TMS New Studio Plan

[bentms]

Ok Guys so first a little background, I am a third of a production team called TMS operating out of Chiswick in London, UK. We have been writing and producing pop music for a variety of acts over the last ten years (see here for our discography). We've finally decided to move studio for a variety of reasons and are in the process of viewing different properties, making plans and costing stuff up.

The way we work is generally to split the studio between one large writing/production room, and a medium sized mixing/production room.

The Mixing Room is a typical 'in the box' mixing/production room. This room needs to be as sonically accurate as we can get it, whilst at the same time being an aesthetically pleasing room. The main speakers will be Barefoot MM27s. The volume in here is generally 85db although it occasionally gets up to approx 100db. We do not have a mixing desk and work pretty much exclusively in the box. There will be a few keyboards and synths dotted around and we may overdub guitars/bass in the room on occasion but generally it is a room for mixing and final productions.

The Writing Room is set up in a circle, almost like a living room, with a ton of different instruments (Organ, Piano, Rhodes, guitars etc) all set up and ready to record, plus a little corner for recording vocals.

Generally with this room the priorities from most important to least important are:

Vibe/Comfort: It sounds a bit hippied out, but this is the numero uno thing here, it needs to be bright and airy during the day, yet also cosy and chilled at night, everyone needs to feel part of the process, and we don't want anyone sitting staring at the back of our heads for an entire day whilst we "make a beat". This is a writing room, it needs to be an inspiring, inclusive, fun space.

Recording: We need to be able to do final vocals in here, as well as recording all our instruments.

Production: As with all modern pop music, the production is part of the writing process, we have 2 macbook pro/UAD apollo setups on the go here, with two of us building up drums/sounds/riffs whilst at the same time working out melodies/lyrics etc with the Artist/Topliner. To cater for this in our current room we have one moveable setup which can be wheeled to any of the different instruments, and one more static setup around an 88 note keyboard.

Speed: The technical/recording process must not get in the way of the creative/writing process. We need to be ready to record any instrument/vox as and when its needed, not fussing changing mic positions etc.

Sound: It needs to sound great, we won't necessarily be mixing in here but we will be working up production ideas, so we need to be able to hear what we're doing accurately, and equally importantly the sound needs to be inspiring so that people are encouraged to write. The main speakers in this room will be Barefoot MM27s. It would be great to keep us a bit away from the speakers and the artist/topliner a bit closer so that they can listen loudly without us being deafened in the process. Volume wise we probably listen around 85db 75% of the time around 90-95 db 20% of the time and >100db 5% of the time.

We have found a building that we quite like the look of and I have started to sketch up the floor plan so that I can begin costing the build up to see if it is in our budget.

The building is a three storey affair of which we will have one or possibly two floors. Without drilling into the walls it is hard to say exactly how they are constructed but given the age of the building I would imagine they are a typical cavity wall construction.

The floors are made of solid concrete, again without drilling i'm not 100% sure of there exact construction but I imagine they are a solid reinforced design.

The roof seems to be a steel beam construction with board and tiles. Although again it is hard to say for sure.
The roof on the top floor is sloped as can be seen in the pictures/3d models below.

I have mocked up some floorpans so that you can see my first ideas on potential layout.

The height of the existing rooms are approx 2.82m

The first plan is the building as is. What is there cannot be moved as it is a rented building so we cannot knock down the existing structures.

The second layout is a simple mixing/control room based on Sepmeyers best room ratio

The third is an attempt to maximise room volume and the use of windows, also to simplify the construction as much as possible.

Outside Building 1.jpg

Outside Building 2.jpg

3D Model Existing 1.jpg

3D Model Existing 2.jpg

Overall Existing Plan.jpg

Existing 3rd Floor.jpg

3rd Floor Ratio Plan.jpg

3rd Floor Maximise Plan.jpg

So my questions are as follows.

Am I better to stick closely to the ratios for the mix room or I am better off maximising volume?

Given that the barefoots cannot be flush mounted is there any advantage to angling the walls or am I better of leaving the room rectangular so I can predict the modes?

If I leave the shell rectangular is there an advantage to treating the room with angled slot resonators to create an angled wall or am I better of using simple absorption for the first reflection points?

Is it worth planning the treatments at this point or shall I have an idea of all the options and then once the shell is built test the room and treat according to the results? As an aside I already own 12 GIK Soffit traps and and 32 GIK 244 Full Range Traps so it would be great to use them in the new design.

