There certainly have been many advances in the science of acoustics over the years. Studio design has advanced along the same path. Back then, LEDE was still in vogue somewhat, but has long since been abandoned, replaced by more modern extensions, such as RFZ, NER, and suchlike. New techniques have been developed, speaker technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, DAWs have replaced monster consoles and racks of gear (to a certain extent), multi-track tape decks are now museum pieces, replaced by hard disks, acoustic measurement technology is way ahead of where it was, and the Internet has changed everything. It's a different world.back then I was instructed to build walls featuring plaster/caneite/plaster on both sides of both walls separated by a 50mm gap. Imagine my surprise to find , like Rumplestiltskin awaking after 20 years, how much the world has changed regarding Studio Acoustics!
So it's not surprising that you are a little lost with your new build. There are just a whole bunch of different ways of doing things now, and the "bar is set higher". Rooms that were considered fantastic 20 years ago would now be considered mediocre, acoustically. Small project studios today can do some things (but not all!) that only large high-end facilities could do 20 years ago.
Trying to stay on the leading edge of all of that is a challenge! You'd be surprised how much time I spend researching new stuff every week, to see if I can make use of it in any way. The old dogs DO need to learn the new tricks, if they still want to run with the pack and have a full bowl at the end of the day!
They were possibly not "wrong" at the time, but there's better ways of doing them now. And likely there'll be even better still ways of doing them in another 20 years....Seems like I did so many things "wrong" last time for way much more cost and time than what was required, that I thought I should be more careful this time
Actually, for me it started out more along the lines of just wanting to help people avoid the pitfalls, common errors, and snake-oil vendors, so they could build nice places without wasting money or getting bogged down. Then people started contacting me off-line, offering to pay for me to design stuff for them (and John very kindly even sent me a few of his potential clients, when he was overbooked). It sort of grew from there. Yes, being involved in the forum does bring about the benefit of making a name and reputation, and helping to put bread on the table, but to be very honest, I still love just helping out! I hate it when I see people being "sucked in" by the acoustic nonsense spewed out by so many places on the web, or suckered into buying hugely expensive products that they do not need, and which would not do what the wanted anyway. I love pointing people at better ways of doing things. That's a really big part of why I'm here: because helping people do it right is sort of a passion. It's a bonus for me when they want to pay me for doing it! But of course, there's only one of me, so I do need to split my time between paying customers, and helping out forum members who prefer to not pay, for whatever reason. As long as it's a reasonable reason!One thing that is truly remarkable about this new online age of disseminating ideas and advice is that there are incredibly well informed and generous people like yourself happy to give away some of what they know on Forums such as these, for free! I think I get it (although not really sure), I guess it's about building up credibility and trust in a public forum which engenders relationships and contacts that lead to paid gigs, or something.
As you already gathered, I'm not much into handing out freebies to people who could afford to pay, and probably need to pay, but just don't want to....All of the above! Then compare them, do the math, do the research, and see why 1 and 2 are preferable to 3 in some senses...Let's see, we have Gervais, Alton Everest and Phillip Newell, which one to buy,
There's a lot of truth in that, but what is often mistaken for differing opinions, is often not differing at all! It's not that one guy is wrong and the other right: They can both be right, in their own context. Basically, there are different design concepts. Different ways of getting to the same result, provided that you do it all, not just parts. If one guy tells you that the front wall must be soft and the back hard, then he's likely a LEDE guy. If another guy tells you that the back wall must be soft and the front hard, he's probably a CID or RFZ guy. If a third guy says they are both wrong, and that rooms should be as soft as possible all around, but balanced with some hard surfaces, then he is probably more used to doing multi-channel rooms, while the other two were talking about stereo. If someone tells you that rooms should be purely rectangular to maximize volume and make modal issues easy to predict, he's probably used to doing small rooms, but the guy who tells you that angling the walls and ceiling is great, and bass trapping isn't as important as diffusion, is probably a guy who mostly works on large rooms. The guy who tells you that the console should go towards the back of the room is probably doing very large rooms for cine work, and they guy who says that the console must always go up front is likely doing home studios, or project studios. The guy who rejects diffusion and wants all absorption is a small room guy, while the guy who says the opposite is a large room guy. And none of them is wrong! They are all correct, within their design concept. But if you try to apply original LEDE concepts to an RFZ room, or large-room treatment concepts to a small room, you are guaranteed to end up with disaster. They are incompatible.oh, hang on, they don't really cover what I might want to do, or if they do, they don't exactly agree.... there's so many differing opinions out there that one needs to be an expert to sort the wheat from the chaff - but even there, what is wheat and what is chaff will depend on perspective, one man's ceiling is anther man's floor, and all that
To most people, that's confusing! They all seem to be giving conflicting advice, but in reality they are not. They are talking about specific cases. Just as a surgeon would prefer to cut you open and pull out the bad parts, while a pharmacists would prefer to hit you with a barrage of drugs, and a shrink would just want you to talk, so too there are different approaches to studio design.
