Congrats on the great site. Kudos to you and Knightfly!
I'm building a new house and studio in the country on a 1 acre lot. Very quiet, no neighbours. With a 9ft ceiling and a 4ft foundation (crawl space underneath). I used one of the plans that was thrown around on your site and customized it to my liking.
For now, my concern is good isolation when recording drums for instance.
I'm not really concerned about exterior or house noise.
Do I need to have all rooms floating or just the live and vocal booth.
Any tips before I start the construction that would faciltate or better the studio would be greatly appreciated.
Sticking to the double wall construction will give you good isolation.
No you do not HAVE to float all the floors. I would definitely float the live and vocal as you specified, but hey what the heck you got that far go on an float the control room too.
Luke, you should be fine with just the tracking and vocal areas floated - remember that ANY hard connection between rooms will void the effort of floating them. There are special isolators you can buy, or if budget is tight they can be fabbed depending on your mechanical abilities.
I noticed a bathroom just off the vocal booth, and a single door into a hallway - on the bathroom, which wall(s) are the fixtures on? Water noise can be a real problem (flushing toilets, water hammer, pipe noise in general) here's a link to just one of many I found searching on "plumbing noise" at askjeeves.com -
Also, on the single door/hallway - this could concievably be a problem, depending on the noise level in the house (vacuum cleaners while recording, loud talking in the hall, etc) - a well-sealed EXTERIOR door will help here, and maybe a good door seal. Some ideas here -
The door(s) between the lobby and the tracking room could get tricky - I'm not sure what you have in mind there from the drawing. Seems like the outside door could hit a second door if it's going where the solid gray line is shown in front of the inner door...
Are those surround speakers next to the couch? If so, they need to be at 110 degrees from front dead center to match the emerging standards of 5.1 mixing - that would put them more like at the rear corner of the keys and just to the rear of your rack on the right. They need to be at the exact same distance as your other speakers or you need a high quality delay designed just for this purpose. They are available, but not cheap.
When placing video monitors, you need to keep early reflections in mind - it helps if your screens are behind a line that would be an extension of your speaker baffles. One way to help this out is to rotate the speakers slightly to the OUTSIDE of a point where the baffles are perpendicular to a line drawn from the center of the baffle to your head. Not too much though, or you end up with a really narrow "sweet spot".
If that's a window next to the couch, and your drawing is to scale, you may want to move the window a foot or so closer to the couch - you're likely to get some reflections from your right front speaker off the window and back to the mix position otherwise, resulting in a (approximately) 35 millisecond "slap" echo.
That's about all I noticed so far, should be a cool setup... Steve
Soooo, when a Musician dies, do they hear the white noise at the end of the tunnel??!? Hmmmm...
Thanks Giles, the reason I want to avoid floating the CR is to keep my 9ft ceiling.
Many thanks Knightfly, I'm hoping to get away with installing just one door between the lobby and the tracking room, and it would open inside the tracking room. Not sure how to do that yet though
Those speakers around the couch are just my 2nd references. I was initially hoping to flush-mount them on the front wall, but it sounded like too much work for such cheap speakers. They are tall (48"); could I get away with NOT angling them if I did mount them? And if so, how much work is it?
As far as the video monitors go, I'm not sure I understand....I had a really hard time figuring out how to place them so that they weren't too far away from me, yet keep the triangle needed for my nearfield monitors. (I attached a new pic to see if that's what you meant....)
For the window, I thought I could put up wooden venetians on it to fix that. Would that work? Moving it is not a problem though, I think i'll do that!
Thanks again!
"I'm hoping to get away with installing just one door between the lobby and the tracking room, and it would open inside the tracking room. Not sure how to do that yet though " - Just leave it out. If anybody in the lounge makes noise when you're recording, just fire a warning shot to the head, it won't happen again :=) Seriously, except for noises coming from the lounge itself, you've already got a sound lock there. Should work if your "lounge lizards" don't get too rowdy...
"I was initially hoping to flush-mount them on the front wall, but it sounded like too much work for such cheap speakers. They are tall (48"); could I get away with NOT angling them if I did mount them? And if so, how much work is it? " -
Yes, it is too much work for speakers you're not MADLY in love with - and tall ones don't soffit well, it's too difficult to find a good "center spot" to put at ear level with tower types. With your size room, unless all the drivers are in a cluster near the top of the box they would be a pain to get time-aligned.