Given that the external walls are cavity walls, how do I avoid ending up with three leaf walls in places?

Looking at the existing layout am I missing a trick? is there a better way to lay this out?

Am I making life harder for myself by utilising the 3rd floor which has the sloped ceiling as opposed to the 2nd floor which has concrete floors and concrete ceilings (i.e the 3rd floor floor) and straight walls? I would like to use the third floor as that is where the kitchen is and we can also utilise the roof garden when the weathers good and go write songs out there However its not worth it if its gonna cause me major problems.

I'm sure Im gonna have a lot more questions but thought this was as good a starting point as any.

Ok sorry for the long post, thank you all so much in advance for any help you can give me, and congrats on an amazing forum.

I hope this build can add to that wealth of knowledge

Thanks again

Ben

[Soundman2020]

Hi Ben, and welcome! Great first post, by the way.

It looks like you have a nice space to work with, albeit with low ceilings, but not "deal breaker" low. You also have some lofty goals, so I suspect you have a pretty good budget for this. You didn't mention that, but I'm assuming...

This room needs to be as sonically accurate as we can get it, whilst at the same time being an aesthetically pleasing room.

Yep! That can be done. The CR isn't all that large, so it there will be limitations on what can be achieved, but it can be pretty good.

Without drilling into the walls it is hard to say exactly how they are constructed but given the age of the building I would imagine they are a typical cavity wall construction.

Tap on them with your knuckles. Are they hollow-sounding, dull, "thuddy"? Or very hard and solid sounding?

The floors are made of solid concrete,

Excellent! However, it does seem that you will be on an upper floor (meaning not a floor that is resting directly on Mother Earth), so that might be an issue for isolation, especially if you will be playing instruments that create impact noise or strong vibrations, such as drums, percussion, bass, etc.

The height of the existing rooms are approx 2.82m

That's great for the CR, but it would have been nice to have more height for the LR. But still very usable.

I have mocked up some floorpans so that you can see my first ideas on potential layout.

I would suggest changing that and trying an alternative layout that makes better use of space, also gives you better sight lines, and simpler construction. Here's one possibility:

Existing 3rd Floor-NEW2.jpg

Except I would add a large window in the front wall, and probably consider angling the front part of the side walls for a true RFZ-style room, with windows in those too.

Am I better to stick as closely to the ratios for the mix room or I am better off maximising volume?

Ahh! That's the million dollar question, isn't it? It is usually better to go for greater volume if possible, but modal behavior is also important, and so are sight lines, accessibility, HVAC, and several other factors. That's one of the decisions that might change several times during the design process for a top quality studio, as different trade-off scenarios are tried and modified, then modified again. I sometimes try a dozen different layouts before settling on one, then end up adjusting it numerous times during the process, as I add more and more parts to the design. Off hand, for that space I would probably go with an RFZ-style based on staying reasonably close to Sepmeyer-1, and maximizing volume as much as possible, while also taking into account the HVAC, which I would probably put overhead here, to make the best use of space. But that's why the design process can take so long: You are juggling dozens of things at once, trying to optimize all of them, and by prioritizing and a series of successive approximations, you get to the final design.

Given that the barefoots cannot be flush mounted is there any advantage to angling the walls or am I better of leaving the room rectangular so I can predict the modes?

Modes are important, but don't get too hung up on trying to predict them accurately. The question is, what would you do one you did predict them? If I am going for an RFZ-style design, I generally start out basing the room on a rectangle with something close to a good ratio, then adjust the dimensions as needed. You'll have to treat the lower modes anyway: that's a fact of life. Splaying walls for RFZ, CID, NER or other similar design concept can help you with that, since it reduces the Q of the modes to a certain extent, "smearing" them, and it also adds some extra tangential modes, which can be a good thing. Just make sure you don't end up with a square section for any major portion of the room, or a section that is mathematically related in the wrong ways, as outlined by the ITU and EBU papers.

If I leave the shell rectangular is there an advantage to treating the room with angled slot resonators to create an angled wall or am I better of using simple absorption for the first reflection points?

Perhaps, and perhaps not. I'm not a big fan of having tuned devices close to the engineer's head, but I'm also careful about having uneven absorption coefficient profiles at first reflection points. So that's another one of the balls that you have to juggle, in this case if you take the decision early on to NOT go with an RFZ-style design. It might even turn out that you plan to use pure absorption, but after you test the room in the final tuning stage, you decide that you need to switch to slot walls. Lots can happen between the predictions for the initial design, and the actual final acoustic response of the room. It frequently doesn't end up the way it was predicted, so it's better to build the shell, test, add the basic treatment, test again and compare, then design the next stage of treatment. Rinse, repeat.

