New shapeshifting facility in Brooklyn

[toprale]

Hola guys!
After years and years of reading books and forum... I am here.
Asking of you to give me some tips and pointers because honestly i've worked on this and for this to happen so much.... That i think i migjt have lost perspective..
My main concern is the control/mix room which i know.. It is quite small... You will see 2 different possible lay outs that i thought of and would like to know your opinion. I lean towards using the long side, given that i can get the window away from a reflective zone, it is a more awkward set up, ( see couch ) and also thr fact that i would have to move back with my chair to see the live rooms... But i think at least theoretically it should give me less problem from an acoustical perspective.
I have improoved a few rooms in the past and noticed that the correct layout could be very unpredictable... So here i am torn cause i need to decide the window placement according to my set up. Also in an attempt to minimize low freq standing waves i am thinking of using fiberglass insul on my cieling with 1 foot gap and layed directly on simple.tracks that would run along the iron beams( on the cieling) then wrapped in fabric.
THE CIELING IS 12 ft tall, sorride i couldnt show it in the pictures....

Please do let me.know your thoughts on this!!
Really love this forum!

Thank you !/

Alessio

Ps: please excuse my poor design skill and software.... I will get noto learning a new one .... But you know... The studio build is my full time job now.. Hehe

[toprale]

Trying to delete this post...bare with me...

[toprale]

Hey Guys, i know this isn't very detailed and i an asking a fairly simple question; please do let me know if i am missing anything you night need.
In here i can tell you a little bit more about the space and its usage, just for fun !

Studio42Brooklyn is as you might understand located in Brooklyn precisely in the east are of the Greenpoint neighborhood.
It is in a commercial building with other offices, studio, post production houses. The structure i mostly concrete.
My space is approx 825 sqft and what i do there is recording audio and video, produce albums, record drums and have photo shoots as well. I ve been there for 2 years now and did basic remodeling that in and of it self sent me straight at the hospital! ( i still run the place alone).
I have had the concept of the space in mu head for years and i finally have some budget to carry on the idea that will have to keep into account acoustical properties as well as visual versatility for video by using different colours and surfaces. So as you can see is pretty tricky and rather a good challange!
Here you can see what i ve been doing there so far with the current layout consisting of open control room/liveroom plus a drum booth.
Http://www.studio42brooklyn.com
I am currently still in phase of bidding ( i cannot do the work myself because of board regulatuons.....)
I cannot tell you how challenging is to find an honest contractor in NY these days...
I am ready to go as soon as i find one to build out the basic layout of the place, in the meantime i will work at desining the acousticsl treatment for the rooms or at least the things i know for sure i will need ( bass trapping broadband absorbers).
My previous question relates to the window positioning in the cntrl room as it will dictate my orientation in the room, just wanted to get the ball rolling and some.reassurance on the decision i will make.
I hope its enough background infos for you guys!

Thank you so much!

Ale

[Soundman2020]

Hi Ale, and Welcome!

If we are talking only about the control room shown in the diagrams, then I would definitely go with the first option, NOT the second option. Set it up to have the control room oriented down the long axis of the room, with the speakers firing down the long axis too. You always want as much distance as you can get between your head and the wall behind you, to ensure that the reflections coming back at you from that wall are delayed as much as possible in time, reduces as much as possible in intensity, and diffused as much as possible. Ideally, you want at least enough distance that the reflections arrive later than 20ms after the direct sound, and more if possible, to ensure that they are outside the Haas time, and therefor won't distort your perception of direction and frequency.

However, there seem to be much better layouts for your studio, especially if you have 825 ft2 to play with, as 12 foot ceilings! That's a nice size space, with beautiful ceiling height: If designed properly, it could be really, really good. Even in the control room design you show, there are several things that don't make a lot of sense as shown, and could be improved. Also, the diagram shows what appear to be sliding glass doors at the front of the control room: What is on the other side of those? Do you need to open them?

