John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

hi guys!
I have a spare room in my new house where I want a new studio!
I don't want alot of sound isolation because the room isn't to big..so don't worry too much about it;)

I've planned a vocalbooth (isobooth) in the corner of the room! The wall infront of the main door in the room will be on wheels. Then my room will be more symetrical when mixing... comments? Also, if I need more space when recording, I don't have a solid wall taking up place..

Is there something I could make better, or would this work out great?

Hope you guys can give me some cons or pros with this design

Cheers

nice work! on the back wall i'd put some absorbers - movable over the window when needed and on the top of the wall for enough absorption. in the booth - lose the foam and go with cloth covered fiberglass absorbers.

Hi.
update on this old thread.
I've been busy renovating the rest of my house the last 3 years. In the meantime I've just played with various designs both regarding appearance and function.
I've been reading alot on acoustic treatments the last couple of years. I've learnedalot about acoustics but I'm still confused.

The main difference from my last post is that I'll go for a one room layout, and forget about the vocalbooth. I have other rooms in the house that can serve for that purpose if I want to.

Room/Studio info:
- Room size is still 4,4m x 3,1m with 2,4m to the ceiling.
- Plaster walls/ceiling, Hunton fermacell
- Parquet on the floor.
- Room is mostly underground.
- Small window (140cm x 40cm) on left longest wall aprox 80cm from front wall 170cm from floor.
- Door is on the backwall 10cm from the right wall.
- Smaller studio desk. I will make my own axactly as "Sterling Plan A" mastering desk.
- My current monitor speakers are KRK RP5's
- Again, my concerns only regards to the acoustics of my room.

Insulation materials available
- I live in Norway so the usual recommended OC703 is not available here.
- Rockwool and Knauf is available.
- So far I've found post saying Knauf Space Slab 100mm, 15kg/m3 will work for a superchunk basstrap.
- I can only find the lightest Rockwool, and the one with 143kg/m3(to dense).

My goal is
- Amateur/semi pro studio, but still nice looking
- Want better mix.
- Control room design, but I still want to mic small amps and vocals for my self within the room.
- Good acoustic treatment without "overdoing" things. But gradually tune my room.

Budget
- It's flexible, within reasonable limits.


The build
I've started renovating the room and I will post REW results as soon as the plaster on the walls is done.

So if someone could help me prepare for the acoustic, it would been greatly appreciated:

- I think I'll go for superchunk style basstraps in all 4 corners. (the one on the back/right will be on wheels, because of the door) 60x60cm triangles in the basstrap in the back of the room. Basstraps in the front will be 60x80cm.

- Ceiling will be insulation filled clouds 20cm thick. Cover area big enough to serve the purpose, 50% of ceiling area perhaps?

- Front/Back wall absorbtion: I think I'll go for John's Wall Units absorber design. size?

- Sidewalls: I like the looks of and helmholtz resonator here, but also have a good feeling regards to function.
This idea I've got from John's Wall Units aswell.

My questions/concerns
- Will this cover my basic needs? (I'm thinking loud, before I've got REW results to refer to)
- I have considered soffit mounting my speakers, but not for now. I may redo this later when i upgrade speakers or want to improve.. Space can also be an issue here, because of the window placement.
- I do not want a totally "dead" room, but "dead enough"!
- My thoughts on the resonator is to preserve the highs a little but still have good broadband absorbtion. I'm very unsure about this working at all. I'm afraid this will mess up my RFZ.
Resonator size: 1,4m wide and 2,4m high. Slating from 20cm to 5cm.
- Will it be better if I make two resonators 0,7mx2,4m mounted together on each side("sawtooth design"), so the slanted angle is steeper than my intended design and reflects highs behind my "sweetspot"? or am I on the wrong track here?


PS: The resonator on the left will be movable front to back to gain access to the window when I need.

Here are some simple sketchup pics to give you an idea of the design:

I hope i'm more in line within the forum rules in this post! If I've left something out just ask me:)
Thank you in advance guys:)

I wrote in the last post that I didn't want soffit mounted speakers.. well, I thought it over this weekend.

I've decided that I would like to build my KRK RP5's soffit mounted. There is more work to it, but nothing I can't handle. The main reason why I didn't considered it at first, was that I would like to upgrade my monitors. I can't buy new monitors for a while, but I don't just want to build a easy temporary solutions. A speaker upgrade will be taken in account when designing it though.

I will make drawnings later this evning and post them here:) It will be based on John's/SAE plans for soffit mounting!
I've read that the Helmholtz resonators I want to build on the sidewalls need to be at an 12 degree angle? Is this correct?

It seems like a lot of people with small rooms get adviced to flush mount their speakers! I think I also have more to gain with flush mounting than without. Better space and better sound in the room, it also think it will be exciting to try this:)

I would really appreciate some comments on this:) Thanks!

- Will this cover my basic needs? (I'm thinking loud, before I've got REW results to refer to)

IT looks like the basic plan is good. It should work out well like that.

- I do not want a totally "dead" room, but "dead enough"!

For a room that size, you'd probably good with a decay time in the region of 100 - 200 ms.

- My thoughts on the resonator is to preserve the highs a little but still have good broadband absorbtion. I'm very unsure about this working at all. I'm afraid this will mess up my RFZ.

As long as you follow John's design for those, then you should be fine.

- Will it be better if I make two resonators 0,7mx2,4m mounted together on each side("sawtooth design"), so the slanted angle is steeper than my intended design and reflects highs behind my "sweetspot"? or am I on the wrong track here?

You could do that, yes. It makes sense, if you want to keep all the first reflections from those side walls going back behind your head.

I've read that the Helmholtz resonators I want to build on the sidewalls need to be at an 12 degree angle? Is this correct?

12° is good for eliminating problems with flutter echo in that part of the room, but true RFZ usually needs a bit more than that. They only way to determine for sure what exact angle you need, is by "ray tracing". Every room is different.

It seems like a lot of people with small rooms get adviced to flush mount their speakers! I think I also have more to gain with flush mounting than without. Better space and better sound in the room,

Precisely!


- Stuart -

Thank you for good response Stuart:)

Stuart: When ray tracing, could I just draw inside sketchup with angles 90, 45 degrees to/from the front of the helholtz to see where my reflections go? (sorry, bad sentence)

Sketches are updated with a rough layout of the soffit mounted speakers.
Anyway, here are some quick sketches with measurements/comments:)

Stuart: When ray tracing, could I just draw inside sketchup with angles 90, 45 degrees to/from the front of the helholtz to see where my reflections go? (sorry, bad sentence)

I prefer to do rays every ten degrees or so: sometimes you notice more details like that, and see that some rays go places where you didn't expect...

- Stuart -