Is it worth planning the treatments at this point or shall I have an idea of all the options and then once the shell is built test the room and treat according to the results?

There is basic treatment that you will always need, without any question, so you might as well design that in initially, from the start. But I always prefer to do extensive testing once the shell is finished and throughout the tuning process, to make sure things are working, and also to see what still needs fixing at each point.

As an aside I already own 12 GIK Soffit traps and and 32 GIK 244 Full Range Traps so it would be great to use them in the new design.

They can certainly be used, either in the CR or the LR. There will be place for them!

Given that the external walls are cavity walls, how do I avoid ending up with three leaf walls in places?

Simple answer: you can't. Unless you are permitted to take off the drywall form the existing walls (unlikely!), you are stuck with the fact, and will have to compensate instead. 3-leaf is not a death knell. It's just a "Damn it!" moment, since it means complications in design, and a deeper pocket for the extra materials and labor. It is possible to compensate for that sad state.

Looking at the existing layout am I missing a trick? is there a better way to lay this out?

See above. There are a couple of other ideas that occur to me, but I think the one above makes the most sense, except maybe for access.

Am I making life harder for myself by utilising the 3rd floor which has the sloped ceiling as opposed to the 2nd floor which has concrete floors and concrete ceilings

Possibly, but not necessarily. It will be more complex to work around those sloped ceilings, and there's the big issue of how the roof is built, which could have a negative effect on isolation. Bottom line: it will be more expensive to do the same thing up on there. Whether or not the increased cost is justifiable, give the benefit of the roof access and the kitchen, depends on you. Just one more ball to add to the juggling show... It might be easier to incorporate a kitchenette into the second floor design... (Add yet another ball) ...

I'm sure Im gonna have a lot more questions but thought this was as good a starting point as any.

That's what we're here for!


- Stuart -

[bentms]

Wow!!!! Soundman what can I say, thats one hell of a response, thanks so much for taking the time buddy, its incredibly appreciated.

Ok so........

You also have some lofty goals, so I suspect you have a pretty good budget for this.

Haha well spotted, no I didn't mention the budget on purpose, I would rather design it to be as good as it can possibly be, cost it all up properly and then start to cut back if I have to. But yes we have some budget to play with, although of course the cheaper the better

Tap on them with your knuckles. Are they hollow-sounding, dull, "thuddy"? Or very hard and solid sounding?

The walls sound very solid, I believe them to be of a typical modern construction like the below but I have no way of telling at the moment if they have insulation in the cavity.

modern cavity wall.jpg

Excellent! However, it does seem that you will be on an upper floor (meaning not a floor that is resting directly on Mother Earth), so that might be an issue for isolation, especially if you will be playing instruments that create impact noise or strong vibrations, such as drums, percussion, bass, etc.

Yep I agree, unfortunately there isn't an option that works on the ground floor, luckily below (or above us depending on which floor we choose) will be our managers office who is used to us making a lot of noise. The bigger concern for us the isolation between the two rooms, although as far as I can see floating the floors is not worth the hassle and expense and without a structural engineer I don't even know if its possible so I think we will just have to make do.

I would suggest changing that and trying an alternative layout that makes better use of space, also gives you better sight lines, and simpler construction.

I really liked that layout as well when I first started playing around with options, unfortunately this isn't a typical live room, control room situation. It is better to view what we are trying to achieve as two separate multi use studios (One more writing/recording based and one more mixing based). As such access to each room without having to walk through the other room is very important. Often we are working on two completely different records in the two rooms and we do not want artists etc to have to walk through one room to get to the other.

Off hand, for that space I would probably go with an RFZ-style based on staying reasonably close to Sepmeyer-1, and maximizing volume as much as possible, while also taking into account the HVAC, which I would probably put overhead here, to make the best use of space.

Thats exactly the kind of advice I'm on this forum to receive!!! I will have a go sketching up something like this and maybe try and add in some HVAC designs into my drawing. Then you guys can pick it apart for me

Splaying walls for RFZ, CID, NER or other similar design concept can help you with that, since it reduces the Q of the modes to a certain extent, "smearing" them, and it also adds some extra tangential modes, which can be a good thing. Just make sure you don't end up with a square section for any major portion of the room, or a section that is mathematically related in the wrong ways, as outlined by the ITU and EBU papers.

