Home Studio Design

[dcailean]

Hello,

I am faced with the following project/situation.

One room from my apartment is considered as a home studio. I use it mainly to record digital (and rarely acoustic) guitar for my hobby musical projects besides the normal computer work. I have and will never intend of performing audio mixing or any other similar process.

Recently I finished repainting and renovating my apartment, so this room got refreshed. It is now basically blank. Prior to this operation I had installed two bass traps placed in the upper corners of the front wall and a studio foam going all around the walls at ear height starting from the right wall, going behind the monitors and all the way to the back of the left wall in one single line (please see below for more details and the room configuration).

What I want to achieve
A basic functional acoustic treatment which would suffice for home digital guitar recording. I am realistic and I know I can't get the best treatment that can also look good and be cheap. I'm looking for an acceptable compromise.

Room details
I know... this is probably the worst configuration I could have - boxy room. 11 squared meters. It's what I've got.
Still, here are some details about its composition. Orientation is as entering through the door.

• Left wall (behind the couch) - Reinforced concrete
• Front wall (behind the desk) - Outer apartment wall (not sure of its composition) with some old foam (? - not really sure) trapped behind a plasterboard
• Right wall (with the window) - Aerated concrete
• Back wall (with the closet) - Aerated concrete
• Floor - Laminate flooring
• Ceiling - 5cm sound isolation foam covered with platerboard (sorry about the RO URL, couldn't find it on other international websites)

I have created a 3D model in Sketchup and I've attached 3 angles which I think are relevant but can provide more if requested.
The source .skp file can be downloaded from my Google Drive link and can be viewed with the free Sketchup Viewer.
The measurements are fairly accurate, give or take some cm.

Audio monitors
Yamaha HS7, having the following settings:
ROOM CONTROL -2dB
High Trim -2dB
Level +4dB

Their placement is at the ends of the raised platform on the desk.

Known issues
I am certainly no expert in this field, but from all the posts and articles I've read, I could identify some items that I know cause issues and to which I may or may not have a solution.

1. Window - It's currently not covered with draperies or anything soft - this is something I could address in the future
2. Closet - Apart from leaving it open when I want a more accurate sound, there's not much I can do about it. I can't move it or anything.
3. Desk position - The studio monitors might be a bit too close to the back wall. After I removed the old foam I noticed I have a fatter sound, which is to be expected since the echo in the room is much more audible. Not sure if it would be mitigated with the new acoustic treatment (agnostic of the positioning of the monitors?) or I should build a new desk and move it a bit farther away from the wall. This would be doable.
4. Solid floor - If it would make such a big difference, I could consider a rug or something soft.

Any suggestions here?

Considered so far
While browsing around through the stuff which is available in Romania I stumbled upon Sonitus's products. I really like the design of their Natur line. Although I do prefer function over form, I do intend of trying to take into account the visual aspect as much as possible. One physical limitation is the length of my right hand side corner, in which I can't fit any bass traps with a side larger than 30cm. This rules out the Natur bass trap they have available, since that one's larger. Also, the space between the door and left wall is even smaller than 30cm, so I can't fit any bass trap there without having to manually reduce its size.

As shown in the 3D model, I tried to evenly space out 6 tiles (the Natur line comes in packs of 6) to absorb medium frequencies, plus added 2 bass traps where the old ones used to be. Apart from that I was thinking of adding some high frequency absorbing tiles on the ceiling, but I'm not sure if they would have any effect.

That being said - I am basically seeking help with a more accurate and correct configuration. I do imagine I might have a ton of issues, but any help and tips would be greatly appreciated.

Budget: ~ $1000

Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance and kudos for all your work with this forum. Pure gold.
Warm regards,
Doru

[Waka]

Welcome to the forum Doru!

I'm sure you can get some help on the forum here. Having a blank slate to start with is great. Generally the goal in treating a room is to treat the biggest problems first and continue until you run out of money, space or patience!

That being said, what are your biggest problems? The only answer you could give at this point is: you don't know. And that's because you need to analyse your room in its blank state.

Thankfully the software for this is free and the procedure is documented by our very own Stuart here.

You will need to get hold of a measurement mic for the tests though and a speaker that puts out a fairly even signal. The details of suitable mics can be found in that link I gave you.

When you have performed the measurements, upload the results here and someone will take a look when they get a chance.

As a quick question first though: you are just treating the room acoustics right, you have no problems with noise escaping/entering the room?

The reason I ask is because if you need to improve sound isolation this is something you need to do first.

Dan

[dcailean]

Hey Dan,

Thank you for the prompt reply!

To answer your question first. As I mentioned in my post, I do have some sound isolation in my ceiling to keep any noise from my neighbours out. The stated level of isolation in the technical sheet of the foam I have installed is somewhere around 40dB. No isolation has been done to the walls and I can say that the room is quiet, but certainly not perfect. Extremely loud noises from outside sometimes barely get through. I also have a small gap below my door but I will fix it soon. Apart from that, there's not much else I can do at the moment since it would probably require another redecoration of the room with adding extra foam or isolating material and that's beyond the scope of my project. I do know this is an important aspect and it was certainly not overlooked.

Regarding the measurements. I need to purchase the microphone and sound level meter, after which I will get back with the readings. This will likely take a few days.

Cheers for the feedback and I will be back soon.
Thank you!

Doru

[dcailean]

Hello,

I managed to get my hands on the needed equipment and perform the measurements.

1. Microphone: Dayton Audio EMM-6
2. SPL Meter: Galaxy Audio CM-130

I followed the tutorial paying close attention to detail, so hopefully the readings are as accurate as possible.
Please find the calibration file of my sound card (Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 mk1) and the .mdat file at the following links (my personal Google Drive) as I could not upload them here due to extension and size restrictions.

1. .mdat file
2. .cal file

If anything else is required from my part, please let me know.
Thank you in advance for your help and looking forward to any feedback!

Warm regards,
Doru

[dcailean]

Bump in case anyone has time to review the files.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
Cheers!