John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

1) There is a raised floor with access tiles that can be removed. Great for running and hiding lines.

3) Ceiling is a standard drop ceiling outfitted with what appears to be Armstrong 2' x 4' acoustical tiles.

5) Room is surround ready.

The problem: Where to apply absorption/diffusion using the Auralex products we have on hand.

Soundman2020 wrote:Hi Amedeo, and Welcome!

That looks like a nice 5.1 setup you have there, in terms of equipment, but I'm pretty sure the room can't sound too good the way it is treated at present.

1) There is a raised floor with access tiles that can be removed. Great for running and hiding lines.

Yes, but not so great acoustically! That space down there is a resonant cavity, and is not helping your room acoustics at all. Is this the typical type of "computer floor", often also used in post-production houses and TV facilities? Is it also a "plenum" type floor, with air conditioning running through there, and up through grills in the floor?

Yes. This is th typical kind of computer room flooring I am sure you have seen before. There is nothing under there but cabling, both electrical and signal.

3) Ceiling is a standard drop ceiling outfitted with what appears to be Armstrong 2' x 4' acoustical tiles.

Can you lift a tile and see what is up there? For example, is there any insulation up there? HVAC ducts? Cablig? And how much space is up there, between that false ceiling and the real ceiling?

I am going to have to check and see what is up there, and how much room there is. I will attempt to supply allof this info with my next post that will include a drawing with measurements, equipment layout, ceiling heights, etc.

5) Room is surround ready.

Yes, but your rear speakers are in totally the wrong position for that. They should be much further out to the sides, and not directly behind you. ITU, EBU, Dolby etc. all recommend the same thing, more or less: 100° (min) to 135° (max), with 110° to 120° seeming to be preferred.

Yes. I obtained a surround document from Michael Frondelli. It was a helpful document. Unfortuantely, this being an institution, I did not have to much to say in the allocation of space for audio/video. I suppose to teach concepts, this is great, but to work on advanced concepts, I know that at this point, we will not be hearing what is really there. Frustrating.

The problem: Where to apply absorption/diffusion using the Auralex products we have on hand.

You don't mention how big the room is, but it looks to be too small to be able to use most types of diffusion, and give the amount of "clutter" from the other unrelated equipment in there, there's probably plenty of diffusion going on already. Numerically-based diffusion needs a lot of distance between the diffuser and your head, in order for the artifacts to smooth out and merge, and most studios just are not big enough for that. So diffusers are probably out of the question. (Of course, the manufacturers of diffusers often "forget" to mention this issue when you buy them...) The only exception would be if you only use diffusers that are tuned to very high frequencies.

Thanks for this comment. This definitely will save me trouble.

But diffusion is not going to be your biggest problem: Bass trapping is. In any small room you need a lot of bass trapping, so that should be your first priority. It would help to have that diagram you mentioned, to see the exact shape and dimensions of the room, but it seems that all of the vertical corners are already occupied, so you'll have to use the horizontal ones. You seem to have space on all of the side walls, and the front and rear walls, to do that, in the wall/ceiling corners. I'd suggest simple DIY corner traps across all of those corners, or at least as many as you can get to.

Thanks. I am going to seek out some bass trap designs. I am a very handy guy, so I will be able to build these, I am sure. We also have a great stagecraftdepartment that I am sure would be interested in helping out.

I would also put thick absorption across the entire rear wall: At least 4" of 703 (preferably 6"), and spaced away from the wall by several inches as well.

I am not familiar with this material, but I am going to look into it.

You should also have absorption in several other places in that room, especially seeing that you want to do 5.1 work in there, but it would be better to see the accurate floor plan first.

Great. I will get this posted ASAP!! Thanks so much for all of your valuableinput. At this school, I am basically a one-man act, but administration is supportive of the program. We are very lucky to have what we have. Now, i just want to improve upon it if we can, in order to get it to be the best it can be without too much expense. Again, many thanks!


One other big question here: Is the room set up symmetrically? In other words, are the desk, chair and center speaker all on the center line of the room, equal distances from the left and right walls? If not, then that is a major problem. Symmetry is critical. It is hard to be sure from the photos, but it looks like everything is closer to the left wall than the right wall: If so, then it would be really, really recommendable to move those things over to get on the center line: If you can't do that, then you won't be able to produce mixes that "translate" well to other listening environments, such as living rooms, cars, MP3 players. Symmetry is essential, not just for the stereo image and sound stage, but also for EQ and other issues.

One question: Is it worth building some vertical bass traps?

Where would you recommend purchasing the absorptive material from