Cool I think I get it, as stated above i'll have a go and see how I get on. From what I understand to create a true RFZ ill need to slope the ceiling as well, is that correct? Also is it better to angle the actual inner shell walls or is it better to leave the shell rectangular and create the angle walls from HF reflecting material, wood etc and then have bass trapping behind?

There is basic treatment that you will always need

Ok just to make sure i'm on the right path you mean corner/tricorner low bass trapping, early reflection points, ceiling clouds and rear wall absorption/diffusion?

3-leaf is not a death knell. It's just a "Damn it!" moment, since it means complications in design, and a deeper pocket for the extra materials and labor. It is possible to compensate for that sad state.

Ok good to know, and yes you are correct I can't really mess with the existing walls.

Possibly, but not necessarily. It will be more complex to work around those sloped ceilings, and there's the big issue of how the roof is built, which could have a negative effect on isolation. Bottom line: it will be more expensive to do the same thing up on there. Whether or not the increased cost is justifiable, give the benefit of the roof access and the kitchen, depends on you. Just one more ball to add to the juggling show... It might be easier to incorporate a kitchenette into the second floor design... (Add yet another ball) ...

Ok yep, thats as I suspected, I'm gonna have to think on this for a bit, I think I might go all out first and if it proves to be impossible move the design to the second floor.

Soundman, once again, thanks so much for your help, you're the man

Ben

[Soundman2020]

Wow!!!! Soundman what can I say, thats one hell of a response, thanks so much for taking the time buddy, its incredibly appreciated.

The walls sound very solid, I believe them to be of a typical modern construction like the below but I have no way of telling at the moment if they have insulation in the cavity.

You should be OK with that. I thought you might have been referring to typical USA construction, with wood framing, siding on the outside, and drywall on the inside. You are much better off with what you have!

although as far as I can see floating the floors is not worth the hassle and expense

Right!

so I think we will just have to make do.

You could build a low drum riser to isolate your drums and percussion, and something similar to isolate amps and other things that would otherwise be sitting directly on the floor. Keeping the impact noise and direct vibration out of the structure will go a very long way to improving your isolation in general.

It is better to view what we are trying to achieve as two separate multi use studios

Fair enough, but I still think you might have other options that make better use of the space.

I will have a go sketching up something like this and maybe try and add in some HVAC designs into my drawing. Then you guys can pick it apart for me

Cool! "Picking plans apart" is my middle name, actually...

From what I understand to create a true RFZ ill need to slope the ceiling as well, is that correct?

Not necessarily. Sometimes I do, but sometimes it is easier to hang a large, hard-backed ceiling cloud over the area between the speakers and the desk. That does the job reasonably well. Hang it at an angle, and it works well.

Also is it better to angle the actual inner shell walls or is it better to leave the shell rectangular and create the angle walls from HF reflecting material, wood etc and then have bass trapping behind?

I usually do both, to improve the use of space and sight-lines, if I can. Sometimes I just do a rectangular shell for the inner leaf, then add the soffits and angles within that, and sometimes I angle the inner-leaf walls a bit as well. Don't forget that you need space to mount your speakers, so you can't angle the actual inner-leaf wall completely!

There's also a bit of confusion and blurring of terms here, since the soffit baffle in fact becomes the new inner-leaf, once it is completed... mostly.. sort of... Your modal response and acoustics are taken from that baffle... mostly! And from that point of view, you have a 3-leaf system at the front of the room... sort of ... kinda... maybe... But if you think about it, from the point of view of the speaker, it is still only a 2-leaf system...

Confusing!

Ok just to make sure i'm on the right path you mean corner/tricorner low bass trapping, early reflection points, ceiling clouds and rear wall absorption/diffusion?

Right. Plus treatment for SBIR for those people who don't go with soffits for their speakers.

Soundman, once again, thanks so much for your help, you're the man

Happy new year to you!


- Stuart -

[bentms]

Happy New Year!!! Hope you had a great night.

Today I have nursed a hangover gone to see Star Wars (its amazing!!!) and started on a new design.

You could build a low drum riser to isolate your drums and percussion, and something similar to isolate amps and other things that would otherwise be sitting directly on the floor. Keeping the impact noise and direct vibration out of the structure will go a very long way to improving your isolation in general.

Cool, will bear that in mind when I get into some further details

Not necessarily. Sometimes I do, but sometimes it is easier to hang a large, hard-backed ceiling cloud over the area between the speakers and the desk. That does the job reasonably well. Hang it at an angle, and it works well.