I would ask: Of the internal walls shown on your diagram, which ones already exist and cannot be moved, and which ones CAN be moved? I can think of quite a few things that could be done to improve that place, but the direction you could take it depends on the existing walls....

Also, what is the purpose of each of the rooms labeled "Room 1" "Room 2" and "Room 3"?


- Stuart -

[toprale]

Hi Stuart !

Thank you so much for taking the time and for reassurance on the first option.
The 3 rooms you see are the main idea of the studio, meaning: they are separated by movable walls of which 2 of them can be completely detached and used as gobos or stored away in front of the vocal booth. The wall that devides rooms 2 and 3 wod pivot and fold against the back wall. This way the space becomes incredibly versatile for big live video sessions/photoshoots and tracking big drums if needed.
The space as of now is pretty much open, i would have to push a wall a few feet to shrink the bathroom the way you see it on the first plan.
I will attach a plan with the current layout.

I thought of this layout because of the usage,budget and to feature the movable walls feature in a way that was affordable... Those things are costly and keeping them the same size helps me a bit...
Having said that, i am still very curious about what you have in mind

Thanks again !

[toprale]

Hi Ale, and Welcome!

If we are talking only about the control room shown in the diagrams, then I would definitely go with the first option, NOT the second option. Set it up to have the control room oriented down the long axis of the room, with the speakers firing down the long axis too. You always want as much distance as you can get between your head and the wall behind you, to ensure that the reflections coming back at you from that wall are delayed as much as possible in time, reduces as much as possible in intensity, and diffused as much as possible. Ideally, you want at least enough distance that the reflections arrive later than 20ms after the direct sound, and more if possible, to ensure that they are outside the Haas time, and therefor won't distort your perception of direction and frequency.

However, there seem to be much better layouts for your studio, especially if you have 825 ft2 to play with, as 12 foot ceilings! That's a nice size space, with beautiful ceiling height: If designed properly, it could be really, really good. Even in the control room design you show, there are several things that don't make a lot of sense as shown, and could be improved. Also, the diagram shows what appear to be sliding glass doors at the front of the control room: What is on the other side of those? Do you need to open them?

I would ask: Of the internal walls shown on your diagram, which ones already exist and cannot be moved, and which ones CAN be moved? I can think of quite a few things that could be done to improve that place, but the direction you could take it depends on the existing walls....

Also, what is the purpose of each of the rooms labeled "Room 1" "Room 2" and "Room 3"?


- Stuart -

Forgot to answer this...

The purpose of room 1 would be upright piano (yamaha U3) but should also be suitable for upright bass or percussions.
Room 2 mostly drums or grand piano ... So variable acoustics would be ideal..
Room 3 any other acoustic instrument, bigger drums, bass players going into DI's keyboard players and elect guitar players ( only players not the amps unless in overdubs or iso box )

[toprale]

Here a video of the scale model for the project. Its main purpose is for the crowd funding campaign that will hopefully help me out with the Budget!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRQpSgDZ4nc

[toprale]

Here we go i keep going. Have some more specific questions here.

1. I have this elevator noise problem being close to one of the walls. ( see pics ) now, i know that some of the vibrational noise will still be present because i am not flooting my floors for now but still, i want to make sure that airborne sound will be left outside. The plan is to gut the whole wall out ( mostl because its hollow with no insulation ) re build the entire wall with 2 layer 5/8 sheet rock with green glue in between also resilient channels and iso clips. I wonder if the use and expense on the channels and isolation clips is a actually going to deliver tangible results.

2. Going around the column with sheet rock or leave it alone and just end the walls on its sides?

3. I 've decided to build super/doors instead of double doors, i think it would be a lot less work and deliver similar results.


4. The control room windo is actually 6' long and not 5 as stated in the drawings, I would like to use a RFZ approach in the control room using the long side
how do i know if I have enough space to place the window away from a reflective area without having played with speaker placement in the room itself?


5. In the plans you can see the different type of walls, would like your input, does it seem correct ? am I missing something huge somewhere?


Thanks!

