Small room currently referred to as 'a studio'

[Soundman2020]

Hi Anton, and welcome to the forum!

The reason i am bothering you is because i have strong doubts about the room they use as the control room.. By itself, it's already a very cube shaped space first of all, to second that: the walls and the floor are all covered in carpet material.

I see why you have strong doubts! No wonder that room sounds so bad.

The very first thing you should do is to remove all of the carpet. That is a big part of the problem. With that gone, you can treat the room properly.

Insulating the room isn't really an issue

With 30 cm thick concrete walls, floor and ceiling, that is already giving you pretty good isolation.

The 'treatment' here is basically gypsum boards glued to the walls and then carpets glued onto them

I would suggest that you take all of that off, right down to the bare concrete walls, and measure the TRUE dimensions of the room.

but should the gypsum plates be ripped off as well to try and re-design the room to a form, better fit for a control room?

Yes. I really would take it all off, find out what the actual room size is, then work from there. You will probably need to build at least one "fake" wall to get your room ratio better (that place is nearly a cube right now), so try to save some of that drywall and timber, if you can. You might be able to re-use it for the fake wall.

2. Is insulation actually NOT required?

I think you are talking about "isolation", not "insulation". Isolation means to stop the sound from going out of the room, or coming into the room. Insulation is the fluffy stuff that you put inside walls, to keep the room warm, or as acoustic treatment.

Isolation is probably not necessary for your room, due to the relatively high mass of the existing structure, and the fact that you will not be using very loud acoustic instruments.

building insulated walls (maybe even building a room in that room?? ) would help the acoustics and form a more acoustic-friendly room?

Isolation and treatment are two different things. Isolation just means keeping sound in or out. Treatment means making the room sound good. They can be combined sometimes, yes, but isolating a room is not necessary to get good acoustics inside the room. If you have enough isolation already, then there is no need to waste precious space by trying to add more.

we have quite some space here and there is a possibility to take one wall down to form a larger room (or several rooms) and maybe start building a control room that could actually be designed to any form required?

If you CAN take down that wall and get more space, that could indeed make your job MUCH easier. That's a very small space for a control room, so anything you can do to make it bigger would be a good idea. How much extra space can you get?


- Stuart -

[BriHar]

I agree with all Stuart recommends.
Your budget however I think is unrealistic even considering that you wont need to isolate (the lion's share of the cost of any studio build).
You show a graphic model of the control room but in the text you are really talking about the whole studio especially when you mention removing a wall to rebuild the CR.
If you really want an informed answer or suggestions, then we need to see the CR in relation to the rest of the studio, plus some actual dimensions would not be amiss. If you could post a floor plan of the entire studio with dimensions, showing all windows, doors and exits and indicating which wall you are thinking of removing, we will be in a better position to give you some ideas. Don't forget height!

[Soundman2020]

meaning we dont really need to isolate the walls from anyone.

Are you SURE about that? You mean it never rains in Lithuania? No wind, no thunder? No planes or helicopters flying overhead? No roads nearby with cars, buses, or trucks? No other people in the building, who make a noise when they walk, talk or move around? No phones ringing? No radios or TVs? No toilets flushing, water running in the sink? No doors opening and closing? ... There are thousands of possible sources of sound around the average building that could ruin your recordings: Isolation is not just about stopping your noise from getting out: it is also very much about stopping other noise from getting in!

By unrealistic budget, you mean too big or too small here, Brian?

I agree with Brian: The budget is probably too small. There are many things you are not considering. For example, you have not mentioned anything about HVAC yet, and HVAC is not cheap. And yes, you certainly DO need HVAC. ALL studios need HVAC. The simple fact of making an ordinary room into a studio means that you blocked all air movement in and out, and also trapped the heat produced by the people and equipment, so you absolutely must get that back again, with some form of air conditioning and ventilation system. You also did not mention the electrical system, and that too has a cost. Properly isolating and sealing doors and windows is another expense. Etc.

So you should probably re-think your budget to cover those costs.

- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

so im thibking i should get rid of the wall and maybe start building some sort of a control room out of that double space..

sounds like a good idea to me!

- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

leaves me quite free with the design of the CR and well, thats where the confusion has started.. I have read articles, forum posts, etc. to get myself on the way but.. I am now struggling with the basics from where i should start..

There certainly are many options open to you, with that space. But since you are on a very limited budget, I would go with the simplest possible design.

As for the geometry.. Ive been keeping one thing in my head.. The infamous 1:1.4:1.9 ratio.

That is just ONE ratio. There are literally hundreds of possible ratios that are all good. In fact, if you look at a graph of all possible ratios, there are "areas" of good ratios. There is no such thing as a "perfect" ratio, or a "golden" ratio that is the best. Just a lot of good ones, and a lot more bad ones.