Having said that, there's still a lot of garbage out there, that does not fit into any valid category of acoustics! There's an awful lot of snake-oil out there, waiting to be sold....
You could ask some of my customers. And some of John's. And some of Andre's. And some of Glenn's....I wish it was as easy as paying one man to "project manage" the whole thing, but It's not, is it?
They don't seem to have run into that issue!Take a look here, and give Rod a call: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=20471 He'd be happy to chat to you, I'm sure. Even though I have never been to his place, and never met him in person, and never even spoken to him on the phone, his place seems to have worked out OK. Check out his website, too: he asked me to write up a brief "The Making Of" story, regarding how it all worked out.How would I know if it's possible to project manage from another country without being able to get a feel for the subtleties of a space?
John can likely put you in touch with a couple of his customers too, if you want.
It might interest you to know that for the vast majority of studios I design, I never get to see them, or visit them, or meet the owners. Pretty much all of what I do is over the internet, from first contact through the entire design process, as well as the construction supervision, the system calibration, treatment, and final tuning. That is entirely feasible today. All of that can be done over the Internet, very simply and easily. I'm pretty sure that John works the same way. 20 years ago that was not possible, but today, it's the way things are done.
Good point!How do I know if a local guy who can visit the space often, has enough experience in my kind of build to get it right?
There does not have to be a conflict between those two. What works should automatically be a great place to sit in each day. I'm a firm believer in "form follows function", meaning that the studio should first and foremost be designed for optimum acoustics, then the aesthetic and artistic side can be put into place around that, to make it look nice and feel nice, as well as sounding nice. On the other hand, if you try to design the place so that it looks nice as first priority, then try to shoe-horn in the acoustics without changing the looks, you'll never get good acoustics. It might win awards for beautiful architecture, but it wont be a studio, and won't attract clients who need quality sound.How do I know if it's possible to reach a compromise b/n what "works" and what feels good to sit in the middle of each day?
Here too things have changed over the last 20 years. What used to pass for "acceptable" acoustics is now junk. What used to be great is now merely "OK". What used to be spectacular is now just "pretty good". So your customers who are looking for the latest and greatest, expecting that a brand new studio in a city such as Melbourne will sound leading-edge, are going to be rather disappointed if it only sounds like a place built 20 years ago. Back then, there were people with reputations who built places that other people liked. Today there are internationally recognized technical specifications that a room needs to met in order to be considered great, and those specs can be checked and measured reasonably well by a guy with an app on his cell phone! You can't fool people the way you once could. Today, if you want to compete in the high end, then it takes more than the impressive logo on your console or speakers, or the range of big-dollar mics in your mic cabinet, or the range of sticks and platters on your drum inventory. The studio itself also has to meet the specs, or at least get close.
So yes, things have changed: studios are built differently today, and to higher standards. If you want yours to compete and beat the competition, yours has to be up there, at the same level as the best of them. Not 20 years behind.
OK, down-to-earth, up-front, in-your-face, no-punches-pulled realism: It will take you roughly three to six months to get from where you are right now, to the point where you have a good enough grasp of acoustics to be able to design your place yourself. It will take you another couple of months to learn the techniques, construction materials, and methods for actually designing the place (including structural, HVAC, acoustic, electrical, and architectural), as well as learning the design software, then another three to six months to actually design it in full detail, and optimize the design. Then, and only then, would you be ready to apply for your permits, do your BoM, figure out your final budget, and actually pick up a hammer for the first time. Call it a year, to be on the safe side. That's a realistic estimate of what it takes for a typical person with some knowledge but nothing specialized, to get to the right point. That might see like a lot, perhaps exaggerated even, but it really isn't. As with learning any new skill, it takes about 2,000 hours of research and study and practice to become reasonably proficient, and about 10,000 hours to be come "skillful". Some people come along with the idea that it isn't that hard, and can be done on a few weeks, but that's sort of like me telling you: "I'd like to learn the guitar: I'm sure I'll able to play like Peter Framptom by the end of the month". Or saying "I just bought my first drum kit: I reckon by June I can keep up with Phil Collins, and do concerts like he does".As for your question- Am I looking for a professional designer, or do I want to design the space myself? - I think the answer is both! I'd love to have something designed around my idiosyncratic needs... ... I'm a musician, producer, and studio manager - in that order. One thing I am not, and that is an acoustic engineer, nor am I an architect, electrician or HVAC consultant.
