John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi All

This my first post and as the cliché goes I have been reading these forums for some time.

Goal

My Goal is to create a small control room and a small live room to track drums and guitar amps, a lot of the other stuff can be tracked in the control room or a bit of both; the small room is really to control volume.

My space

The control room area is 3.6 meters long 2.7 meters wide and 2.6 meter high and then a small separate room that is 2.6 wide but only 1.9 long, so quite small.
Question

I want to do this really old school 60’s style white peg board (acoustic tiles) and parquet floors the room is under the garage so only two walls need sound proofing, the rest are underground so to speak.

My main concern is the sound quality, if I make a diffuser board on the back wall (100 bottom 300 top with isolation filler then cover it with acoustic tiles) and have the wall behind the desk reflective, is that going to be problem in such a small room ? or should I do one diffuser at the back and the front wall just with acoustic tiles and one of the side wall slightly off to break up the parallel aspect?

Regarding the monitors, to soffit or not to soffit? ( Focal twins)

The roof is concrete so should add do the follwing, add acoustic tiles with filler? No angle? Or should I do another 100-300 or a 100-300-100 on the roof?

My Main concern before knocking out the bathroom and proceeding with the project is mainly the sizes of the rooms in question, I would hate to go through the whole process only to find that the rooms where completely unworkable to start with.

If all else fails I will have ask my wife if I can have the double garage 

I did read the rules and hope I have followed them albeit vague

Any advice would be fantastic.

Have a great day.

Kind regards

Twenty

Hi there "Twenty", and welcome to the forum!

The control room area is 3.6 meters long 2.7 meters wide and 2.6 meter high

That's not a very good ratio, I'm afraid: It is practically square section! There are three very basic tests that the BBC (and others) use for deciding if a room can be used as a control room: it must pass all three tests to be usable. Yours fails two of those three. Si I'd suggest that you'll need to change those dimensions a bit, to get a better ratio. Use Bob Golds' calculator to help you find a ratio that makes sense:

http://www.bobgolds.com/Mode/RoomModes.htm

I want to do this really old school 60’s style white peg board (acoustic tiles)

Well, you can do it "old school", or you can have good acoustics, but it's hard to do both! Peg board is only useful as a tuned resonant device. Technically it is know as "perforated panel", and behaves in accordance with the acoustic equations that describe how it works. So if you really do want to use it, you will first have to predict or measure what your problematic frequencies will be and design the panels to treat those frequencies, then position your panels in the correct locations where they can do the most good. If you don't do that, then very likely you'll be treating frequencies that don't need it, not treating the ones that do, and treating in the wrong place.

and parquet floors

Excellent! That's a great acoustic surface. Laid directly on the concrete sub floor?

My main concern is the sound quality, if I make a diffuser board on the back wall

The room is way to small to use any type of numeric-based diffusion, such as skylines, QRDs, and suchlike. Your only real option for a room that size, is absorption.

and have the wall behind the desk reflective,

When you say "behind" are you talking about the wall that you see while sitting at the desk, or the one behind your back?

or should I do one diffuser at the back and the front wall

No diffusers at all in a room that size. Not front, not back, not ceiling, not anywhere.

just with acoustic tiles

Acoustic tile is not much use for treating studios, unfortunately. That's not what it is designed to do. It is meant for typical office, shops, schools and similar places, where it absorbs the typical problematic frequencies for those types of spaces, allows the bass to pass through, and reflects the rest back into the room. That's pretty terrible for studios... Not what you need at all.

and one of the side wall slightly off to break up the parallel aspect?

Symmetry is critical for a control room. If you angle one side wall but not the other, then you do not have symmetry, so your mixes will sound terrible when played elsewhere. If you want to avoid flutter echo (the usual reason for splaying walls slightly) then you need a total splay angle of at least 10°, which means at least 6° on each side. If you are looking to do a full RFZ design, then you'll need much larger angles than that. But the space you have is already rather small, and splaying any walls is going to make it even smaller, so it is probably best to not splay anything: Just leave it rectangular, to maximize the room volume, and treat the surfaces that could cause flutter echo.

Regarding the monitors, to soffit or not to soffit?

I'm a firm believer in soffit-mounting, provided that it is done correctly and the room is treated suitable.

The roof is concrete so should add do the follwing, add acoustic tiles with filler?

Once again, acoustic tile is no use for studios. Just treat most of the ceiling with absorption. You have enough height that you could hang a very nice, large, angled, hard-backed cloud up there, over the desk and mix position, and taht would help greatly with your room mode problem too.

Or should I do another 100-300 or a 100-300-100 on the roof?

I'm not sure what a "100-300" is, or a "100-300-100". Maybe you could explain that, or provide a diagram or link?

My Main concern before knocking out the bathroom and proceeding with the project is mainly the sizes of the rooms in question, I would hate to go through the whole process only to find that the rooms where completely unworkable to start with.