If you really want one that is good for a small squarish room, then try 1 : 1.14 : 1.39 That is (arguably) the best of all ratios, and is known as Sepmeyer's First Ratio. It is the best one on the list of ratios discovered by Sepmeyer, an acoutician who spent years studying this. The one you are talking about is Louden's best ratio: Louden was another acoustician who did research on this, but that one is not quite as good as Sepmeyer's.

but im planning to go for a bit more complex design.. Ive got my eye on some designs John initially did and well, i might be way over my head with this, but im going for almost an octagonic shape.

Then forget about ratios! If your room is not a perfect rectangle, with two sets of parallel walls and the ceiling parallel to the floor, then you CANNOT predict the modal response based on simple ratios! Ratios are only valid for rectangles. As soon as you angle one wall, you can no longer use ratios to predict modal response.

So if you want to use rations, then your room must be a rectangle, or if you want a complex shape then rations are no use.

In any event, the "three types of control room" you mention do not appear to be shapes for the actual inner isolation leaf of the room. Rather, they seem to be the final shape of the acoustic treatment inside the room, which has little or no effect on modal behavior.

i have provided 2 plans for the design

It would be better if you start using SketchUp for your designing, as that is sort of the "standard" format for this forum: If we all use the same thing, then it makes it very easy to help each other, without having to learn new programs.

Or maybe i dont have to worry that much about reducing the volume of the CR and go for a smaller size?

In general, a bigger room will always sound better than a smaller room. However, if you also need the vocal booth, then you don't have much choice: you will have to make the control room smaller. But small control rooms can also sound very decent, if designed properly.

Also, i have viewed several CR room designs.. I have made a few drawings and would like to know.. Is there basically some preferred shape to serve for better acoustics or it depends on the treatment at most?

Rather than specific shapes, there are a few basic concepts for control room design, that lead to groups of shapes. One common concept that you'll see very often here on the forum and in other places too, is called "RFZ", for "Reflection Free Zone": The basic idea is to angle the walls so that all of the first-order reflections are directed past the engineer to the back wall, where they are absorbed (in small rooms) or diffused (in large rooms), so the engineer only hears direct, pure, clean sound from the speakers. RFZ is normally combined with the concept of "soffit mounting" or "flush mounting" the main speakers, since that greatly improves the clarity, the bass response, and the imaging while also minimizing many of the artifacts caused by speakers interacting with the room boundaries. So if you combine those two concepts, that leads to a certain basic room shape.

If you do some more research on RFZ, you should be able to come up with a good shape for your control room. Then, by trying to fit that shape into your available space in various ways, you should be able to come up with a plan that also allows you to fit in the vocal booth.

- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

if i am to design a CR with an octagonic shape, lets say No.3 from the pictures i provided before, and the final walls and treatment is the actual shape of that CR,

Then that would be a mistake! Those are not the final inner-leaf walls of the studio, but rather the final shape that you see around you AFTER TREATMENT. The treatment is not considered when figuring out the isolation. Treatment and isolation are two different and opposite things. Isolation stops sound getting out, and treatment fixes the problems created by that. On your "octagonal" shape, the two rear diagonal cut-off corners are where your bass traps go, and the two front diagonal cut off corners are where your speaker soffits go.

The actual inner-leaf of the room should still be the rectangular shape.

And if you DO make the room inner-leaf non-rectangular, then you can no longer calculate your room ratios and room modal response: As soon as the walls become non-parallel, you can no longer use simple spreadsheets or calculations to predict the modal response. It gets to be a LOT more complicated if your room is not rectangular with parallel walls.

- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

Sorry for the average drawing, i dont really have much time to work on them to perfection.

That's fine for now, as a rough sketch, but you really will need to spend LOTS of time on getting all the details right in the design, before you start building.

Im wondering what should i do with the desk? Should i bring up to the speakers and than leave some empty space behind the listeners position or push the desk down and leave some space in the front?

The basic rule for correctly positioning the desk is this: the listening position (where your head is) must be about 38% of the room depth (distance from front wall to rear wall). You then fit the desk in comfortably in front of that location, and arrange the speakers so that they are also positioned and aimed correctly at your ears.

So it isn't about moving the desk and speakers around to fit other things in: it is about putting the desk and speakers where they belong acoustically, then fitting in the "other things" around that.

Im worrying that reflections from the desk and the hardware wouldnt help too much if i do the latter..

If you lay out the room correctly, with the speakers and desk in the correct relationship, at the correct heights and angles, then that should not be a problem. And if it is a problem (due to poor design of the desk), then there are things you can do to help with that too. But it should not happen if everything is designed correctly.

