Studio build in Sweden - Starting point, service request

[tgs]

We recently bought a former evangelical church building which will be transformed into a recording studio. This will be my third studio and I'm reading up on as much as I can (on this forum and also plowing through Rod Gervais' book), plus I have the previous build mistakes to learn from.

It's a large space that can be utilized so there are many options but it also makes it feel overwhelming and hard for me to figure out how to get started. So I'm looking for someone to help me out to make the best out of the space. I want to work out some solutions myself and I've played around a bit with acoustic treatment and other renovations in my previous studio, but I definitely feel that I need help with getting a starting point and a fundamental plan on how to proceed so I don't start out by wasting a bunch of money.

The room will need some prep work, there are large doorways that can be blocked off, large windows that I need to figure out how to deal with, a bunch of radiators which will need to be moved around, etc, so a floor plan is key to get started with that.

I can provide all the info needed of course. I've started learning Sketchup as well. I realize that this request seems a bit vague but I need to get started somehow and have a bit of an overall idea for the build. If anyone is interested in working with this, let me know. I will need an estimate of the cost for the service as well, and maybe some options when it comes to that (like the level of involvement so to speak).

I'll just give some basic info here so you know what we're looking at. I'm merely scratching the surface and I have a lot more info to provide so this is just to get a rough idea.

First off, here is a VERY crude Sketchup model that I'm working on:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/icn1n709hhc9 ... 0gC5a?dl=0

Some (not very good) photos as well:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ckkeyhvyddxl5 ... ..jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bpqy4bywocqns ... ..jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fg6484flxkz7z ... ..jpg?dl=0

The room is approximately 15x10m, ceiling height is approximately 7,5m at the highest point (vaulted ceiling). The sketchup model should be more accurate with these measures. Large windows along the long walls, a stage in one end of the room and a set of large doors in the opposite end, leading into the lounge and hallway (none of this included in the Sketchup model so far). Planning to have the control room in the latter end of the room and these doors can be blocked off and replaced by smaller doors. The entire space can be used for the studio alone; kitchen, lounge, bathroom etc are located elsewhere. I'll need a control room, a couple of iso booths, and I want to preserve as much of a large space as I can for a large live room/drum room.

It's a countryside house, or kind of in the outskirts of a small town. The next house is not very close and there's not really much outside noise in this area so sound isolation to/from the outside doesn't have to be fantastic. Isolation between the rooms is all the more important. I work mostly with metal/hard rock/punk so things get loud.

If anyone is interested in working with this, let me know and let's see what we can work out! Hope to hear from you.

Cheers,
Tore

[Gregwor]

You have a dream shell man!

I'm confused about how the exterior of the building looks completely different than the inside.

First things first, what's your budget like?

Secondly, you can either learn a whole bunch yourself here with some dedication to learning and putting in the hours, or pay someone huge money to do this for you (10's of thousands in design). I'd suggest getting as far as you can on your own (as learning is awesome) and keeping this thread alive by posting skp files and pictures and asking questions.

Your sketch up is certainly a start, but I'd suggest watching a handful of videos on it and screw around on it a lot more. It's very powerful and reasonably easy once you learn some of the basics. Here's a few pointers:

When you make something (like a 2x4 stud, or a piece of drywall, or a chunk of insulation), triple click it. It will select all of the faces on it. Then, right click it and make it a component. Now, you can move it around and alter it all you want with ease... rotating, stretching, etc. If you need a copy of it (like you'll need lots of 2x4 studs) but it needs to be different than the other one (in length or anything), you right click it and make it unique. Lastly, use layers. When you have components, you can select them and assign them to layers. You could make one "live room inner leaf framing" and "live room inner leaf insulation" and "live room inner leaf drywall". That way, you can just show/hide those layers which will allow you to peel back layers to let you see things better, or work on other parts without looking through walls. Also, I'm not sure if you've learned much about inference referencing. But it's probably the best part of Sketchup. So google that.

Basically, mess around with Sketchup and figure out some room layouts and decide which has the most pros and the least amount of cons. There will always be sacrifice. Think about the flow of your studio. How will you get from one room to another? Will I have to walk through one room to get to the bathroom? Consider the benefits of having a single sound lock. Things like that. Does the HVAC in the building support your needs for the studio. It's possible it does. You'll have to consider where the existing HVAC trunks are and how easily you'll be able to get them to where you need them. Maybe design around existing infrastructure to ease your expenses? Lots to consider, but with that comes a lot of time. Time = Money. There's no reason you can't sit down and run a bunch of scenarios and present them to the pros here and get friendly advice. I think the only thing holding you back right now is your Sketchup abilities. Once you get semi-proficient with that, you can figure out most of your issues on your own.

