John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi There,

Hope you are all well out there.

I have good news. I finally have a permanent mix space. It is in a house where eventually I will move into, and I can do whatever I want to it in the future so finally no restrictions.

Basically the loft space is where I have set up my studio. I will be using this space as a mix/control room, and will do a little recording work here in the future, generally digital equipment, with maybe only vocals and acoustic guitar as my only analogue sources.

Soundwise, I do not intend to go over 85dB when mixing. I have an SPL meter at hand and have calibrated my monitor/soundcard as such for the moment. I may have the odd louder blast in the future, but they will be short.

The house is a detached farmhouse, so there are no immediate neighbours. Downstairs there is my wife’s grandma living. I have ran a few tests with the gear and she is happy with the levels I am working at.

OK, now here is all the technical details of the room (I apologise for my google sketch work, I found the software a bit of a nightmare (hence the triangular beams having a few missing pieces. I have also included a few photos so I think there is enough to get across the room).

As a loft space, it has a slanted roof, but they do not reach all the way to the floor as there are short walls between them and the floor.

First off, here is a couple of pictures for you to get an idea.
(Note. All triangular beams are the same as the one above).

Main Dimensions

Length – 13.54m
Width – 6.24m
Height 1 (To Apex) – 3.63m
Height 2 (Side small walls) – 0.68m

Side walls (Slant)

Height
To horizontal beam 1 from brick wall – 1.15m
To horizontal beam 2 from horizontal beam 1 – 1.42m
Horizontal beam 1 to window – 0.68m
Windows – 0.22m by 0.17m

EXCEPTIONS Windows at either end of right side wall (2 x 0.7m by 0.25m)

Side Walls

Length

Length distances between main vertical beams (that form the main, triangular structures) on floor at the foot of the side walls from the front wall, each other, to the back wall (covering the room length)
Front wall – Beam 1 – 2.74m
Beam 1 – Beam 2 – 3.10m
Beam 2 – Beam 3 – 3.57m
Beam 3 – Back wall – 3.92m

These beams are made from timber that is 0.07m thick and 0.18m wide.

Triangular beam dimensions
Hatch on floor (Closeable)
Length – 2.3m
Width – 0.97m

(There is also a space under the floor next to the hatch which measures)

Length – 1.07m
Width – 0.97m

Bringing the hatch area below the wood to L – 3.37m, W – 0.97m

The hatch is positioned on the floor at

From left side wall – 1.07m
From front wall – 6.69m
From right side wall – 4.12m

The closeable door on the hatch is made of the same wood (thickness as well) as the floor.

Front wall chimney (Brick)
Width – 0.44m
Length – 0.45m

Middle Room Chimney (Concrete)
Width – 0.8m
Length – 0.46m

Floor and walls
side walls wood – 20mm thick fibre wood with fibrewool behind (unknown thickness)
small side walls - brick.
Front wall - brick
Back wall - brick (Painted)
wood on floor – 25mm thick wooden slats

Unfortunately, the guy who originally put the loft together is no longer with us so i cannot get any further information on this.

So, these are the dimensions and materials of the room. In my next post, i will explain all that has been done so far and post all results and findings.

Thanks

TCT.

Hey guys i am back

Ok, here is what has been done in there so far.

For starters, here is a quick overview.
For the purposes of this post, i have split the room up into four segments. Segment one is between the front wall and triangular beam one, segment two (the mix area) is between t.beam one and t.beam two, segment three is between t.beam two and t.beam three and segment four is between t.beam three and the back wall.

The first thing to do was to pile up all of the remaining junk (that cannot be moved for now) in the back segment between the last triangular beam and the back wall. I stood up some mattresses to deaden the wall and plied the boxes around to create some diffusion.
I also piled up all the duvets, pillows, bags of clothes and left over rockwool against the side walls in segment 2, the mix area as pictured above, and then layed two of my current absorbers against them (note - these piles are not shown in the overview picture).
These absorbers are 10cm thick, 60 cm wide and 1.35m long rockwool. Two of them were placed against the junk.

The next thing was to build a drum riser style floor in the mix area. This was to help with the sound traveling downstairs.
This was placed in the mix area. It was square 2.4m by 2.4m. Here are the rest of the dimensions.
(Note) There are other supporting beams underneath around the structure)
10cm sheets of rockwool were placed underneath the floor.
The floor was then covered in vinyl.

The next thing we did was to build a suspended ceiling above the mix area. To do this we suspended a net all the way between the horizontal beams 1.84 meters from the floor at the centre of the triangular beam. We then layed rockwool all the way across the beam by making packs of 2 pieces of 10cm thick, 60 cm wide and 1.35m long by putting two on top of each other, putting them in bin liners (in case of a roof leak) and stacking them on the net to form a rectangle of 2.7m by 2.4m.
We then cut away the bin liner from the bottom of these packs, and stretched some fabric all of the way underneath to cover the net and the packs of rockwool.