Also, if you have noticed, there is a blue strip in the top right corner of the room which represents a window that goes from the ceiling to the floor. As far as i understand, that acoustically is not very good. Should i plan on taking that window out and building a brick wall at that place?

That window will be behind your right speaker soffit, so it is basically out of the picture entirely, and will not serve any useful purpose. If the glass is thick, one single pane, does not open, and is well sealed, then you can probably leave it there. Otherwise, yes, replacing it with brick would solve the problem.

I have still not dropped the idea to do the CR sideways, that way the table would be almost in front of the wall mounted speakers and would spread the angle, but what would you guys say?

If that were my room, I would not do that. Spreading the speakers far apart, at very large angles, means that your sweet spot is very narrow, that the stereo image breaks down easily, and the sound stage is greatly exaggerated.

I would keep the basic orientation the way you have it now, but adjusting the positions of the speakers, desk and chair to fit the correct positions and angles.



- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

this one is more of a spammy garbage thread

We'll, I'm sorry you think the advice we gave you here was "spammy garbage"! I checked it over again, and didn't find anything that was either "spam" or "garbage", so I don't see the need to delete it, especially seeing that we put a lot of effort into replying to your questions.

It seems I'm not alone in that opinion, as your thread has had more than 1600 views, even though there are only 13 posts in it, so there's more than a hundred people who found it interesting...


- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

decently sounding space for music endeavors in my bedroom (is that in any case a good idea?)

If that's the only space you have available, then that's fine. It's better than no place at all! And it can be treated to make it better, for sure. It won't be fantastic, but it can still be good.

First of all - the owner has insulated 5 cm of the outer walls with 703, but left the inner side wall painted.

Do you mean that he attached 703 directly to the walls, so the surface that you see inside the room is the surface of the 703?

If so, then you have 2 options: Take off the 703 on that wall, or put up the same thickness of 703 on the other wall that doesn't have it.

There is a door in the right corner of the room which totally messes up my possibilities for bass trapping..

Some other people who have the same situation as you build a bass trap on wheels, so they can wheel it out of the way to open the door, then wheel it back in place for critical listening.

I have questions about the bed being in that particular position though.. How badly should it interact with room acoustics?

The bed is fine. It will probably help the acoustics, since the sheets, blankets, mattress and pillows all have some level of absorption. However, I would suggest that you do a REW test in the room with only the bed in it, before you start treating it with anything else, so you can see how it is behaving with the bed in it. That way you can decide on what else needs to be done that the bed isn't doing.

I was planning for a diffuser on the back wall but reading through posts here found out that in a small room like this a diffuser would do more harm than good, is that correct?

It depends on what frequency it is tuned to. If it is tuned so that the wavelength of the lowest tuned frequency is less than one third of the distance between the diffuser and your mix position, then you should be OK. However, you might find that it would then be tuned too high to be very useful. You also want to have at least ten feet between the diffuser and the mix position (about 3m), regardless of how it is tuned.

Instead of the diffuser im thinking about several large Helmholz+absorber builds (sort of like a 2 layers - panel by the wall and absorber on top of it.

How would you tune them? What if that wall is not at the correct pressure-peak location for the frequencies that need treating most? Do you really want to have huge boxes sticking out of the wall, right above your bed? I would suggest that you just put thick absorption on that wall: 6" or more of proper OC-703 would be good.

I will set up the desk

The arrangement you show is not good. The speakers should never be on top of the desk: They should be on speaker stands behind the desk. The stands must be very heavy (massive), and the right height so that the speakers are 1.2m above the floor. That 1.2 m measurement refers to the acoustic axis of the speaker, not the top or bottom of the cabinet.

Another thing I want to talk about is the cloud

From the SketchUp images, it looks like you are planning on a space-coupler design for your cloud. That can work, if designed carefully, but it is much easier (and probably more effective) to just do a hard-backed cloud with thick absorption on both sides (above and below). You can still have your lights in there if you want, as long as they are not at the actual first reflection point.

4. The floor is wooden parquet with a large carpet on it. Should I get rid of the carpet? I have read various thoughts about this one on the forum..

Do a REW test with only the bed and the carpet in there, then another test without the carpet. That way, you'll be able to see what the carpet is doing, and then you can decide if it is useful or not.

- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

It's 703 put in-between aluminum frames and screw covered with gypsum boards, then painted. I am thinking about adding the same layer to the opposite wall. I believe that should help the acoustics of the room.

That doesn't make a lot of sense! I'm still trying to understand what he did. Is the entire wall done like that, or just some panels that are hung on the wall? In other words, is there a aluminum frame across the entire wall (floor to ceiling and side to side), filled with 703, then that entire frame is covered with drywall? If so, that sounds like it was perhaps meant to be an isolation wall, but doing it only one side of the room doesn't make much sense. On the other hand, if there are just some framed panels hanging on the wall, that makes even less sense!