Ahhh thats a good idea, I've seen it done in a few studios, could add some fancy lighting too!! Will do some searching to find some nice designs.

Confusing!

You said it, but hey no pain no gain!!

Right so below is an updated design attempting to take your comments into consideration, one showing some basic treatments and one showing a very rough HVAC plan.

I've tried spinning that basic room shape around every which way but I can't find a spot other than this that gives each room its own access and doesn't turn the other room into a weird unusable space.

TMS Studio ALT 3 HVAC.jpg

TMS Studio ALT 3.jpg

The HVAC will go straight up out of the cupboard and through the roof, I will incorporate some inline fans within the cupboard on the way to the roof. I would probably also stick an "on the wall" quiet air conditioning unit in the actual studio as I have them already from the old studio. This way you should get fresh air and temperature control, plus the unit inside the studio will help circulate the fresh air a bit and stop it just going straight from back to front. I've attempted to balance the soffits to keep the room as symmetrical as possible at the early reflection points, and although its hard to see on the small images above I've allowed for large openings into the ducts/soffits so I can pass a low velocity, but high volume amount of air through the room, hopefully keeping it as quiet as can be.

I've angled the walls 6 degrees each, and added a front window.

I've added some simplistic ideas for acoustic treatment, basically 100mm insulation with 100mm air gap and a bunch of Superchunk style corner absorbers, but I could really do with some help on that front as it feels particularly unrefined. Do I even need all that absorption on the front wall if the walls are angled like that? Also if thats all absorptive is it going to be too dead? Will that thickness of material do enough to tame the low end? Generally what do you think? Is there a better way?

One quick question about the forum, how do I resize my screenshots to 700px and stop the image looking blurry? Im using photoshop and the highest quality JPG but they just seem to lose the detail?

Thanks as always for all your help

Ben

[bentms]

Hi sorry to bump this, just wondered if you had any thoughts on the above. No stress if you're busy just thought you might have missed it.

Thanks a million

Ben

[Soundman2020]

Right so below is an updated design attempting to take your comments into consideration,

That looks a LOT better! But I would also consider modifying that shape to waste even less space, and improve sight lines: you only need to splay the side walls as far back as the mix position: after that, then can remain parallel. That increases total room volume, which is a good thing.

You can also then splay that front part at a much higher angle, which is also a good thing: it gices you the basis for an RFZ style design, which is about as good as it gets!

Doing that would allow you to straighten out the room, so it is facing more perpendicular, less angled, thus improving your sight lines. Right now, you can see only less than half of the LR from the CR. By changing that angle and perhaps making the room a little longer, you could increase that to over half, maybe around 2/3 with luck.

Next, you need to complete your MSM system properly. Right now, you have it correct around the front of the CR, as far back as the door from the passage into the LR, but from there on it falls apart. You do need to get that fixed, or your isolation will be very poor.

Ditto for the LR: you have no isolation at all there!

The same with your doors: you only have one door at leach location, but you need two of the, back-to-back, one in each leaf. Without that, you get very poor isolation.


HVAC:

The HVAC will go straight up out of the cupboard and through the roof, I will incorporate some inline fans within the cupboard on the way to the roof.

Where will the fresh air come from? The closet can't create fresh air all by itself... That's a tiny little closet, and youa re asking it to supply air to a room that has twenty times the air volume...

Those fans have to suck in fresh air from somewhere! Many building codes do not allow you to pump air from one habitable room into another: you might need to have an intake some place that vents from the outside world, or at least from a large internal area, such as a common passage, stairwell, or some such. Check your local building codes: it might turn out that you need an external air intake, on the outside wall or on the roof.

Ditto for your exhaust air: you cannot dump the stale air from one habitable space into another habitable space. Same reasons. Same solutions.

I would probably also stick an "on the wall" quiet air conditioning unit in the actual studio as I have them already from the old studio.

Usually referred to as a "mini-split" system. That's fine, but where will you put the condenser unit ("outdoor unit" / "heat pump" ... different names...) On the roof? On a bracket on the exterior wall of the building? Interior patio?

Also, you will need two such systems: one for the control room, the other for the live room, and they need to have different capacities, suitable for the room volume, occupancy, heat load, and the local climate.

You only show the HVAC plans for the CR: you'll need to do the same for the LR, and the volume of air you need to move through there is much larger.

plus the unit inside the studio will help circulate the fresh air a bit and stop it just going straight from back to front.

