Studio build in Wales, UK...again!

[Soundman2020]

I know stuart has suggested expanding foam to me in the past, but my worry is that rats and mice and moles could chew through this and get up inside the walls!

https://www.homelogic.co.uk/is-spray-fo ... ent-proof/


- Stuart -

[Paulus87]

I know stuart has suggested expanding foam to me in the past, but my worry is that rats and mice and moles could chew through this and get up inside the walls!

https://www.homelogic.co.uk/is-spray-fo ... ent-proof/


- Stuart -

Thank-you Stuart, that's interesting - seems there are very differing opinions else where online with many complaining about rats and mice eating through this spray insulation. Theres people that are even mixing wire wool in with the foam insulation to deter rodents as they don't like chewing on metal. If I did this would it compromise my isolation or would it not likely make much difference?

So, perhaps there are different types of foam insulation - some that deter rodents and others that do not?

[Paulus87]

What an exhausting few days we've been having here. I'm incredibly lucky in that I have 12 people who are working for me as volunteers, being compensated with food, experience and wood. A good few tonnes of trees have been cut down, logged and moved with a few more tonne left to process. It was a total of 10 trees IIRC, and as those of you who've felled a fair few trees before will understand it's always surprising how small they look until they come thundering to the ground.

Footings have started to be dug out as well as some incredibly large tree roots. My old man is beyond fatigued and beginning to regret agreeing to helping me! The hardest work for this stage is over though and soon the actual build can begin. I've also got my new main monitoring system which arrived a couple of weeks ago, it's a large 3 way Quested system with cross over and power amps for each set of drivers. Will get some photos of it soon, but for now here's a few photos of the work that's been going on for those that are interested, though at this stage not much to see.

[Gregwor]

That IS a lot of hard work. It will only make you appreciate your finished studio more in the end. Keep pushing forward and please, continue to post lots of pictures for us! That's the best part for all of us here on the forum.

Great work!

Greg

[Paulus87]

That IS a lot of hard work. It will only make you appreciate your finished studio more in the end. Keep pushing forward and please, continue to post lots of pictures for us! That's the best part for all of us here on the forum.

Great work!

Greg

Thanks for the encouragement Greg! Yes I will post as many pics as possible.

I have a question for everyone following my post:

We managed to dig out a few more feet in width than my original design which is a bonus, so I've attached two designs, one with the control room at the original width of 14' 4" and a new design with the control room width at 18'. (Just a side note: the extra isolation wall in the corridor has been removed for now as It would be nice to only have to open 1 door to get in to the control room and 1 door to get in the live room. But if I find that it is needed then I can build it in after easily enough. Also the booth on the other side of the control room is going to be a machine room with some guitar amp iso cabs, I was really impressed at how effective they are after demoing some so I think a single wall construction will be enough for this small room.)

I would like to do a sort of hybrid of a non environment room using hangers and a RFZ due to my plan of having windows on the side walls at angles. If the control room is wider then I can fit a lot more treatment along the side walls as well as gaining a bit more space in general. But that comes at the expense of losing some live room space near the entrance as well as corridor space.

If I keep the CR at 14' 4" then I won't be able to fit as much treatment along the side walls but I will gain a nice size of live room space as well as being able to use the extra corridor space as a comfortably sized lounge/kitchen area which the clients would appreciate.

Both room ratios work just as well as each other, if I had an 18' width then I would extend the length by 1' and the height by 2" giving me 10'x18'x23'8" or the original plan which is 9'10"x14'4"x22'8"

Which option do you prefer?

[Gregwor]

Bigger control room.

However, with your new designs, it seems like the hallway is wasted space. You don't have much/any real storage. I feel like some re-arranging could allow you to have storage instead of hallway.

Greg

[Paulus87]

Bigger control room.

However, with your new designs, it seems like the hallway is wasted space. You don't have much/any real storage. I feel like some re-arranging could allow you to have storage instead of hallway.

Greg

Yeah, we decided that the entrance needed to be where I had originally drawn the bathroom to be, which means there's this extra corridor now basically. I think it seems like wasted space if I make the control room bigger and therefore it's not big enough to be used as a lounge and kitchen.

I'm interested in your idea to rearrange, what do you suggest?

[Gregwor]

I think it seems like wasted space if I make the control room bigger and therefore it's not big enough to be used as a lounge and kitchen.