Get your inner and outer leafs figured out then worry about sound treatment. As long as your room ratios aren't bad, you're in great shape.

Greg

[tgs]

Thank you for your reply Greg! Glad to hear that you like the place, it's a lot of work ahead but I think it has a lot of potential.

The far part of the exterior shot is not included in the Sketchup model, it has a large lounge with a full kitchen, bathroom and hallway on the 1st floor (all will be used for the studio), and an apartment on the 2nd floor (where we will live). The vaulted ceiling basically follows the angle of the roof and there's an attic running across the entire building. Also a basement under the whole house, with several garages and tons of storage area.

Budget is always tricky. I'm thinking maybe $30k but I'm sure it will be a lot more in the end. The good thing is that I don't really need to do it all in one go, I'll keep running my current studio for now and will build on the new studio when I have time, so business will keep running. I also work primarily with mixing and mastering these days so as long as I have a functional control room first and foremost (quite eager to have that done as my current studio is now a 90 min drive away) I can build the rest when I have time, and can pump more money into the project as it comes in, so to speak.

Time is unfortunately my main issue. Apart from the studio work I do, I tour extensively as FOH so it's been difficult to have continuity in the project. That's also the reason why I'm a bit inclined to have someone help me design it. But you're probably right. I would actually really prefer to design the thing myself, it just feels very daunting at the moment. But I'll try to spend the dead hours on the next tour getting more savvy with Sketchup. Thank you very much for the tips regarding this; I went through the tutorial so I snapped up thing or two but I'll need to experiment more and I'll look more into the things you mention.

Regarding HVAC: the fairly cold climate makes things a bit easier as cooling is less of a general concern. The building has water heating system, currently run by burning wood but we're installing an air/water heat pump (don't know what it's called in English) in a couple of weeks. It's a 16kW system so we'll have a lot of options for how to run it, either with the existing radiators or install floor heating in some spaces. There's also an air/air heat pump installed already, I'm planning to extend the pipes for this and move the inside part to the control room. Of course, fresh air supply needs to be sorted somehow. But all in all, installation size should be of less concern, and the very generous ceiling height allows for things to be installed on top of spaces.

I've looked a bit at control room shapes. The "diamond" shape seems to be the most common, and right now I'm contemplating if I should build the control room across a corner or go on the middle of the short wall, maybe with booths on the sides or something like that. The control room is also what worries me the most when it comes to getting it right. With so many possibilities, I'm not quite sure where to start. Don't really know how big to make it and what ceiling height to go for. Are there any kind of "starting point" shapes for Sketchup that I could import into my model and play around with. I kind of feel like if I would start putting in walls in the model myself I'd get all angles and measurements screwed up.

Cheers,
Tore

[Gregwor]

Hey Tore!

Sounds like we have similar jobs (live sound and recording). It's awesome doing what you love but the hours kind of suck eh?