Not unworkable, no. That's a usable space. It will be rather small and tight, so the acoustics won't be world-class, but if that's the only space you have to work with, then it sure is way better than nothing! People here on the forum have built successful studios inside shipping containers and even trucks and vans, so there's no reason why your space should not work. However, you should take a careful look at the dimensions, so you can get reasonably good room ratio for your control room. The tracking room isn't so important in that aspect, but the control room is.

If all else fails I will have ask my wife if I can have the double garage

That would be a great option! However, the "ask the wife" part might be a bit tricky....

I did read the rules and hope I have followed them

- Stuart -

Hi Stuart

Thank you so much for your prompt reply, based on your post I will scrap the whole 60’s pegboard idea, so please ignore 80% of the above post and let me try again.

A few things if you don’t mind and please excuse my complete ignorance relating to the associated aspects of studio building!

Bob Golds' calculator

Ok so I have checked this out it looks great and a little intimidating to say the least, once I know the room modes (I’m assuming the problematic frequencies) how do I go about fixing these, is there a room design that would be more suited than others for specific “room modes” or do I tackle each frequency one by one and if so which way do you work from lowest up or highest down as one would affect the other right?

Parquet floors

I do love them; yes they will be on the concrete no sub floor

And have the wall behind the desk reflective,

Yes the wall I would be looking at, I have a large Raindirk series 3 26/24 split consol that is massive and there is really only one spot for it in that room and that’s right at the end wall as shown in my pic the reason I ask abt the wall being reflective is I have some sand stone cladding on that wall at the moment it can come off no problem if needed but it does kind of look nice

Soffit

Ok I’m happy to go soffit only thing is the on switch with Focal twins are at the back, I haven’t seen a soffit design as yet does it make an allowance for this? I also have auratones these would just stay as normal right?

If I go soffit is it possible to build this above the desk or does the corner unit need to extend all the way down to the ground as the desk is so large I would then need to bring it forward to make space for the soffit box if all the way down, if it can float above the desk then I can push the desk in closer to the wall saving about a foot.

And treat the surfaces that could cause flutter echo

Ok so only the one wall needs some sound proofing and I have opted for a studded wall with isolation fill and the double gypsum wall ( we don’t have green glue not sure what the equivalent would be any ideas) and do you think this wall will be sufficient? I recon it should as it doesn’t matter if a little sound gets out here.

Room modes and good mix environment

Since my 60’s throw back visions of a minni abbey road has been scuppered  I would really appreciated some guidance in this regard as I have no idea where to start, perhaps I should start with the consol and mix area first and work backwards so cloud (info would be great on this) soffit and racks under the desk, angle the desk to help with reflections then do the back wall (behind me if facing the desk) and side walls.

More questions I know sorry.

Best treatment for side walls

Best treatment for back wall (don’t forget there will be a window here to see into the little live room)

Any guidance on how to start would be great.

Maybe I can swing the garage 5.6 meters x 5.6 meters 2.8 High with a nice present to the misses 

Have a great weekend!

Twenty

Hi All

I'm trying to establish a work the process in my mind, so hopefully some of you nice folk could please help me confirm one or two things before I go ahead.

Corners will be superchunks
Roof above the desk will be cloud
Back wall will be stud frame with cavity fill (like Rockwool)
Not sure of the sides

My questions;

Wall in front of the desk; can I do a resonator kind of effect here so stud frame with Rockwool fill with slated boards for a nice visual effect (obv not a resonator as there is no gap)

Same with the superchunks instead of leaving the material can I added slotted boards for a nice finish.

Back wall; can I add slatted wood here for a visual effect or does it need to be the material?

Then the side walls do I add mid range frequency absorbers here?

Im not soffitting my focal twin BE6 as the room is small and I'm not sure they would fit the application of a soffit mount any help in this regard would be great.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you so much for you help in advance.

Twenty

Corners will be superchunks
Roof above the desk will be cloud
Back wall will be stud frame with cavity fill (like Rockwool)

Right!

Not sure of the sides

Possibly absorption panels, possibly slot walls. I would suggest building it all first then doing one REW test with no treatment in the room, followed by another REW test with the basic treatment in place, then seeing what changed and what still needs to be fixed, and design specific treatment for those issues.

Wall in front of the desk; can I do a resonator kind of effect here so stud frame with Rockwool fill with slated boards for a nice visual effect (obv not a resonator as there is no gap)

I wouldn't do anything tuned on the front wall so close to your head. You could do an un-sealed cavity, or broadly separated slats, but you might get unwanted reflections too. Better ray-trace that carefully, to make sure.

Same with the superchunks instead of leaving the material can I added slotted boards for a nice finish.

Yes you can, but with the same caveat: be careful with unwanted reflections coming back at your ears. You can angle your superchunks if you need to: they do not have to be perfectly symmetrical triangles. On leg can be longer than the other.

Back wall; can I add slatted wood here for a visual effect or does it need to be the material?

same as above: it can look really nice with slats, and you might even need that to keep some highs in the room, but watch out for reflections...

Im not soffitting my focal twin BE6 as the room is small and I'm not sure they would fit the application of a soffit mount

You can soffit mount those. No problem. And soffit mounting is good for pretty much any ro0m, unless it is really tiny.

- Stuart -