Brand New Studio Ready for Acoustical Tuning

[spicyitaliano]

Hi folks. I attempted to write on this topic in the studio construction forum, but along with not really knowing what I was trying to ask, as well as some surgery on the side, I really didn't stay on the ball about what I need to ask.

But here it is. I'm ready to do it from the bottom up. The studio construction is finished. The window has been installed (following Steven Klein's design combined with a ton of info I pulled off of this board), and the 2nd story insulation is finished.

The studio itself is a two room facility, small but comfy. It covers about 370 sq ft. The control room dimensions measure 14x11.5 ft, the live rom is at 13.5x15.5 ft. The walls were constructed using stadard and basic double wall designs, each wall consisteing of a layer of standard thermal insulation, a layer of Homosote, and Sheetrock drywall. The floors will be (not yet finished though) laminate wood flooring in each room. The control room has a 4.5x11.5 riser in the entire rear of the studio. This design was inspired by a local studio who had clients constantly saying that they coudn't see over his chair. The riser is built up 8 inches. This riser will be coverd with carpet only, the rest of the entire will be wood. The ceilings are 9 ft high with a popcorn finish. The only exception is over the riser, where, due to construction boundry limitations, the ceiling has just over a 2 ft 90 degree drop stright down that comes out from the wall 5 ft.

The questions I have to ask concerns the bass build-up in smaller rooms, early reflections resulting in colored sound, and overall room tuning. Currently, with no furniture or flooring and only the walls done, the rooms sound rather lively. Speech ha a very crisp tone to it, and there is a nice room sound with an ambience that seems to last over a second. I want to take advantage of this when I need to, but I need to have large gobos constucted to move around solo instuments like vocals, etc when I need a dry sound. The use of wall panels and resonation channels, diffusors, bass traps, and dampening materials are all on my mind as options.

Below are two of the drawings we put together for the constuction crew to see just as a reference of the final product. I have included some notes on them for you. The overhead drawing shows the control room with the riser in the back with the couch on it, but not the ceiling drop. (Refer to the side view for that). The live room has a large open space in the back that says "window." This was a previous window that was in that location. To preserve this, we simply built the double-wall around it, but not over it covering it up. We intend to build a "plug" to put in it's place. The we plan to cover up the area with hanging curtains (movie theatre style) or even a large acoustical panel made out of MDF board. Whatever it may be, that's my explanation for that problem-causing pain. The side view contains written notes that were quick notes to the construction workers.

Please review these drawings and make notes for them. The construction is complete and the rooms are how they will be. I had a strict contruction boundry and budget, and I had to conform to the family limitations as well as to the surrounding neighbors. Because of this, the main concern during construction was insulation from the outside neighbors as well as between the two rooms. But now that the 'framework' for acoustic treatment is laid, I need to consider what can be done to improve common problems with acoustics in smaller studios.

Thanks for your time everyone.

NOTE: Some of the drawing's written dimensions are not correct. The ones posted in this note are final.

[spicyitaliano]

Here are some pictures of the current state of the construction as it is now.

[spicyitaliano]

And one more, looking into the control room from one corner of the live room.

[Ethan Winer]

Spice,

> I need to consider what can be done to improve common problems with acoustics in smaller studios. <

What's not clear is your budget, and whether you're looking to buy acoustic treatment or build it yourself. Either approach can work well, but without this basic information it's impossible to recommend anything specific.

--Ethan

[barefoot]

So, the control room is built in a garage? I assume you need that 3' space between the control room and garage door for storage? Will that space be used much?

Thomas

[spicyitaliano]

Hey thanks for the replies Ethan and Barefoot.

As far as buying and building acoustical treatments, I know that there is very little you can really buy for professional, contrsuction-based products for acoustical treatment and it is typically built on-site. Any products I might buy would most likely be too expensive. Especially diffusors. But of course, there really shoudn't be any diffusion in such a small control room, but perhaps the live room?
My budget will be resonable enough to get the job done well.

Yes, the 3 feet in the back behind the control room was intentionally left after a long week of discussion with the family. We needed it for yard tools and lawnmowers etc, considering that one side of the garage is already taken up by one of the cars. That's another one of the "constuction limitations."

So where do I start and what can I do?

[spicyitaliano]

Here's a picture looking into the control room from the garage. You can see the drop down and the 3 ft space in the back. Again the overhang over the riser isn't correctly drawn out on the drawing. It is very close to the edge of the riser.

[spicyitaliano]

Anybody wanna step in?

[knightfly]

Here's the basics, from John's other site - you can build the corner traps without slats, or just do a basic frame for the fiberglas board. No hermetic seals needed if you're not building Helmholz traps. You'll need to absorb the front of the room pretty heavy behind the console, especially since you're not flush mounting your speakers -

http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm

and here's a room using some of those designs -

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

Hope that helped some... Steve

[spicyitaliano]

Thanks for the links, Steve. I've been looking at the DIY designs for the panels on the front end of the control room, as well as for the back of the control room. Looks like a handy resource, and I'm sure I'll use it in the final construction of these units. I guess that the real challenge here is going to be "transposing" these charts into my situation, considering that all my construction is done. I've got to figure out how to make these things stand on their own, and how they will attach to the floor and ceiling.

Can you offer me a design plan? I'm a little confused about the approach I need to take for a room with my deminsions.

The other faulty link in my design goes for the entire live room. I know that the acoustics in here don't need to be quite as perfect, but the room just needs to sound good. I need some help making sure that the room does just that -- sound good.

Thanks all.