Anyway, regarding your control room shape question, with the open space you have, there's an easy way to determine the shape (roughly). One of the best and easier rooms to make is called an RFZ control room. Guys around the forum have kind of tweaked that concept a bit but it'd still be considered RFZ.
-soffit/flush mount your speakers. This means those walls that hold your speakers will be roughly 30 degrees (making a listening angle of ~60 degrees from one to the other. These walls are hard and large surfaces. Solid wood or even concrete. The bigger, the better. You're basically extending the face of your speaker, creating an "infinite baffle". This alone resolves about 8+ issues compared to having speakers sitting inside the room on stands. Here's a link to show that construction: http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Titles/Acoustics3.htm
-the "window" or "front" wall, however you want to name it, will be straight. It will also be a hard surface (could have an absorbent area on the lower part like Johns soffit wall design I linked above). This is so that it can deflect the sound away from your head.
-your "partial" wall (the ones between your speaker walls and your side walls) angles will entirely be determined on your ray tracing. Basically you need to make sure only the direct sound from your speakers hits your head, the rest need to be deflected around your head. (I set mine to 12 degrees and it worked out great).It will also be a hard surface (could have an absorbent area on the lower part like Johns soffit wall design I linked above). This is so that it can deflect the sound away from your head.
-your side walls can be straight or whatever works for your ray tracing/use of space/appearance. So far, a stepped type design has worked in my personal design. Just make sure these walls don't get closer together at the back of the room as that will cause a sort of compression effect. They can be whichever type of surface/treatment your room needs (see below).
-the rear wall can be whatever you want it to be. Just make sure it has a lot of space for treatment (hangers for example). The deeper the treatment, the lower the frequencies it can work with (you can do the math to figure out low long the 1/4 wavelength of frequencies are with ease.
-You typically want your room to be oriented such that the speaker fire down the long length of the room. This helps for several reasons, one of them being that in order to have your control room meet the BS.1116-3 specification, your reflected sound must return to your ears at a minimum of 20ms later than the direct sound. Again, calculating the speed of sound, you can easily figure out how long your room must be to achieve that (with only 1 bounce off your rear wall).
-your ceiling angles can also be determined with ray tracing (mind you, this one hurt my head to do as a 30 degree throw hitting a ceiling that was also angled confused me to figure out in SketchUp haha)
-Treatment itself (with an acoustically rectangular room), can be modelled easily with the Amroc Room Mode Calculator. SO, you can have a really close idea as to how your room will perform. From there, you can design pretty accurate treatment ideas. But throughout your build process, you can set up speakers and take measurements. Measurements are done using REW, which is free software, and there is a thread on the forum here somewhere that give you step by step instructions how to use it. This is ideal for building some specific slat resonator walls, tuned devices or things like adding a little bit of plastic here and there to rectify issues.


A month ago, I was in your exact shoes asking what the shape of my control room should be. With some reading and asking questions, you will learn so much about this stuff. It'll make you want to travel with adjustable acoustic devices to fix simple issues in the venues you mix at haha

Anyway, I hope that answered your control room shape question enough to get you going.

Greg

[tgs]

Aah, cool. What bands do you work with live if you don't mind me asking? Well I enjoy being on the road (luckily since I'm out more than I'm home) and I always liked being able to work with both. Before I started working with live sound I tended to feel very trapped in the studio, especially since it's all too easy to end up working 7 days a week when you're on production duty. Now when I focus more on mixing I can at least take out weekends.

Ah yes, RFZ. I have indeed noticed a lot of that around here. My current room is LEDE but sort of improvised, I didn't know enough when we built this studio so it's not optimal, but it works. RFZ should be interesting to work with this time, my only concern is monitoring: my mains today are Trident HG3 and from what I've read they are not recommended for soffit mount. Not sure how to interpret the "not recommended" thing though. At least they're ported on the front of the cabinet so it should work. Any ideas on that? Other than that, I usually like to have more than one pair of speakers for reference. How would a pair of free-standing speakers perform in an RFZ room? The ones I switch with today are Genelec 8040 (although I rarely use these at all actually) and NS-10.

Ceiling angles, yes... I'm a bit worried about working that out. May sound weird but mainly because I have SO many options thanks to the room I'm building in.

I've used REW a bit in the current studio and I've worked a lot with acoustic treatment. Really looking forward to working that out, especially in a room that is supposedly built to yield optimal results!

[tgs]

A little update here:

I've been messing around a bit more in Sketchup whenever I've found some time, which is sadly not often enough, but I'm starting to get a hang of some basic ideas at least. I've made a new model which is available in the same place as before if anyone wants to have a quick look: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/icn1n709hhc9 ... 0gC5a?dl=0

EDIT: the two picture files in the folder are just for reference, I used them to get some ideas of how to get started.

I've added in the current windows in the main hall, plus the doors that lead into the hallway and the lounge. These are huge doors and most of it will be blocked off eventually.

Now, as to floor planning, I was testing some different configurations today. I started out with a corner-based control room, which seemed alright at first until I realized that half the live room would out of viewing angle so it would be really weird. Instead I centered the control room on the short back wall. I tried out with the Sepmeyer and Lauden ratios, basing the design on 4m width. I tried to wrap my head around what happens when you start angling the walls though, and I guess this is when things start getting messy! I started out with angling the side walls 15% out, and using the mid-point of the wall as width reference to get an average width according with the ratios. Is this the right way of thinking? Anyway, I end up with a pretty wonky looking room and figured I might want to transition into a more shallow angle like halfway down the wall. Of course, now I start getting fairly confused with the ratios when using different angles. I looked around a bit to see how others have done it and it seems like I'm on the right track with the different angles, but I'm struggling with maintaining the ratios! Any tips on how I could get my head around it?

