hi,
here's a revised plan for our studio, please let me know what you think!
i have adjusted the angle of the control room walls to total 12 degrees - this made sense as it opened up a bit more space in the vocal booth. also i've included dimensions of the main areas to help get a sense of scale. the ceiling of the building is around 6 metres/20ft.
i haven't really included any details on treatment of walls etc, as for now i just want to get the overall dimensions finalised - my main concerns here are functionality and getting favourable room modes.
any comments gratefully received - gracias!
james
revised layout - any thoughts?
Moderators: Aaronw, kendale, John Sayers
-
james
- Posts: 11
- Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2003 11:04 am
- Location: melbourne, australia
-
james
- Posts: 11
- Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2003 11:04 am
- Location: melbourne, australia
distribution of modes
hi all,
since posting the above i've run the live room through the "roomtune" excel sheet, with interesting results. i guess my first question is, does the 'roomtune' chart attached look good?
because, after originally aiming for a 1:1.6:2.3 ratio i came up with a room of floor dimensions of roughly 8 x 6.5 metres - this is the basis of the above floorplan [which i'll call "smw3"].
once i tried the room tune on this plan, however, it led to a shortening of the live room to the dimensions shown in "smw4", below. this makes more room for our control room which is great, but seems to go against what i had thought would work best, namely the 'perfect' room ratio. i guess it feels a bit too 'square'.
so, i just wanted to double check with someone who knew what was up to see that i haven't missed anything obvious, and can go ahead with the design "smw4". anyone care to comment?
many thanks keen room dimensionalists!
james
since posting the above i've run the live room through the "roomtune" excel sheet, with interesting results. i guess my first question is, does the 'roomtune' chart attached look good?
because, after originally aiming for a 1:1.6:2.3 ratio i came up with a room of floor dimensions of roughly 8 x 6.5 metres - this is the basis of the above floorplan [which i'll call "smw3"].
once i tried the room tune on this plan, however, it led to a shortening of the live room to the dimensions shown in "smw4", below. this makes more room for our control room which is great, but seems to go against what i had thought would work best, namely the 'perfect' room ratio. i guess it feels a bit too 'square'.
so, i just wanted to double check with someone who knew what was up to see that i haven't missed anything obvious, and can go ahead with the design "smw4". anyone care to comment?
many thanks keen room dimensionalists!
james
-
John Sayers
- Site Admin
- Posts: 5462
- Joined: Mon Jan 27, 2003 12:46 pm
- Location: Australia
- Contact:
-
james
- Posts: 11
- Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2003 11:04 am
- Location: melbourne, australia
hi john,
thanks so much for your feedback, it certainly puts me at ease. it's starting to feel like we're pretty much there as far as the broad strokes of the layout are concerned. we'll be starting to block out the basic stud frames over the weekend i think, so i'll borrow my friend's digi camera and post some pictures of the space so you can get a bit more of a sense of the place.
i guess as an engineer what i'm aiming for is versatile workspace, but a large live room was a real priority when looking for a studio space. obviously there are practical reasons for this - once you're over a certain size the room resonances are less of an issue, and you have a bit more space to work in, even leave multiple amps/drumkits etc set up. but artistically i love the sound of a large live room - i'm a HUGE fan of phil spector and brian wilson productions, motown and philly soul, roy orbison, and also steve albini's work recording groups like the dirty 3 and low - a big live room and the use of room mics for natural reverb are the key to tying these types of productions together. its also a real buzz to set up an entire band in the one room and record live - if you have the luxury to do so. you can also fake it by setting up a stereo pair and recording diferent parts in diferent areas of the room, then laying them on top of each other. and that sound is very hard to achieve with artificial reverb. so in answer to your question, there'd be times when i'd use the room's natural reverb on almost everything. but it would be conscious creative decision, you'd be going for the 'gold star sound'.. drums and percussion in particular benefit from this, but also guitars and organ/piano etc.
that said, there are equally as many situations where i'd want total separation between parts, and a dry, tight sound on drums/guitars etc. so we'll need to be able to control the degree of reverb in the live room.
you may have noticed the [very poorly drawn] poly diffusors in the live room. an idea i've had is to have sections of this wall on hinges, so it can open out to form a series of 'booths' in the live room. the insides of these hinged diffusing panels would be absorbtive, so idealy you could transform the whole wall from reflective to dead with a minimum of fuss. unfortunately i don't have smartdraw on this computer so i can't post a drawing - i will soon. but we'll be thinking of ideas for making the live room as versatile as possible.
thinking about treatment is definitely the next phase, and i'm excited - been chasing down manfred schroeder's original AES Journal articles, and i can't wait to try my hand at constructing a fractal diffusor. but, first things first.. that will be icing on the cake, and with my current bank balance prioritising the stages of construction is a must..
anyway, thanks so much for checking it out, i'll post some pictures soon.
all teh best,
james
thanks so much for your feedback, it certainly puts me at ease. it's starting to feel like we're pretty much there as far as the broad strokes of the layout are concerned. we'll be starting to block out the basic stud frames over the weekend i think, so i'll borrow my friend's digi camera and post some pictures of the space so you can get a bit more of a sense of the place.
i guess as an engineer what i'm aiming for is versatile workspace, but a large live room was a real priority when looking for a studio space. obviously there are practical reasons for this - once you're over a certain size the room resonances are less of an issue, and you have a bit more space to work in, even leave multiple amps/drumkits etc set up. but artistically i love the sound of a large live room - i'm a HUGE fan of phil spector and brian wilson productions, motown and philly soul, roy orbison, and also steve albini's work recording groups like the dirty 3 and low - a big live room and the use of room mics for natural reverb are the key to tying these types of productions together. its also a real buzz to set up an entire band in the one room and record live - if you have the luxury to do so. you can also fake it by setting up a stereo pair and recording diferent parts in diferent areas of the room, then laying them on top of each other. and that sound is very hard to achieve with artificial reverb. so in answer to your question, there'd be times when i'd use the room's natural reverb on almost everything. but it would be conscious creative decision, you'd be going for the 'gold star sound'.. drums and percussion in particular benefit from this, but also guitars and organ/piano etc.
that said, there are equally as many situations where i'd want total separation between parts, and a dry, tight sound on drums/guitars etc. so we'll need to be able to control the degree of reverb in the live room.
you may have noticed the [very poorly drawn] poly diffusors in the live room. an idea i've had is to have sections of this wall on hinges, so it can open out to form a series of 'booths' in the live room. the insides of these hinged diffusing panels would be absorbtive, so idealy you could transform the whole wall from reflective to dead with a minimum of fuss. unfortunately i don't have smartdraw on this computer so i can't post a drawing - i will soon. but we'll be thinking of ideas for making the live room as versatile as possible.
thinking about treatment is definitely the next phase, and i'm excited - been chasing down manfred schroeder's original AES Journal articles, and i can't wait to try my hand at constructing a fractal diffusor. but, first things first.. that will be icing on the cake, and with my current bank balance prioritising the stages of construction is a must..
anyway, thanks so much for checking it out, i'll post some pictures soon.
all teh best,
james