Video monitors - you're getting closer - this has always been a problem, and without giant monitors I'm not sure it CAN be solved totally - Sonically, you need to have the monitor faces far enough away so that sounds from either speaker can NOT reflect off the CRT's - this means that to satisfy that requirement, you would draw a line across the face of each speaker, to the point where the two lines meet in the center - then, the CRT's would need to be BEHIND that line to minimise sound reflections off the face of the displays. From a practical point, this is almost NEVER completely doable - the next best thing would be to keep the screens flat as you've shown them, so that reflections are bounced past you and into a wall, where (hopefully) they will be absorbed or (again) reflected, until the path of ANY reflections back to your ear is at least 25-30 feet longer than the DIRECT path between speakers and ears.
The wooden venitian blinds would help at some frequencies, but moving the window would be better, since it's not built yet.
Is your main floor going to be a slab, or a perimeter foundation with wood joists, or what? Now would be the time to plan for cable trays, not after the concrete is hardened...
Any thoughts on HVAC? Sharing with the rest of the house isn't the best way to go... here's a basic guideline link
The main floor is going to be perimeter foundation with wood joists. Since i'll have a 4ft crawl space, I was wondering if I needed to do cable trays? I thought I could just run the wires through the joists...?
HVAC....I'm still researching this one. I'm thinking of running flexible ducts underneath the floor. Maybe put the unit under the lobby? Make sense? As for the system itself, i'm unsure. I was looking at the Nu-Air or Venmar units which I got from your post April 16 (Ventilation). It looks interesting, just don't know how well it cools the room?
" I thought I could just run the wires through the joists...? " - You can, that's why I asked about the floor. I would still run PVC conduits between the joists, large enough to be able to pull a large computer connector thru without having to de-solder the end, and plan for power at least 18" away from audio cables, then a separate conduit for digital - that depends on where your gear is going, of course - basically, if the power has to cross audio cables, it should be at right angles. Once the cables are all in, you can stuff the entrance/exits tightly with insulation to minimise sound leakage thru the conduits. They should also be caulked between the conduit and floor.
Using conduit will protect the wires better from any marauding vermin, etc.
I'm also not as up on HVAC as I'd like to be, I joined a BBS but found out they are pretty proprietary about the whole deal. Looking for other options so I can get smart enough to just be stupid... Those were links someone else posted, I'll go back and look at them some more to see what their claims are.
Gotta get to the DDJ (Dreaded Day Job) now, more later... Steve
Soooo, when a Musician dies, do they hear the white noise at the end of the tunnel??!? Hmmmm...
Hi Luke - I pretty well go along with what Steve has advised to date. I would seriously consider soffit mounting your speakers though. I soffit mounted a pair of NS1000s (The big daddy to the NS10) and they were large - the improvement was definitely worth the effort. If you think the tweeter/mids are too high (physically) turn them upside down with the woofer on top and the tweeter/mids at head height.
Hello John, thanks for the heads up.
At the moment, i've only got a pair "below-average" 2nd references that I could use for soffits. Using NS-10's for nearfields.
Their actually 36" H x 12 x 12 (not 4ft as I stated before). Is there a way that I could use them for now and change them later w/o having to redo the whole construction? Also, I don't want to get into angled walls; beyond my expertise So it would have to be a 90% wall.
Is there additional room treatment required when using soffits?
Is there page that details the construction of soffits?
Sorry, haven't done that much homework on those
Cheers!
Cool, thanks John.
I think i'll build the room with soffits in mind for the future. Kinda like the pic below... What do you think?
Knightfly put a bug in my ear with his comments about my NS-10's reflecting off the VGA's. I've known that this is not quite right for a while now, but can't figure it out
What is the best scenario for my setup? Keeping in mind that I must be 10" away from the VGA's. They are 17s and are 24" away from me.
I can think of only 2 ideas, which I attached.
Cheers!
