John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

but I guess the monitor shelf/rack space will no doubt play havoc with the acoustics.

Yep! Get a desk that has everything as low down as possible, well away from the direct line between the speaker and your ears.

Found this which is a lot more low profile:

Much better!

I like the idea of building soffits but I'm not sure how long we'll be at our current house

It is possible to build your soffits in such a way that you could take them apart and take them with you, if you leave...

The rear wall was going to just be a "timber pallet wall"

That looks very nice, but your rear wall won't be visible at all when the room is finished. It will be completely covered with treatment...

but I figured it would be more beneficial to make it a big slat resonator (as you probably figured out in the sketchup).

Not for the rear wall! You don't want anything highly reflective behind your head. The rear wall is always the source of the most problems in a room, so it needs the most treatment. If you look around the forum, you can see the way that most people treat their rear walls: Large bass traps in the corners, and thick porous absorption across the space in between. It can have some reflective surfaces on it, but because it is behind your head, you have to be careful about that, so that no strong reflections get back to your ears.

I don't want to kill the room too much either with all the trapping going in.

Right, but it's a small room, so it will need a lot of treatment, and most of that will be bass trapping. You can cover some of the insulation in the bass traps with thick plastic before you put the fabric on, and that will help a bit to keep the highs in the room. In fact, you can experiment once the bass traps are in, to see how much plastic covering you need (what percentage of the total bass trap area), where it is better to put that. You could also do some wood slats, but as I mentioned above, you need to be careful where you place those, to avoid strong reflections.

Also, take into account that objects tend to reflect sound waves whose wavelength is comparable to the dimensions of the object, or smaller. So for example a wood slat 12" wide will tend to reflect frequencies above about 1200 Hz, but a slat 3" wide will reflect mostly above about 5 kHz. So you can sort of "tune" the response of the rear wall, if you need to.

- Stuart -

You can cover some of the insulation in the bass traps with thick plastic before you put the fabric on, and that will help a bit to keep the highs in the room. In fact, you can experiment once the bass traps are in, to see how much plastic covering you need (what percentage of the total bass trap area), where it is better to put that. You could also do some wood slats, but as I mentioned above, you need to be careful where you place those, to avoid strong reflections.

Cool, let the experimentation begin!!

So in regards to the rear wall. I have about 200mm clearance from the back wall to the door. So I have the bass trap in the opposite rear corner and then am i better off building a stud wall from the bass trap across to the door jam, covering that in fabric and filling the 200mm or so cavity that creates with porous absorption all the way across the wall or building say four or five individual absorbers and installing them across the wall?

am i better off building a stud wall from the bass trap across to the door jam, covering that in fabric and filling the 200mm or so cavity that creates with porous absorption all the way across the wall or building say four or five individual absorbers and installing them across the wall?

For bass trapping? If so, fill as much of the corner as possible. That would mean going with your option #1.

Greg

Hey Greg,

thanks for chiming in mate!

For bass trapping? If so, fill as much of the corner as possible. That would mean going with your option #1.

Yeah, as I'm dealing with such a small room the low end is obviously a big issue. So it would look something like this (with maybe some plastic strips to retain some of the highs and covered with fabric obviously):

Your picture indicates you're using the HORRIBLE SketchUp FREE!! Do yourself a favor and download SketchUp Make. It's the awesome version that runs on your computer, not via an internet browser. It's about a million times faster and isn't limited like the free version. I hope it makes your 3D modeling experience more enjoyable!

I would try to make the treatment on your back wall thicker. At LEAST 6" think. If your door is in the way, leave the door corner alone and frame out the rest of the back wall to house insulation. The rear wall thick treatment will yield the greatest results.

Greg

Your picture indicates you're using the HORRIBLE SketchUp FREE!! Do yourself a favor and download SketchUp Make. It's the awesome version that runs on your computer, not via an internet browser. It's about a million times faster and isn't limited like the free version.

Man, thanks so much for the heads up! The browser based version is really frustrating! I'll redo the model today hopefully.

I would try to make the treatment on your back wall thicker. At LEAST 6" think. If your door is in the way, leave the door corner alone and frame out the rest of the back wall to house insulation.

Yeah so that's the plan - frame out perpendicular from the door pretty much flush with the door frame all the way across the back wall and fill with insulation. That would give me 200mm (nearly 8") of treatment across the back wall to the corner trap.

It's about a million times faster and isn't limited like the free version. I hope it makes your 3D modeling experience more enjoyable!

It also allows plug-ins, which the severely crippled browser version does not. Trying to use SketchUp without plugins is painful. The browser version also bogs down and drowns with even moderate size models, and just plain keels over and dies with a typical studio-sized file... No use at all, even for very simple things.

The strange things is, Trimble (the current makers of SketchUp) know that the browser version is a dud, they get nothing but constant complaints about it from long-time users, but they insist on trying to promote it as a viable product. It isn't. Sigh!

- Stuart -

It also allows plug-ins, which the severely crippled browser version does not. Trying to use SketchUp without plugins is painful.

Stuart, if you read this, would you mind sharing how you go about drawing clamped end curves like you use in a lot of your designs? I've searched and searched and cannot figure it out!

Thanks!

Greg

Slow progress at the moment as busy with work and gigs but I finished laying the laminate flooring tonight! Hopefully I'll be able to do some new room measurements on the weekend.

In the meantime I've slowly been re drawing the plans in the "proper" sketchup...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5371feb5gy9b8 ... e.skp?dl=0

In the meantime I've slowly been re drawing the plans in the "proper" sketchup...

You should have been able to save your model in your 3D Warehouse on the crappy Free version and then on Make, go to your 3D Warehouse and import it. That way you don't have to redraw anything!

Greg