One Room?

stratrat · Post by **stratrat** » Sat Nov 15, 2003 8:41 pm

Hi folks

My first post, so I'm hoping not to embarass myself...

I have a single outside room which I want to convert to use for recording music. It is a plastered brick building with a corrugated iron roof. No ceiling or windows. The door is in the middle of one of the short walls. Dimensions are 2m (H) X 3m (W) X 5m (L), which seem to be pretty good (according to mr Everest).

The primary use is mixing, but I will need to record voice and the occasional acoustic instrument such as guitar. I do everything myself, so there will never be more than one instrument playing at a time. Noise control is also not an issue as it is situated in the country, far from neigbors and traffic, etc. Monitoring is via nearfield monitors only.

I have a ton of 1" and 2" sonex type foam tiles lurking about and would like to utilise them effectively.

I would prefer to keep it as one room. My first thought is to build it as a (fairly) large LEDE control room with bass traps in the corners, sonex in the front of the room and slot panel resonators along the side and back walls. Is this advisable?

TIA
Alan

Sen · Post by **Sen** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 12:45 am

Hi stratrat,
the idea of keeping it one room is ok...not enough space for two. If you are aiming for the "lede" you might not need your foam at the front of the room but could instead utilize it at the back somewhere or on the ceiling.
You'll need to angle the walls and the ceiling so that the initial reflections go passed the mixing position (the working out of angles needs to be pretty precise).
As the name suggests, the LEDE room needs to be live at the front and dead at the back, provided that the front part of the walls and ceiling are angled properly...oh I just said that up there, didn't I...

good luck

stratrat · Post by **stratrat** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 1:19 am

the LEDE room needs to be live at the front and dead at the back

Really? I thought it was the other way round.

Alan

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 1:42 am

Actually, it IS the other way 'round - Sen, you're confusing the older, no longer very popular LEDE rooms which were used in the 70s or so, with the RFZ, or Reflection Free Zone, rooms that are more in favor today. Tomorrow? Who knows...

The original LEDE designs were (I believe) patented by Don and Carolyn Davis - they were totally absorbed in the front half, and reflective/diffusive in the back half. The idea at the time was that the dead front end kept the stereo imaging from getting screwed up by early reflections. The live rear of the room helped with ambience.

RFZ rooms, on the other hand, use splayed walls and ceilings to reflect all but the direct sound AWAY from the mix position and to the rear of the room, where, if the path is long enough, they can be diffused and allowed to return (scattered) to the mix position. If the path is shorter than about 25 feet from the mix engineer's head to the rear of the room AND BACK, then absorption should be used at the rear - otherwise, reflections coming back to the mix position with less than 22 millisecond delay will smear the stereo image by inducing phase distortion (comb filtering)

For that size room, you should check out Laptoppop's 1-room studio here -

http://www.johnlsayers.com/Studio/Mainp ... toppop.htm

That should give you some good ideas for your own space... Steve

stratrat · Post by **stratrat** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 2:22 am

For that size room, you should check out Laptoppop's 1-room studio

Thanks Steve. I'll do some more research, draw some plans and post them for confirmation.

Post by **John Sayers** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 8:30 am

Here's a quote from - from Floyd E. Toole
Vice President Acoustical Engineering
Harman International - makers of JBL speakers.

I have been in recording
control rooms where so much diffusion has been added that the center
image is completely destroyed! The noise ‘image’ was the entire
front wall. And recordings were being made in this situation! This
design was fashionable – yes there are ‘fashions’ in acoustics too – a
few years ago. Just as in many things, some fashions are just silly.
This one was aided by the other fashion of that period: the liveend/
dead-end room, another case of an idea taken to excess. It helped
some bad studio monitor speakers sound better, but it is not
something to be recommended, certainly not for recreational
listening, and not for multichannel sound.

cheers
john

Sen · Post by **Sen** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 11:56 am

knightfly wrote:Sen, you're confusing the older, no longer very popular LEDE rooms which were used in the 70s or so, with the RFZ, or Reflection Free Zone,

I am so sorry to offer that misleading info...I am indeed confusing and mixing up many things.....I just wanted to offer some help...Sorry stratrat...and thanks for the correction Steve.

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 1:15 pm

Sen, not to worry - anytime you mess up, I'll be glad to force my OWN mis-guided opinions on you

We're all here to learn and profit from each others' triumphs and tragedies, no biggie -

John, Mr. Toole has written a number of white papers that are available at the Harmon site, I downloaded all of them for offline reading whenever I get the chance. Pretty "fart smeller", Mr. Toole - absolutely HATES ceiling mounted speakers, so he can't be ALL bad

If I'm not mistaken, he's the source of an idea I've passed on about placing the sub in your chair and finding the sweet spot by moving your head, then swapping them.

Haven't gotten time/opportunity to try that one, but it makes sense... Steve