Maybe you can post some photos?

Maybe you have a certain speaker design you really fancy and that has proven to be very good? Would you recommend buying professional stands or going for a custom build?

One very easy way is to just stack some bricks in the right location! Many people do that, then wrap the bricks with fabric, or wood, or some such to hide them. There are several examples on the forum. Another option is to get or make hollow steel stands, and fill them with dry sand for the mass. The bigger the cavity inside the steel, the better. One other is to make them from large diameter PVC pipe, such as sewer pipe, and fill that with sand, then wrap with fabric.

They key issue is that it has to be as heavy as you can possibly make it, and built to the correct height so that the acoustic axis of the speaker ends up 1.2 m above the floor.

As far as i understand they just have to be MASSIVE, with other qualities not being very influential, right?

Correct. Massive, and the right height for your speakers. One method that I've been meaning to try (but haven't got around to yet) is to fill a Sonotube with concrete and use that. That's about as massive as you can get!

help me later on with working out the first reflection points and the cloud thing?

Sure! That's what the forum is all about! Helping people who want to make their rooms as good as they can possibly be. So look around the forum at what other people have done for their clouds, use the ideas and concepts you see there to design your own that will fit your needs, then post the design here for comments. The main thing about a cloud is that it needs to be large, and located over the area between the desk and the speakers. If it is hard-backed, then it makes sense to angle it (lower over the speakers, higher over the desk), but even if it is not hard backed then it's still a good idea to angle it.

I will do multiple measurements and tests and share them with you guys

Great! Looking forward to seeing those tests.

- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

Sounds like it would work OK.

3. THE BIGGEST concern is the fixing of the steel pipe to the bottom part. The load of the sand would be quite extreme.

If you are concerned about the huge pressure of the sand at the bottom (as you should be!), then you could divide the pipe into two sections, top and bottom, so that each section only has half the total head of sand above it. Much lower pressure at the base. Just place a steel disk inside the pipe, half way up, and tack weld it in place.

Another option would be to weld a steel plate to the bottom of the pipe, to close it off completely and take the pressure of the sand. You could even use that steel plate as the base that the entire things stands on, instead of the wood. Or still use the wood.

Another option would be not divide it, and just fill it with concrete, instead of sand. The concrete will set up inside, bonding to the metal, so there won't be a pressure problem at all.

1. Is the stand massive enough for the speakers?

It sounds pretty massive to me, but did you do the math? calculate the mass of the sand+pipe, and see how that compares to the mass of the speaker. If you are concerned about not having enough mass, then use a bigger pipe!

2. I still cant decide if the top and bottom parts arent too small.. Maybe i should go for a bigger pipe and therefore the top and bottom covers?

Or you could keep the same size pipe and just make bigger wood circles...

Have you considered stability? The base plate might need to be a bit larger to ensure that the stand is stable, and won't fall over if bumped.

But overall, it looks like a good plan to me, if you can iron out the kinks. Another option: the pipe does not necessarily have to be cylindrical: it could be rectangular section, which would allow you to fit in more sand (or concrete) for roughly the same size...


- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

Sounds like you have thought this through really well! 115 kg is massive by any standard, and being ten times heavier than the speaker itself is excellent. As far as I know, there's no published research on this type of ratio, but I try to make the stand at lest three or four times as heavy. That means that even if the speaker is solidly coupled to the stand, vibration in the stand will be limited to just a fraction of vibration in the speaker itself (F=MA and all that), and with Sorbothane decoupling pads, there will be practically no coupling in any case. So I'd say you are good to go with that plan!

Please do post photos of the construction and finished product, so others can see how you did it.

- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

I actually contacted the Sorbothane engineers and got the information i needed.

That's actually what I was going to suggest! They know their product, and can give you the recommendation real quick. They have an application you can download to calculate it, but even then it's not so easy, as you need to understand a lot of technical jargon, look up stuff about your speakers in the manuals, estimate resonant frequencies, and suchlike. It's a lot easier to just call them! Glad they helped you. My guess is they suggested a few small pads to go under the corners of the speakers?

I also ended up designing a DIY desk for my room.

Looks pretty neat!

has possibility to design some more racks on the bottom parts

Good idea! But for things down in the legs of the desk, I normally slant the rack rails and the front edge of the legs a bit, so you can see the front panels of the gear you have there, and operate it more easily.

The same applies for the rack mount areas on the top surface of the desk: It looks like you already did angle that, but it's also a good idea to check the visibility of those panels from the mix position, and also take into account light glare from overhead lighting, to ensure that you won't always be leaning forwards, backwards and sideways to see and operate the controls on the gear.

- Stuart -