Sorry, Luke, I guess when my sleepy time drops below 4 hours I forget how to talk -
What I meant by my comments was that video monitors are just one of the causes of early reflections, which will smear the stereo imaging of ANY monitor. The idea is that you don't want ANY path but the direct-to-your-ears one for your sound, until that sound has had at least 22-25 milliseconds (at least 25 feet) more travel to get to your ears than the DIRECT sound. So, if you trace the sound path(s) that are possible from the speakers, bouncing off of ANYTHING, to anything else, etc, until the reflected sound gets back to your ears, and that reflection path is LESS than 25 feet LONGER than the DIRECT path, you can get phase cancellations/comb filtering that will distort your sound. Longer paths than that are perceived as part of the room sound.
Try this: place two long, straight boards, held horizontally, up against the front baffles of your NS-10's where they are normally positioned. Put the long end of the boards to the center, keeping them flat against the speaker fronts, and extending toward each other until they touch. They should form an inverted "V", like this ^ when you are looking from the same angle as your latest drawing (from above).
Any object that is TOWARD you from these two boards, since it is within the hemisphere of radiation from one or both speakers, has an excellent chance of causing early reflections. So, if your displays are TOWARD you from this (imaginary) "V", then you need to check (with a mirror held flat against any flat surfaces on the displays) to see if any part of the displays (including side panels, etc) will reflect toward your ears from EITHER speaker's (approximately) 180 degree main radiation pattern.
I'll try to do a drawing sometime tonight (if work is more relaxed than it has been lately) to illustrate this, since even I'm not sure I'd understand my own explanation yet...
As far as distancing the speakers from your CRT's, am I right in assuming you're talking about shielding/video distortion problems? If so, try this - get hold of a couple of pieces of scrap steel plate, I've used 1/8" thick but less might work - stand them vertically (on edge, so all you can see from the mix position is the edge of the plates) between your displays and your speakers, then see how much closer you can get the speakers to the displays before the displays start to distort. Ordinary mild steel works for this, because you're not really SHIELDING the monitors, you're just RE-DIRECTING the magnetic field away from the displays.
Once you find what works, you can have a couple of "L's" made (so they'll stand up) or you could take a piece of 1-1/2" dimensional lumber the depth of your speaker boxes but about 2" wider (left-to-right), cut a saw kerf through it about half depth, and slide the steel plates (I used 12" x 14", but my speakers are larger than NS-10's) into the grooves. You would need to laminate at least 1/8" neoprene onto both sides of the boards for isolation.
Doing that would let you place your speakers virtually AGAINST the displays with no sign of distortion.
I'll do a drawing of that also, since I seem to be proving that even a THOUSAND words aren't worth a good picture these days :=)
While you're at it, try this: Place your NS-10's on their SIDES like they're shown in all the pictures of mega-studios Mix magazine ever printed, and listen to your favorite commercial CD while shifting your head from side to side (like you were reaching for a fader...) - now, place them in EXACTLY the same positions, only VERTICAL, with woofers down. Now, repeat the test. Did you notice a difference in image shift/smearing when you moved your head from side to side? Some do, some don't, but worth a try...
I'll (hopefully) have a couple of drawings for you manana... Steve
Soooo, when a Musician dies, do they hear the white noise at the end of the tunnel??!? Hmmmm...
So, placing the NS10's farther from me than the displays is a no-no...?
You're exactly right about the displays, major distortion. Looking forward to the drawing.
Are you saying there isn't much of a difference whether the NS10's are vert. or hor.? I always thought vertically was best. No proof of this though.
Would it be easier to setup if the were on their sides?
I've attached a pic of the best layout I can figure. Let's see if REALLY understood....
Gotta say, I really appreciate the help guys.
Cheers!
Luke, you got it exactly right on the display vs monitor placement - notice, in your drawing, that if you were to rotate the displays INWARD toward each other, that you might again be looking at early reflection problems - left monitor/right display, and vice versa.
Also, you assumed exactly WRONG on my comments about vertical and horizontal - If I'd known you thought they should be vertical in the first place, I probably wouldn't have said anything.
You saved me the time of drawing one of the pix, I'll do the other one for shielding tonight.
The Early reflection thing is one reason I use a 21" crt (I can still SEE the durn thing when it's far enough away not to interfere), to be replaced with 4 19" LCD displays next time around (soon as I can figure out a desk design that will let the displays be on a lower plane than the speakers, so I don't have to worry about it, and still be at a good viewing angle... Steve
Soooo, when a Musician dies, do they hear the white noise at the end of the tunnel??!? Hmmmm...