I can get behind your logic. I think you should explore having your live room entry door in the middle of that wall so that you can put a bass trap in each of the corners.

Also, I see that you've created a 3 leaf system for your ISO cab rooms. You should address that.

Lastly, without having an outer leaf wall outside of your control room and live room (in the hallway), it means that any recording you will do could be compromised by someone leaving the control room into that hallway or anyone coming in from outside. There will also be no sound lock preventing noise from getting outside or inside your studio anytime the outside door is opened. I think it's such a small detail (one outer leaf wall is soooooo easy to make) that you should just build it. Also, you're going to have a harder time making your wall look decent where you have the gaps between your control room and the rest of the building than you would have just framing up the extra wall. I understand the headache of going through 2 doors, but that's the name of the game in my opinion.

Greg

[Paulus87]

I think it seems like wasted space if I make the control room bigger and therefore it's not big enough to be used as a lounge and kitchen.

I can get behind your logic. I think you should explore having your live room entry door in the middle of that wall so that you can put a bass trap in each of the corners.

Also, I see that you've created a 3 leaf system for your ISO cab rooms. You should address that.

Lastly, without having an outer leaf wall outside of your control room and live room (in the hallway), it means that any recording you will do could be compromised by someone leaving the control room into that hallway or anyone coming in from outside. There will also be no sound lock preventing noise from getting outside or inside your studio anytime the outside door is opened. I think it's such a small detail (one outer leaf wall is soooooo easy to make) that you should just build it. Also, you're going to have a harder time making your wall look decent where you have the gaps between your control room and the rest of the building than you would have just framing up the extra wall. I understand the headache of going through 2 doors, but that's the name of the game in my opinion.

Greg

Thanks for the fast reply, all valid points. BTW I am not dismissing making the CR wider, it would be great I just can't come up with a good use of the hallways space if I do so.

I can put that door into the middle of the wall, no problem.

So, regarding the 3 leaf system. Should I get rid of the 3 walls that attach to the control room wall to form the room and just have the outer walls? So the iso cabs as well as the whole of that room will actually be in my air gap? If I build another room within a room for that space then the iso cabs will create a 4 leaf system surely? Speaking of which...

If I do add that extra wall in the corridor won't that also create a 4 leaf system? What I do see in a lot of studio designs (like the one attached) is an airlock with double walls but only one of the walls has a door and the other wall simple leaves a cutout so you can access that door. So if someone could explain that to me that'd be great as it looks like to me they do this in order to prevent 3 and 4 leaf systems. In my design I could implement something like that which would solve the cavities between the rooms being exposed, so basically I would build the extra wall but instead of having doors just leave a cutout...see attached

[Gregwor]

So, regarding the 3 leaf system. Should I get rid of the 3 walls that attach to the control room wall to form the room and just have the outer walls? So the iso cabs as well as the whole of that room will actually be in my air gap? If I build another room within a room for that space then the iso cabs will create a 4 leaf system surely?

You really just have to draw it out and make sure there are only ever 2 walls. It's that simple.

so basically I would build the extra wall but instead of having doors just leave a cutout...see attached

You could build yours like this picture, yes. This would leave you 3 doors. Again, the only disadvantage to this design is that anyone leaving your control room would create noise that would only be isolated to the live room by the mass law equation.

Greg

[Paulus87]

So, regarding the 3 leaf system. Should I get rid of the 3 walls that attach to the control room wall to form the room and just have the outer walls? So the iso cabs as well as the whole of that room will actually be in my air gap? If I build another room within a room for that space then the iso cabs will create a 4 leaf system surely?

You really just have to draw it out and make sure there are only ever 2 walls. It's that simple.

so basically I would build the extra wall but instead of having doors just leave a cutout...see attached

You could build yours like this picture, yes. This would leave you 3 doors. Again, the only disadvantage to this design is that anyone leaving your control room would create noise that would only be isolated to the live room by the mass law equation.

Greg

Okay, but that's where I'm confused...

If I put in that extra wall in the hallway then there's no longer only 2 walls... there's 3. (4 leaves if the outer wall has a face on both sides)

Then in the machine room I should remove the wall so that there's 2 again... but I shouldn't walk into my air...

