as being new to this forum I should give am short introduction about myself. OK, my name is Thomas, I live in Germany, I´m playing drums in some rockbands for about 15 years, but never on a real professional level, just made a few record on small independent labels or through self-distribution, always put more money in that we got out of it..
Anyway, I soon got interested in that “recording-thing”, hanging around in the controlroom when the rest of the band was watching videos etc., and eventually started doing recordings myself, first on an old tascam 8-track 1/2” machine, than on PC. Mainly for my own bands, and from time to time for some friends. Recording is done in the rehearsal-room (which luckily dosn´t sound to bad), while I do the mixing at home.
I´m just sitting in a regular apartment-room without any special treatment, and even if I´m not too unhappy with the results I get, I now have the time and a little money (my budget is about 1000€ at max) I want to invest in doing some acoustic treatment. And – surprise – that´s the point where I´m looking for help now.
I think I am a typical case, I started searching on that topic in the internet, reading lots and lots of stuff in the last weeks, threads in different forums, DIY-tips on youtube, the BBC research whitepapers were really interesting, as was the book from Philip Newell about recording studio design etc., and I learned a lot about this very complex subject. And I sure found a lot of inspiration around her in the forum. But it´s still very challenging to put all this information into a working concept for my room, I will really appreciate any help, tips an suggestions.
OK, so this is the starting point: The good thing is, I have no problems with the neighbors, so I don´t have to think about soundproofing, I can concentrate completely on acoustic treatment to make the room sound better / more neutral. The bad point is, it is a regular apartment , it´s rented, so I can not tear some walls down and start from scratch. I must work in a way that it´s possible to get the room back into the original status relatively easy. Sure I can drill some holes in the walls to hang absorbers, or even to fix some framing to the Walls, but for example I can not make major changes like making the door open to the outside of the room, or building brickwalls etc.
The room ist about 3 meters (9,8 ft) wide, 4 meters (13,1 ft) long and 2,75 meters (9 ft) high. The walls are solid stone walls, the floor is concrete covered with laminate. I´m not sure about the ceiling, could be thin drywall or hardboard, it´s definitely suspended cause when I knock against the ceiling it don´t feels very solid an I get a hollow sound. This might be important because it could be critical when treating the ceiling. I would not risk to hang something heavy there.
I´ve got these sketches:
Floorplan 3D from two angles: And this ist what it actually look like (but I could get rid of at least one of the shelves and make the table a lot smaller. But I need at least a little space for some shelves where I can store some stuff, since our apartment is not that big an my girlfriend would be quite unhappy
if I spread all these boxes with cables, microphones, replacement-parts for my drumkit etc. through the other rooms):
From what I read, for such a small room it would be best to go for what in Philip Newells book is called the “non-environment approach”. A reflective wall at the front (the wall I am facing and where the speakers are), a reflective floor that already is there) and all other walls and the ceiling as absorbent as possible. I would also try to flush-mount my speakers (event 20/20) if this makes some reasonable improvement. Is this a good idea, or do I loose to much precious space, especially when I flush-mount the speakers for what I probably would have to build a rack and and hardboard or chipboard wall, and where I could put a lot of absorption in?
Another point is, as far as I understand, symmetry is important, and if you take a look at the sketches, even if the room itself is very symmetric, the placement of the window (where I can not build something solid up front cause it´s the only source of fresh air – no aircon in our apartment) at the center of one of the long walls with the radiator underneath and the door at the back of the other long wall (which unluckily opens to the inside that probably makes the treatment of the small wall close to it more complicated) creates a situation that all walls are somehow different, hence I can not treat opposite walls all the same.
OK, so the first thing I am unsure with is, what should be my front wall (the wall I am facing when I work)? My first choice would be the same direction I´m working now (as you can see in the “actual – sketch”), but if it makes sense to change it, I would do so. Maybe facing the window would be an option, so I have the window as a part of the "reflective front" if I stay with the “non-environment approach”? But than flush-mounting the speakers could be a problem, and even if I don´t do that they would be pretty far apart (the Window is 1.6 meters wide and about 1.6 meter high, 0.85 meters above the floor), and the best listening position would move rather far back to the wall behind me, wouldn´t it?
Or should I go to the opposite Wall with the Window in my back? But how could I than do proper acoustic treatment with the window and the radiator in my back? I could hang thick curtains there, maybe even build an removable absorber that fit in the window sill, but the radiator still have to be free. Sure, I´ve got that problem with the window area anyway, but in that case, it´s at a very critical position. I thing the 4th wall is not an option because of the door opening directly to the wall, right?
And the next big question is of cause the selection of the right absorbers and the placement.Since my room looks a bit similar to the “bed room studio” layout here on the homepage, could I use that as a starting point? It looks to me that porous absorber panels and cornerblocks out of rockwool or glasswool are the most easy to build diy, but they probably won´t cover the whole frequency spectrum evenly, even if I build them quite thick. There are so many options, slot resonators, corner slot resonators, panel absorbers, plate resonators, acoustic hangers, tube traps etc. And do I need diffusers in such a small room (I know that there is no hard rule)?
I´m sure all the answers are already out her in this great forum, and I probably read a lot of them already. It´s just for a newbie to this subject, it´s really not that easy to get all these Informations together into a concrete, working concept.
Well, that´s about it, thanks for reading and sorry for my bad English, it´s been some years since my last English-lesson in school, and as I said, I will really greatly appreciate any help, tips and suggestions.
Thanks in advance,
Thomas
P.S.: I did the sketches with some freeware software before I found out that google sketchup is preferred her. If it´s necessary I could try to do them again in sketchup.
P.P.S.: I am not sure if this post would better go into this acoustics-section of the forum or in the studio design section and I don´t want to post the same question in to sections at the same time, so if I´m wrong here, maybe a moderator could move this post to the right place.
. Are these VPRs not so often used in the "DIY-world"? I think I will try do build at least 2 of them for my rear wall. Maybe I take some photos of the construction and post them in another thread.