go very far without sacrificing ergonomics to a degree. Long story short, given the relatively low profile of what will be on the desk, do you think I can get away with it as planned, or do I need to seriously re-think things? If it would help significantly, I could cut off the triangular-shaped ends and just have a small, rectangular desk, but again, I'd rather not do that, either. However, after all the work I've put into this little control room, I don't want the desk to mess it up!

desk with controller 1.jpg

desk with controller 2.jpg

desk with controller right.jpg

desk with controller left.jpg

[RyanC]

Wow a Sac 2k, I used to have one of those-

Did you try to mirror trick? IE put a mirror on the desk and see if you can see the reflection of the speakers from the listening position? This is helpful but keep in mind that the inverse square law is still in effect so a near miss may not be a miss at all for the acoustics. Still it can be helpful.

But also with a small room like that with a short delay gap, I would measure and play with the gating on the impulse (you can do this easily in ARTA using the free demo mode). Because the desk will only reflect frequencies above the shortest dimensions wavelength (looks like ~20 inches? so ~700hz), you can look to see if there is any obvious comb filtering above 700hz and more importantly if that same comb filtering forms canyons and ridges in the CSD/waterfall. It may be practically mitigated by many other *early* reflections when the gating includes the whole room...

Awesome build BTW!

[sandledfoot]

Hey mark,

great thread... thanks for posting... i have a question, this isn't meant to be critical, just curious...

I prepared my sub-bezel by stapling black cloth over the vents:

won't that reduce the airflow from the port? Is the port in the soffit meant for the airflow required to keep the self powered speaker from overheating, or are they intended to allow acousticail movement, such as the subfrequencies to be absorbed by the superchunk/hangers?

again, great build post!
kevin