[Soundman2020]

The thing I'd be most concerned about with your current "sliding walls" plan, is the lack of isolation. You will not be able to get much isolation like that, because it will be near impossible to achieve sufficiently good seals at the top and bottom of the walls segments, and also at the joints where they meet.

For example, you mentioned having drums in one room and a piano in an adjacent room, or perhaps an acoustic guitar: I very much doubt that would work. There will be abundant bleed of the drums into the piano mic or guitar mic. Those walls won't be able attenuate by much more than maybe 35 to 40 dB, leaving 70 or 80 dB of drums to get into the piano mic...

Then there's the major issue of acoustic treatment: since all of the walls are basically just glass panels, there is no place to put the large amounts of acoustic treatment that such tiny rooms would need, so the internal acoustics would be pretty bad: very live, lots of reflections, no diffuse field at all, long decay times, etc.

There's a reason nobody has done a design like yours before in a high-end studio: it doesn't provide enough isolation or usable acoustics to justify the cost. Most studios that have a single large space that they need to divide up for recording several instruments at once, do it using gobo's on wheels.

I'd really suggest going with a more conventional layout, as I can't see that one as being feasible.

1. I have this elevator noise problem being close to one of the walls. ( see pics ) now, i know that some of the vibrational noise will still be present because i am not flooting my floors for now but still, i want to make sure that airborne sound will be left outside.

There's not much you can do about that at all: Since you are not doing full decoupled "room-in-a-room" design, structure borne noise is going to be all over you, regardless of what treatment you do in the rooms. In addition, you don't have any usable wall area to do treatment, so you wouldn't be able to do that either!

Reducing airborne noise when you have major structure-borne vibrations is sort of like using an umbrella to stay dry at the bottom of the ocean...

This is not good news, I know, but it is reality.

The plan is to gut the whole wall out ( mostl because its hollow with no insulation ) re build the entire wall with 2 layer 5/8 sheet rock with green glue in between also resilient channels and iso clips. I wonder if the use and expense on the channels and isolation clips is a actually going to deliver tangible results.

That would be a good plan for isolating the wall, yes. Except that you do not need both resilient channel and also iso clips! One or the other, but not both. They both do the same thing. If you use clips, then you need hat channel not resilient channel, and if you use resilient channel, then you do not need clips.

However, since the elevator vibration will be in the floor, ceiling, other walls, windows, and HVAC system, that wall won't actually do a lot. The vibration will flank around it.

3. I 've decided to build super/doors instead of double doors, i think it would be a lot less work and deliver similar results.

What is the load rating for your floor? Can you safely add all of this huge amount of extra weight that you will need? Have you checked that with a structural engineer? We are talking about adding thousands of pounds of mass here, to do all that you say you want to do, so the very first thing you need to do is to find out if your floor is rated to take that.

4. I would like to use a RFZ approach in the control room using the long side how do i know if I have enough space to place the window away from a reflective area without having played with speaker placement in the room itself?

With RFZ, there is no need to play with speaker placement: the speaker goes in the soffit, at the exact point where it is supposed to go, and the soffit is exactly deep enough to allow that, with the correct margins around it. Then the mix position also goes exactly where it needs to go, based on the soffit and speaker angles, and room dimensions. The soffit angles and splay wall angles are determined mathematically, and based on that you ca decide where to put your window.

5. In the plans you can see the different type of walls, would like your input, does it seem correct ? am I missing something huge somewhere?

Basically, the more mass you put on the two leaves or your wall, then the better the isolation. The greater the depth of the air gap, the better the isolation. The more complete the decoupling, the better the isolation. The more damping there is on the leaves, the better the isolation. The more insulation fill in the cavity, the better the isolation. And the better the seals, the better the isolation. So for good isolation you need massively dense leaves that are fully decoupled from each other and well damped internally, separated by a large cavity that is filled with suitable insulation, and sealed absolutely air-tight several times over.

I can't see how you can achieve any of that that with movable walls...

- Stuart -