Basement studio planning

[mds]

Just thought I'd give this a little bump to see if anyone had any thoughts about my last mockup. Thanks guys!

[Gregwor]

This should work. You just need to plan for a crazy thick rear wall of treatment. Obviously we push for soffit mounting speakers too. So basically just treatment planning is what you need to do.

Greg

[mds]

This should work. You just need to plan for a crazy thick rear wall of treatment. Obviously we push for soffit mounting speakers too. So basically just treatment planning is what you need to do.

Greg

Thanks Greg!

How crazy thick for the rear wall? Is this a necessity just due to the size of the room or just general good practice? Curious how to implement this around the doorway into the little kitchen area and around the couch. Is there a way to integrate the walled off kitchen area into some sort of bass trap (just a random thought, haha).

I'm a little hesitant to do the soffit mounting, though i know its well regarded here. Aside from the cost and complexity of building the walls themselves, I'm not sure I want to shrink my room anymore than I have to. I'm a producer/songwriter and composer and have lots of instruments to litter the place with, haha.

Thanks!

[AVare]

You are afraid to loose space by flush mounting.
What are you going to put between the monitors?

[Soundman2020]

How crazy thick for the rear wall?

How usable to you want your room to be? Usually, the rear wall has very large bass traps in all three corners, and the rest of the wall has at least 6" of suitable insulation on it, or perhaps 4" of insulation with an air gap of another few inches behind it. Professional studios, and even good home studios, often have two of three feet (or more) of treatment on the rear wall. Often, there are several "layers" of treatment in there, such as panel traps up against the rear wall, then hangers or plain thick insulation in front of that, sometimes in different densities and with air gaps between them, then usually fabric to hide all that ugly stuff, and often wood slats or perhaps diffusers in front of that.

Here's an example of a forum member's studio that is currently under construction, and nearly complete: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 7&start=30 Take a look at the rear wall treatment: it is 21" deep in the middle, expanding out to 35" in the corners.

I'd go out on a limb here, and say that, after soffit mounting your speakers, then next most wonderfully effective thing you can do for your studio is to treat the rear wall massively. If you want a room that doesn't sound good and doesn't translate well, then leave the rear wall untreated and only treat the side walls and ceiling.... If you want a room that has good acoustics and where your mixes do translate well, start by treating the hell out of the rear wall, then add some more minor stuff to the side walls and ceiling

Is this a necessity just due to the size of the room or just general good practice?

Its necessary of you want good acoustics. Take a look at professional control rooms, or even the numerous well-built home studios you see all over the forum, and you'll get an idea about how important the rear wall is.

I'm a little hesitant to do the soffit mounting, though i know its well regarded here. Aside from the cost and complexity of building the walls themselves, I'm not sure I want to shrink my room anymore than I have to. I'm a producer/songwriter and composer and have lots of instruments to litter the place with, haha.

As Andre already hinted at, you aren't really losing space at all: there's nothing you would normally do with that space between and around your speakers in any case, except to install acoustic treatment, so there's nothing lost... an everything gained! Flush-mounting your speakers is arguably the best single thing you can do for your room, if you want great acoustic response. If your speakers are sitting on stands in the room, they are producing a series of artifacts that are basically impossible to fully treat, simply because they are IN the room. When you flush mount them, they are technically NOT in the room any more, so they cannot create any of those artifacts. That cleans up the sound greatly, and in addition adds other very useful acoustic effects, such as extending the low end response of your speakers, tightening up the bass, creating an RFZ around your head, etc. There really is no down-side to it, except the cost of the materials and the time it takes to build it. But after that, it is pure benefit, in every way.

In addition, you have plenty of space! Your room is bigger than most hoe studios, at 20 feet long and 13 feet wide: 260 ft2 is probably about twice the size of many home studios: Your room is the ideal candidate for soffit-mounts, and also for extensive rear wall treatment.

Here's a view of the same room as above, towards the front of the room, showing the soffits:

STVNOUS--Room-front--SML-ENH.jpg

Feel free to ask Steve (the owner) about how it is sounding in there right now, compared to how it was before with the old treatment and the speakers on stands.... The reason I'm showing you that specific room is because it is very similar in size to your room. About a foot wider, but a little shorter.

- Stuart -

[mds]

You are afraid to loose space by flush mounting.
What are you going to put between the monitors?

Not sure I was thinking it that clearly through, haha. I think I was just generally unsure about shrinking the walls, but I suppose the soffit walls aren't really eating up that much space anyway, which I suppose was your point!

