Is this a feasible idea?

[TerrorFiend]

OK, if you remember my plan (I'll put it below again) maybe you can tell me if this idea would work or if it's completely crack-brained

My plan has only one acoustically designed room, which I intend to be the tracking room. This leaves me with a wierd shaped control room with no acoustic treatment. (I was going to use furniture and portable acoustic panels hanging on the walls/windows to absorb and diffuse when mixing).

Is there any reason I can't change the design so the acoustically treated room is symmetrical, and use it for mixing as well as tracking. (I'd wait until I wanted to do the final mix, then move the stuff in.)

I could use stand mounted monitors, and a cordless mouse and keyboard on a portable desk (Look at the computer monitor through the window). And maybe an effects rack on wheels?

It'd be a pain in the A**, but If it was only once every blue moon when I wanted to do the final mix for a cd...?

Im sure you'll probably see 20 things wrong with this idea straight away, but I want to make sure.

The main thing I'm trying to decide on is whether or not to change my plan before proceding.

Thanks!

[dymaxian]

It's not crazy. You could change the angle of the wall with the doors between tracking and control to match the angle on the other side of the control room if you wanted. Or you could do the opposide- swing the wall on the "bottom" of your plan up until it is symmetrical with the door. The second might be the best- the greater angles will direct more sound to the rear of the room.

So why is it you can only afford the treatment for one room? Just money? If that's the case, get or build some temporary, mobile absorbers for tracking, and then when you get the money put permanent stuff into control- having a tracking room with acoustics you can change easily is a good thing. Just give yourself enough time to scrape together the funds for treating the control room later on.

But yeah- do what it takes to make the control room symmetrical, or your stereo image will suffer. It's not too terrible as it stands now, but it wouldn't take much to fix it either- at least it wouldn't take much before you build this...

[TerrorFiend]

The reason I'm only building one room is because I need room to live!

I'm moving in here once it's completed, and all that room to the left of the tracking room is taken up by couches, bed, tv, kitchen sink etc.

The symmetrical design would look something like one of these, though :

[knightfly]

There's lots of one-room studios, you find quite a few work-arounds (like Pods, etc) - the lower of your two plans will sound best, but have a bit less room. Those extra splayed walls will make good traps - the outer brown wall should be a double leaf wall, then the inner splays should be NOT hermetically sealed; part could be panel traps, part broadband absorbers, and part slat absorbers... Steve

[TerrorFiend]

That sounds good, but unfortunately it's not an option

Please go here.

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 3823#13823

[knightfly]

Man, remind me NEVER to try and make a quiet studio starting with a brick wall, what a PITA...

I would think that probably the best you can do here is to make either or (preferably) both of your added leaves as heavy as you can afford, and plan on inside additions for bass trapping, etc - for one thing, that brick wall WILL detract from low frequency isolation, even if left vented - there's no way enough of the bass energy that gets through your added walls can HELP but be partially trapped in the gap between brick and inner walls, so you will lose isolation at lower frequencies. The only way I know of to compensate for this is to make your OTHER two leaves as heavy as you can.

Looking at your pics, I'm wondering what your isolation plan is for ceiling - can you explain/draw it? Including how it will interface with the leaves of the walls... Steve

[TerrorFiend]

Yeah it really sux

This is how my wall/ceiling arrangement should look (see below). The alluminium roof is flimsy and thin, so it is not at all plart of my isolation plan. As with the wall, I just treated it as if it weren't there.

Also, which of the plans below do you think I should use? The bottom one is virtually the same as the other, except that the angles in the room are made by vented panel traps, hanger boxes etc. and NOT sealed while the other plan uses the inner wall to make the angle.

If I'm going to need a lot of trapping as you say, maybe the bottom plan is better? Or will the narrower airgap make things worse?

[knightfly]

I'd think the bottom plan would work best for isolation and acoustics - I'm still, however, not completely giving up on getting some use out of all that mass in the bricks - I'd thought I'd asked this before, but couldn't find it either here or in your other thread in acoustics, so here goes - do you still have access to the outside of those brick walls, or only part of them? And, would you be up for filling the holes in the brick and adding a heavy layer of stucco over the outside of your brick walls? If you could do that, I think you'd get plenty of isolation by using the brick as your outer leaf (sealed with stucco) and then mounting your inner wall frame free-standing (except for sway brackets) - this would likely increase your usable floor space and still let you use the angles of your CR for traps, etc -

Also, what did you fill in the original garage door opening with; didn't see pix of that side. is it also brick, or??!?

The place already looks amazingly better than the first pix, congratulations... Steve

[TerrorFiend]

Thanks man, you're really helpful.

The place where the garage door is will eventually be bricked in, but luckily I don't have to pay for it. My sister is getting a $112,000 extension in a few weeks and is a little short of cash right now, but I think the plan is to brick it in eventually.

Yeah, I can still access the OUTSIDE of all the brickwork, except what's up under the eaves (Actually, the eaves are screwed on so I COULD get them off with a lot of work.) I'll post a few more pics so you know what I'm talking about.

I'm not sure I understand how you propose to seal the air gap between the brick wall and wooden stud wall off from the ceiling. (Which is about as airtight as a sieve.)

[TerrorFiend]

The second pic shows where the garage door used to be. (The 'Bunnings' stuff is insulation foil, used as a vapour barrier).

The bottom pic is the place now, ready for drywalling.

[knightfly]

"I'm not sure I understand how you propose to seal the air gap between the brick wall and wooden stud wall off from the ceiling. (Which is about as airtight as a sieve.) " -

I'm not sure either; in fact, I don't know where you're talking about. Can you do a pic AND a drawing of that area? Long-distance construction is sure different than hands-on, and NOT in a GOOD way...

All I'm saying on the stucco idea is that it seems a shame to waste valuable floor space if you can utilize that mass for one of your leaves - it would require cleaning off the outside of all your brickwork, doing an acid wash (muriatic acid cleans the masonry enough so new stucco will stick properly, you'd need to be careful as this stuff is NOT friendly) and then sealing the bricks totally with the stucco layer.

Achieving a seal where these walls intersect with other parts of the building would depend on what's already there, and how it's fastened/arranged.

This whole idea may be more than you want to deal with, and sticking with your original plan may work out best after all - I'm only offering possible alternatives which may or may not even be feasible; if you're interested, it will take several more posts to determine if any of this will work for you.

At this point, the best thing happening is your continuing education (in sound control) as to what works and what won't; that way, you (being right there looking at your situation) will be better able to decide what's necessary and whether any of my suggestions will work for you (or why NOT) -

If you can show me what you're wondering about on that "sieve", that would be great... Steve

[TerrorFiend]

This is a cross section of one of the walls. The air space I'm talking about is at (A). The problem is that I can't seal it off from (B).

If I could do the job over, I would cement render the inside of the garage, so that the bricks were smooth, put up the ceiling rafters, and attach the plasterboard ceiling, making sure it went all the way to the brick, but not quite touching, and cutting out notches for those brick piers. Then I would seal it with caulk so its airtight. After doing that I could have done what you suggest and used the brick as an outer leaf.

Damn I wish I'd thought of that at the beginning.

This diagram doesn't show those annoying brick piers, which resulted in me having to build several smaller wall frames, that fit in between them. (See the photos).

[knightfly]

Not seeing any "A" or "B", were they in one of the other drawings? Also, I was talking about rendering the OUTSIDE of the brick since I see you've already covered the inside... Steve

[TerrorFiend]

Sorry! Here's what I meant. (see below)

Yes I understood what you meant by rendering the OUTSIDE of the brick wall, but unfortunately the problem still lies in sealing off A from B.