I then set up my equipment on the floor, making sure that my seating position was 38% of the way from the front wall, and that i had an equilateral triangle between the monitors and my ears of around 2m. I placed my superchunk basstraps (with a radius of 60cm by 60cm, by 60cm, and a height of 1m, stuffed with triangles of rockwool) behind the speakers, with one on top of another, bringing them up to 2m high. I placed another two in the front corners and this is how the mix area looks.
To finish off, i layed some foam mattresses across the side walls in segment one (front wall - beam 1) and then another absorber (same dimensions as before) across these.

Thats my treatment for now, my third and final post will cover all of the results.

Thanks

TCT

Ok guys here again.

My first real gripe was that my REW before the treatment seemed to be better than after. Here they are :-

Before

Left Speaker (Before)
Left Speaker (After)
Right Speaker (Before)
Right Speaker (After)
Initial Reverb Times (Untreated)

Left
Right
The bass end seems at best unaffected, and the top end seems to be messed up (NOTE - For the before test i was using Alesis M1 Active MKII monitors and for the after i was using Dynaudio BM12A monitors (Alesis = £200, Dynaudio = £1500 to give you an idea)

For the bass, my biggest concern seems to be the 60 HZ, 130 Hz areas

Left
Right
If i play a sweeping sine wave, slowly going up through the frequencies, it constantly gets both quieter and louder as well as bounces from left to right, almost as if it is spinning in a circle.

The mid range zoomed in is thus

Left
Right
And the highs

Left
Right
I am note sure if my desk and the ceiling has something to do with the top end, or even the new floor has something to do with the bottom end. What i do sonically notice is that when i play a track, the bass seems to be gathering in the side wall corners (the space between the floor, small brick walls and the beginning of the slanted roof).

One concern is that my speakers are almost obscured by the screens when i sit in the mix position. Basically i can see both the speakers, but if i move my head slightly left or right they are obscured. The problem is to get the equilateral triangle, they have to be like this, as if i move the speakers further apart, i have to move the desk closer to me, which moves the screen closer and the problem still exists.

Treatment wise, i have a few remaining absorbers to put up (the same as my others but not quite as long) and a few sheet of acoustic foam (mmmm lovely says Stuart). I wanted to get a bit of advice here first before doing anything else.

My situation is thus. This room will be mine for as long as i want it, and i can do whatever i want to it. At the moment, i am out of money, so i am just looking for ways to tweak it with what i already have. As time goes on though, once i save up the money, i will begin, little by little, to treat the room correctly, maybe even pay an acoustician (if i can find one that doesn't want £1000 just to visit me and do some tests for one day). to get it professionally done. My wife says that if i make it a success, she is happy for me to invest in it.

So to sum up, can i get the sound any better with what i have?. Would it be wise to take down the ceiling and use the material to build some membrane tuned bass traps?, and if so, how would i go about doing this?

And in the future, what should i look to be doing, or even paying someone else to do. Would it be wise to get a properly constructed ceiling in there?

Thanks again to you for your help so far, this will hopefully be the last time i have to set up a room for me and come here to you, cap in hand.

Thanks in advance,

TCT.

My first real gripe was that my REW before the treatment seemed to be better than after. Here they are :-

I'd really suggest that you need to calibrate REW and re-do those measurements! The data is not valid, since it says that you were doing those measurements at levels of around 160 dB!!! So I'd suggest following the calibration procedure, using the REW "SPL Meter" tool together with your hand-held sound level meter, then repeat the tests.

Also, post the actual MDAT file, instead of the graphs. The way you are setting up the graphs is not showing the information the way we need to see it.

- Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:

My first real gripe was that my REW before the treatment seemed to be better than after. Here they are :-

I'd really suggest that you need to calibrate REW and re-do those measurements! The data is not valid, since it says that you were doing those measurements at levels of around 160 dB!!! So I'd suggest following the calibration procedure, using the REW "SPL Meter" tool together with your hand-held sound level meter, then repeat the tests.

Also, post the actual MDAT file, instead of the graphs. The way you are setting up the graphs is not showing the information the way we need to see it.

- Stuart -

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for the reply

I will redo the tests asap.

When i did the tests i calibrated as normal, but when i came to the tests i kept getting the message (level too low) on the level test so i had to turn up the mic input on the soundcard. I must have done something wrong somewhere.

I will get the results to you asap and will attach the MDAT file.

Thanks again,

TCT.

so i had to turn up the mic input on the soundcard. I must have done something wrong somewhere.

that would explain it: if you change the settings on your mic inputs, then you have to re-calibrate REW to let it know about the new level. Just click on the "SPL Meter" tool, and use the "calibrate" button there, then adjust the readings until they match the real level, measured by your hand-held meter. And if you have to change the input level again, then you need to calibrate again. REW has no way of knowing that you changed the gain, unless you tell it.

- Stuart -

Hi Stuart,

I think it may take me a while to redo these tests, i just can't seem to get REW to work properly anymore. It is strange as i am using the same computer and soundcard as before.

I will need to do a bit of research into this as from reading the manual a good few times and watching some instructional videos, it just will not work correctly.

I will post as soon as i have figured it out.

Thanks again,

TCT.