Anyway, I got my copy of 'Build it like the pros' by Rod Gervais yesterday, reading through I found out about Superdoors. This means I can use only 1 door between double walls with the jamb connected through both walls. According to him it makes very little difference to the isolation loss due to the mass. You can also do this between the walls where's theres windows. This seems like a far easier option than having twice as many doors everywhere.

Thoughts?

[Paulus87]

Since my last post I've been in a lot of pain in my joints and especially hands, turns out it's inflammatory arthritis which was a bit of a shock. It means that my hands are pretty useless without much grip so I decided to have a little fun with SketchUp while I'm trying out some treatments, to kill time while I wait to crack on with the build. You can never plan too much anyways.

I've attached a few pics;
1. a floorplan with bigger control room, fully decoupled hallway and an extra room on the end which I hope to add on to the studio one day.
2. a very rough HVAC plan which I have probably not drawn very clearly, but this is the best I could do with the information I have found on the subject so far.
3. Just for fun - some 3d renderings of the control room and the whole studio (still in progress). These are only rough mockups, I haven't calculated any of the acoustic treatment that you see, it's just to give me an idea of what it might look like and to try out different colours etc. I don't even know if I'll use slats or not yet.

I have a couple of questions:

1. Ventilation. I will be using a separate aircon system but for my fresh air/stale air vents, would I need more than one of each in the CR and live room?

2. Silencer boxes. If I need more than one inlet and outlet vent in those rooms then do I also need twice as many silencer boxes or once the air is inside could the box break off in to two or more vents like a plenum?

That's it for now. I do have loads of other questions regarding acoustics, but I'll leave that for another time.

Hope you enjoy the pics!

[Paulus87]

Another question:

If I built the large trap on the rear of my control room wall using hangers, should I measure my room length to the front of that trap or to the back of that trap (where my actual inner wall is) when plugging dimensions into a modal calculator? I know that it's usually the dimensions created by the actual solid inner walls but wasn't sure if this changed when using such large hangers or not?

Thanks a lot

[Soundman2020]

It looks pretty good, but your speaker soffits aren't really big enough for that size speaker. Generally, you want your soffit to be at least three times the width of the speaker. You also appear to have your speakers centered on the baffles, which isn't ideal, and the baffles appear to extend all the way down to the floor and up to the ceiling, which implies a wasted opportunity for major bass trapping under the speaker shelf and above the speaker soffit itself.

should I measure my room length to the front of that trap or to the back of that trap (where my actual inner wall is) when plugging dimensions into a modal calculator? I know that it's usually the dimensions created by the actual solid inner walls but wasn't sure if this changed when using such large hangers or not?

Always to the hard, solid, rigid, massive boundary of the room. Modes occur between room boundaries. Putting the hangers in will change the frequency of the modes a bit, yes, but they will go DOWN, not UP, implying that the waves "see" a longer room, not a smaller one. The reasons for that are a little complex, but it shows that the hangers don't make the room smaller. In fact, if putting hangers there DID make it shorter, then the hangers would not be able to do anything, as they would be beyond the termination of the wave!


- Stuart -

[Paulus87]

It looks pretty good, but your speaker soffits aren't really big enough for that size speaker. Generally, you want your soffit to be at least three times the width of the speaker. You also appear to have your speakers centered on the baffles, which isn't ideal, and the baffles appear to extend all the way down to the floor and up to the ceiling, which implies a wasted opportunity for major bass trapping under the speaker shelf and above the speaker soffit itself.

should I measure my room length to the front of that trap or to the back of that trap (where my actual inner wall is) when plugging dimensions into a modal calculator? I know that it's usually the dimensions created by the actual solid inner walls but wasn't sure if this changed when using such large hangers or not?

Always to the hard, solid, rigid, massive boundary of the room. Modes occur between room boundaries. Putting the hangers in will change the frequency of the modes a bit, yes, but they will go DOWN, not UP, implying that the waves "see" a longer room, not a smaller one. The reasons for that are a little complex, but it shows that the hangers don't make the room smaller. In fact, if putting hangers there DID make it shorter, then the hangers would not be able to do anything, as they would be beyond the termination of the wave!


- Stuart -

Thank-you Stuart, that's helped a lot. I am quite shocked that the soffits need to be at least 3 times the width of the speaker, is that including the middle section of the wall or just the two angled sections that hold the speakers? If it's the former then my soffits need to be over 8' wide each!