I've put in both the Sepmeyer and Lauden rooms in the model, on separate layers and just as a flat surface. 15 degree side walls all the way to the back. I'll mess around a bit with it tomorrow again.

[Soundman2020]

I realized that half the live room would out of viewing angle so it would be really weird. Instead I centered the control room on the short back wall.

Check your sight lines there too: I think you'll find that you have the same issue! Don't discard any design concept until you have tried it fully, in D, not 2D, allowing for speaker placement, walls, windows, mix position, etc. Here's an example of a corner control room that as good visibility of the live room: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=21368

I tried to wrap my head around what happens when you start angling the walls though, and I guess this is when things start getting messy!

Right! If you splay your walls, then neither Sepmeyer or Louden not any other ratio is fully applicable. There are tricks you can use to sort of estimate what the modal response will be with splayed walls, but it's not 100% accurate. However, you don't need to go crazy about getting your room ratio "perfect" since that is impossible anyway...

I started out with angling the side walls 15% out

You are wasting a lot of space like that. For a small room, then total volume of air in the room is probably more important than having a great ratio. Go for the largest volume you can get, reasonably, plus a decent distance between your head and the back wall, then adjust that a little to get a ratio that isn't too bad, and that's fine.

If you really do want to splay your walls for some reasons (eg, if you are going with an RFZ, NER or CID design concept), then only splay the front part of the walls, not the entire room length.

With a huge space like that as your starting point, I would try many, many layouts before settling on the best one. First get your priorities written down, in order tom highest to lowest, then optimize the overall layout and detailed design for those. For example, think about whether a large live room is more important than an accurate control room, or whether access for load-in / load-out is more important than sight lines, or whether storage is more important than isolation, etc. Think about all possible issues that could affect the final outcome of the studio, arrange them in order, and design according to that. This is the approach that I take with my customers when I'm designing a studio from scratch. Getting the priorities in order is the first step in coming up with an overall layout, and also guides the rest of the design process.

After all, if you are not sure where you want to go, then any path will get you there, but you might not like the destination! It's better to fully define the destination first, then figure out how you are going to get there.



- Stuart -

[tgs]

Thanks Stuart!

Alright, so I started out from recommended ratios but kind of stopped thinking about it as I started playing around with angles. I've tried out some different configurations. The thing with the corner room, IF it's angled at 45 degrees, the straight line of sight really just ends up at the third window on the long wall. It really blocks out a huge part of the room. I'll also point out, before it comes up, that I today have a studio with the recording room (and window) on the left side of the control room and I'm really tired of it. I want a window straight to the front for sure this time. I'd also like to preserve a bit of symmetry to go along with the church theme. So I've made a new VERY crude plan of room configuration, only flat blocks for now.

Some comments on how I've been thinking:

* I've always wanted a big live room so I've tried to conserve as much as possible of that. I also want a fairly large control room though and I quickly realized that this is harder to achieve than I thought without ending up really far into the live room.

* The dual airlock seems a bit stupid, but there's a problem with this house that needs to be solved: the large doors on the back wall lead into what will be the lounge. The smaller door on the left leads to the hallway. There is a door going from the hallway to the lounge, but it's a narrow doorway leading into a narrow passage, so any large furniture and whatnot can't get through. You can't get things in through the windows there either, so there has to be some alternative way to get into the lounge, through wider doors. This whole thing feels pretty stupid but it is what it is. I will of course not keep the huge doors, I'll block them off and with the example here I would put a smaller door just behind the airlock.

* I had the "airlock/storage" are blocked off into two rooms at first with a booth after the airlock. I scrapped that for a number of reasons: It would mean going through three pairs of doors to get from the control room to the live room, and having to have a booth functioning as a sort of corridor is not the best idea either. I don't really need storage space though, I have a ton of it in the house actually, but I guess it could come in handy anyway.

* I kept the current windows in mind when I worked out the rooms on the sides, especially the be able to have the light come in through the huge window into the booth if you wanted to. Also nice to not have to block off any of the windows in the live room.