You WANT it to go from the back to the front! That's the whole point! The air flow has to be at the correct flow rate (cubic meters per second) and the correct flow speed (meters per second) for the room size. You MUST do the math here! You can't just guess... Those numbers will dictate the size of the ducts you need (don't forget to allow for the thickness of duct-liner on the inside!), the sizes of the silencer boxes, and the sizes of the registers. The speed has to be kept low enough such that it does not produce any unacceptable air noise, but the rate has to be kept high enough to supply the needed O2 to keep you alive, while removing the CO2 that is trying to kill you, along with all the other unwanted gasses and odors.

above I've allowed for large openings into the ducts/soffits so I can pass a low velocity, but high volume amount of air through the room, hopefully keeping it as quiet as can be.

The concept is correct, but using the word "hopefully" tells me one thing: you did not do the math! You can't skip that step. It is critical. Fresh air is sort of important for human beings: we seem to have this bad habit of passing out and dying when we don't get enough of it....

Also, I don't see your silencer boxes anywhere. Did you forget them? They are a critical part of your HVAC system. Without those, your rooms will be very noisy...

I've angled the walls 6 degrees each, and added a front window.

The front window is great, but see above about sight lines. And the 6° angle is the minimum you need... but that's for flutter echo, not for RFZ! RFZ needs much larger angles (which is why you should only angle the front part of your side walls).

I've added some simplistic ideas for acoustic treatment, basically 100mm insulation with 100mm air gap and a bunch of Superchunk style corner absorbers, but I could really do with some help on that front as it feels particularly unrefined.

You probably have about the right total amount for that room, but in the wrong places. You need it as panels on your first reflection points, in between your speakers and the front wall, and across the entire rear wall, as well as on the ceiling in places, and perhaps other locations too.

That would be the "standard" initial treatment, but after you get to the point you should test the room with REW to see what more needs doing.

Do I even need all that absorption on the front wall

Yes, but probably not in front of the window!

Also if thats all absorptive is it going to be too dead?

No, provided that you put it in the right places! There are equations, calculators, rules of thumb, and guidelines for determining the right amount of treatment for YOUR room, to get the decay times down to the correct range for THAT size, and in the correct locations to kill flutter echo, control overall decay, deal with first reflections, etc.

Will that thickness of material do enough to tame the low end?

No, but that's the price you pay for having a small room! It will do a lot to tame your biggest modal issues, a little bit for SBIR, a lot for overall decay times, but there will still be issues, with the usual rises and dips in frequency response that are common to all small rooms, simply due to the size. There are ways of dealing with that even further, but no small room will ever be perfect, or even close to perfect. You can only get great acoustics in a large room. That doesn't mean that your room will be BAD! Not in the least. It just means that you won't have ruler-flat decay times and frequency response curves, nor perfect phase response, etc.

Generally what do you think? Is there a better way?

Yep! Use a bulldozer to clear the lot, and build a much larger place! But I'm assuming that is out of the question...

Seriously, room tuning is half science, half art. It's not as easy as it looks. All rooms are different, and each needs its own specific treatment. There is no such thing as "one size fits all" in acoustic treatment (despite the marketing hype of some vendors of treatment products!). You should take it in stages, using REW at each step to see how you are doing, and what still needs to be done.

One quick question about the forum, how do I resize my screenshots to 700px and stop the image looking blurry? Im using photoshop and the highest quality JPG but they just seem to lose the detail?

That's because you are using photoshop and the JPG! Try saving them in PNG format instead. Also, try using higher quality re-sizing tool. I don't know photshop very well myself, but you should be able to get much better quality that that.

Also, in SketchUp, make your text font size bigger, so it is easier to read, and export it as 700 pixels wide right from there, so you don't need to resize it at all!


Overall:
I'd suggest that you should do some research on the HVAC side of things, since that seems to be a weak point right now, and also on the principles of MSM isolation, as there seem to be issues with that too, then take a closer look at the RFZ-type designs on the forum, to see how the angles work.

That should get you on the right path!

sorry to bump this, just wondered if you had any thoughts on the above. No stress if you're busy just thought you might have missed it.

No problem. But I'm not able to be on the forum much at present, since I now have several studio designs that are keeping me very busy, for paying customers. I'm sure you understand that they get first priority! I only get around to answering threads on the forum in my spare time, which unfortunately is rather scarce at present! I wish I could do both, to be very honest, as I love helping out on the forum, and I love designing studios for my customers, but I also do need to eat every now and then, and sleep for a few minutes every week or so, and have a bit of private life too!


- Stuart -