I'm sure you get the point. You can't get from nothing to expert in a few weeks.Now, if that's the way you want to go, then excellent! You can bet I'll be happy to help you along the way. No problem. I'd just insist that you don't pick up a hammer until you have the completed final design, in April of 2018....
If you can leave your place on hold for that long, then go for it! Many forum members have done just that, and then built excellent studios. You'll find their stories all over the forum: but check the "start date" and "end date" of their threads, to see if I'm telling it like it is, or not...Not at all! As I said, many forum members do that! But not in a couple of months. I'm sure you can, if you want to.... but "a few months" is not realistic. It will take you about as long as it takes a neophyte musician to go from picking up a guitar for the first time, to playing flawlessly in concert doing a Peter Frampton cover. How long does that take, realistically? As a musician, you know it can't be done, except maybe by the most talented and dedicated. For most people, it would be a year or so.While it's ok throw up a bunch of equations and say " the numbers don't lie"- it must certainly seem an insult to your profession to think that a musician could down his own tools for a few months and learn to be a studio designer by receiving guidance on a single internet forum.
Just like it looks really simple to stand on stage and pluck a few strings with your fingers, while stomping on pedals with your feet, but turns out to be quite different when you actually have to do it, so to it looks simple to draw a few lines on a bit of paper and call it a "studio", but it's actaull not that easy once you try. I'm sure you'll find any number of forum members who can vouch for that! Or look at the statistics here: we have over 21,000 members on the forum, all of whom came here with the desire to design and build their own studios, but only a few hundred who actually went though with it to completion. There's a saying in Spanish: "Otra cosa con guitarra", which translates roughly as "It's another thing when you actually have the guitar", meaning that it's one thing to listen to guitar music and comment on it, and quite another to actually pick one up and play. It's one thing to arm-chair quarterback a football game on TV, and quite another to actually be out there on the field. It's one thing to manage a studio, and quite another to design one...
There's also the issue of usage: Do you really want to spend a year learning a skill that you might only use once or twice in your life? Maybe someone might have a dream to learn the guitar well enough to just once stand on stage and do a concert of Peter Frampton's greatest hits, then give it up forever and go back to what he normally does.... But personally, I'm not sure I see the point in that!
Don't get me wrong! I'm not saying you should not try! By all means, if you have the time and the inclination, then go ahead! I'm just giving you a real-world point of reference about what you should expect in your voyage.
Of course! But do try with John first. It's his forum, not mine. I'm just here by invitation. I don't work for John, and I certainly don't want to be first on the list of people that forum members contact for design services! John just allows me to run this forum for him (even though I've never met him either!), but I definitely should not be your first choice for designing your place. He has years more experience than I do, and indeed I learned a huge amount about studio design from him, so please don't put me at the top of your list. Also, I'm rather snowed under right now with several projects in various parts of the world, so I would not be able to take on your project immediately anyway: Contact John first. If he is also too busy to be able to take on your project, and you don't mind waiting a bit for me, then we can talk.But I will try to do as you suggest, only that, if I can't deal with it, could I engage your service on a professional level?
Thanks again for your (free) help. FWIW, it's the best I've had, by far!...
Thanks for the compliment! - Stuart -
Still lots of solutions to consider to my main problem - how to get 70dB T/L for a drum kit with an office on the other side of the Live Room?
PZM's on the walls, and PZM's on the outside of the window. Not ideal, but I have done this in the past in small rooms and it was surprisingly good! 
Ummm... How do you figure that??? If the walls hypothetically weigh 3000 kg, and the floor hypothetically weighs 3000 kg, no matter which way you look at it, you have 6000 kg there! If your floor area is hypothetically 60m2, then you have a load of 100 kg/m2, no matter how you look at it. The load is the same. It's the way you SPREAD the load that matters, and from that point of view, the load is spread better if the walls rest on the slab, than if you do it separately. If your walls are NOT on the slab, then you have a line load : all that mass is resting in a very thin line on the floor, so there's a very high load along that line. But if the walls are resting on the floating slab, then the load is spread out over a much wider area (assuming that your isolation springs are laid out correctly....