* I played around with soffit mounting and a listening position 38% back into the room. At 60 degrees, the speakers ended up too close together so I increased it to...something else, hehe. But even so, I'm not all that thrilled about where the speakers end up because I was hoping for a pretty wide window, something that I'm missing in my current studio. I made the control room a bit deeper which moved the speakers apart a bit more, but the window would still be quite small. I don't really know how to proceed from there, it doesn't make any difference if I make the room wider either since it doesn't change the listening position. The only thing I could think of would be to increase the angle, but I feel like I'd be taking a step in the wrong direction with that.

Anyway, if anyone feels inclined to take a look,. please do and let me know what you think. It's the same link as above, file called "Church New 3".

EDIT: I crudely added in the lounge and hallway part of the house in the model to better illustrate my points above.

[tgs]

Hi all,

So, no more progress with this project for now. Between touring and studio work, there's just not been any time to work on this at all. I did however bring up the floor plan again the other day to see if I could come up with any alternate ideas. The thing is... I can't really think of any tbh. I just re-read my last post and it pretty much sums up the issues. I think the design I talk about there is fairly functional, but something just feels a bit odd to me, especially the "corridor" thing to the left of the control room.

I tried again with the corner design but I just came to the exact same conclusion: the line of sight will be really bad. I'm also not entirely sure if I should go with soffit mounting. It excludes the idea of a nice, wide window, but of course I want to have a good sounding room too! I'm also not sure how my Trident HG-3 speakers would work in a soffit mount solution.

Middle of the summer so maybe not so much activity here, but if anyone would care to comment it would be very welcome. I might also point out that the request to have someone help me out with the design still stands. I really wish I had more time to sit and experiment with this but my schedule is so packed all the time so I'm leaning more and more towards hiring in some help.

As mentioned in the last post, the link in the first post is still active and "Church 3" is the last version.

[Soundman2020]

I think you probably haven't read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing something important . . . It's probable that you won't get too many responses if you don't abide by the rules. There's a reason for those rules!

I'm also not sure how my Trident HG-3 speakers would work in a soffit mount solution.

I don't see any reason why they could NOT be soffit-mounted: What is it specifically you are concerned about? Most speakers can be soffit mounted, and when done properly, the results are generally spectacular. At least, none of my customers who has soffit mounted theirs speakers has then said that they sounded lousy! The same is true for forum members who have soffit mounted theirs correctly.

It excludes the idea of a nice, wide window,

IT is possible to make the soffits from glass, and build the entire front wall in a "wrap around" style. Several studios have done that. More complicated, of course, and more expensive, but if you need maximum visibility, then it's a good option.

so I'm leaning more and more towards hiring in some help.

Contact John by PM, and see it he can help you. If not, then contact me by PM; and I'll put you in contact with designers I trust, so they can quote you for doing your design.


- Stuart -

[SunkenCity]

I think you probably haven't read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing something important . . . It's probable that you won't get too many responses if you don't abide by the rules. There's a reason for those rules!

I'm also not sure how my Trident HG-3 speakers would work in a soffit mount solution.

I don't see any reason why they could NOT be soffit-mounted: What is it specifically you are concerned about? Most speakers can be soffit mounted, and when done properly, the results are generally spectacular. At least, none of my customers who has soffit mounted theirs speakers has then said that they sounded lousy! The same is true for forum members who have soffit mounted theirs correctly.

It excludes the idea of a nice, wide window,

IT is possible to make the soffits from glass, and build the entire front wall in a "wrap around" style. Several studios have done that. More complicated, of course, and more expensive, but if you need maximum visibility, then it's a good option.

so I'm leaning more and more towards hiring in some help.

Contact John by PM, and see it he can help you. If not, then contact me by PM; and I'll put you in contact with designers I trust, so they can quote you for doing your design.


- Stuart -

Did you have a look at the hg3's? They are a bit unusual in design.

[Adbhatti]

very interesting

[tgs]

Did you have a look at the hg3's? They are a bit unusual in design.

My thinking was that it would work as long as the mid/tweeter swivel was kept in a fixed position, but I got too much negative feedback about it so I gave up on the idea. I was also advised that they'd be too small as mains for the size control room I wanted to build so I will use them as nearfields and get something else for mains.

I haven't managed to move forward with the build yet btw. Had problems with two very unserious designers who ended up wasting a bunch of my time and a bunch of my money. I finally found a good one back in December, but since the bulk of my income comes from live events I had to put everything on hold for the time being.