While I'm at it, should I also consider splaying my side walls 6 degrees each? This seems like it has less consensus but I'm learning!

Thank you all so much!

[Soundman2020]

While I'm at it, should I also consider splaying my side walls 6 degrees each? This seems like it has less consensus but I'm learning!

Not necessary. It wastes space, and doesn't accomplish much anyway. Splaying your side walls is useful for treating flutter echo, but that's about it. However, flutter echo can be treated a lot easier by just putting absorption or diffusion on the walls, which you will need to do anyway! So splaying your walls is an "extra" treatment for a problem that you won't have in any case...

If you do go with an RFZ design concept, then you can use "wings" on the soffits to accomplish both purposes: create RFZ and also kill flutter. You can see those in the image above, for Steve's place. The wings are angle far more than 6° to get the RFZ right, so they also kill the flutter. It doesn't look like it from that photo, because of the angle it was taken, but the wings are angled much more than the soffit faces.

- Stuart -

[mds]

How crazy thick for the rear wall?

How usable to you want your room to be? Usually, the rear wall has very large bass traps in all three corners, and the rest of the wall has at least 6" of suitable insulation on it, or perhaps 4" of insulation with an air gap of another few inches behind it. Professional studios, and even good home studios, often have two of three feet (or more) of treatment on the rear wall. Often, there are several "layers" of treatment in there, such as panel traps up against the rear wall, then hangers or plain thick insulation in front of that, sometimes in different densities and with air gaps between them, then usually fabric to hide all that ugly stuff, and often wood slats or perhaps diffusers in front of that.

Here's an example of a forum member's studio that is currently under construction, and nearly complete: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 7&start=30 Take a look at the rear wall treatment: it is 21" deep in the middle, expanding out to 35" in the corners.

I'd go out on a limb here, and say that, after soffit mounting your speakers, then next most wonderfully effective thing you can do for your studio is to treat the rear wall massively. If you want a room that doesn't sound good and doesn't translate well, then leave the rear wall untreated and only treat the side walls and ceiling.... If you want a room that has good acoustics and where your mixes do translate well, start by treating the hell out of the rear wall, then add some more minor stuff to the side walls and ceiling

Is this a necessity just due to the size of the room or just general good practice?

Its necessary of you want good acoustics. Take a look at professional control rooms, or even the numerous well-built home studios you see all over the forum, and you'll get an idea about how important the rear wall is.

I'm a little hesitant to do the soffit mounting, though i know its well regarded here. Aside from the cost and complexity of building the walls themselves, I'm not sure I want to shrink my room anymore than I have to. I'm a producer/songwriter and composer and have lots of instruments to litter the place with, haha.

As Andre already hinted at, you aren't really losing space at all: there's nothing you would normally do with that space between and around your speakers in any case, except to install acoustic treatment, so there's nothing lost... an everything gained! Flush-mounting your speakers is arguably the best single thing you can do for your room, if you want great acoustic response. If your speakers are sitting on stands in the room, they are producing a series of artifacts that are basically impossible to fully treat, simply because they are IN the room. When you flush mount them, they are technically NOT in the room any more, so they cannot create any of those artifacts. That cleans up the sound greatly, and in addition adds other very useful acoustic effects, such as extending the low end response of your speakers, tightening up the bass, creating an RFZ around your head, etc. There really is no down-side to it, except the cost of the materials and the time it takes to build it. But after that, it is pure benefit, in every way.

In addition, you have plenty of space! Your room is bigger than most hoe studios, at 20 feet long and 13 feet wide: 260 ft2 is probably about twice the size of many home studios: Your room is the ideal candidate for soffit-mounts, and also for extensive rear wall treatment.

Here's a view of the same room as above, towards the front of the room, showing the soffits:

STVNOUS--Room-front--SML-ENH.jpg

Feel free to ask Steve (the owner) about how it is sounding in there right now, compared to how it was before with the old treatment and the speakers on stands.... The reason I'm showing you that specific room is because it is very similar in size to your room. About a foot wider, but a little shorter.

- Stuart -

Thank you so much for your detailed post! As much as this is a room for me to write and record in, I also do a lot of mixing so getting the best acoustic design I can manage is certainly important. I'd intended to do superchunks in the corners (typical 2' triangle), but it sounds like I should plan for a thicker treatment in the back. Perhaps a 2' square in the corners is a good start. I've alway done RFZ setups in the past with good results and had intended to do this here.

I'm sure I'll be back with more questions. Thank you!

Mike