John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hey guys,

I've been trying to plan out the best way to move my current studio setup from an extra bedroom to something a little more spacious, At first I was thinking custom building but then I added up the cost.

As of right now the most realistic option for me is to convert my garage. The space will be used for recording/practice/demo quality recording (im not looking to really make anything amazing).

Heres the details of the space:

Height - 8.4 ft
Width (against house) - 20.11 ft
Length - 21.7 ft

There are also two windows, and a garage door.

I'm also attaching a quick picture I created that might help. The red is the door to the house/garage door. The blue lines are the windows. This is what is looks like as of right now.

I'm really trying to not make anything in here super permanent because I probably won't be in this house forever so I'd hate to not be able to sell the house with a functional garage.

My main use for this space will be recording closed mic guitar and mixing rock music. I use e-drums and addictive drums for my drum sounds. I dont have the knowledge to really mix anything other than a demo at this point so I'm not looking for a 100% professional setup. Thats the only reason im really worried about the size and shape of this space. If I weren't doing any kind of mixing I would just throw it all in the garage and add an air vent.

So here's a rundown of my questions/concerns:

- Should I build within the room using the golden ratio? In this case I wouldn't want to really build using drywall due to the fact that I would have to tear the wall down when I leave. If I don't use drywall I'm thinking any cheaper thinner material would vibrate and throw off anything I'm trying to do. Or if worse comes to worse could I just build temporary walls using a basic frame and some ultra touch insulation? Im attaching a second picture of what Im thinking of here. The blue lines are what im talking about.

- If that wouldn't be worth it, should I just treat the space? Could i perhaps build something in front of the door or 'treat' the garage door (Maybe using SheetBlok)?

I've read time and time again that when it comes to spaces that a cube is horrible to work with . I'm leaning towards building two walls to make an L shape and just block off the windows/garage door but I'm not sure if its worth it.

Sorry for the long post. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi there "blinkbudda113", and Welcome!

That's a decent sized space you have there. Good possibilities.

- Should I build within the room using the golden ratio?

Which one? There is no such thing as one unique perfect ratio: Rather, there are a bunch of terrible ratios, and a few good ones. In fact, if you plot all possible ratios on a an X-Y graph (where the height "Z" is assumed to be one unit, and X and Y are multiples of the height), then there's actually an area on the graph where all the good ratios are contained, and that is know as the "Bolt Area" (named after the guy who first figured it out). As long as your ratio is within that area, then you should be fine.

There are a number of room ratio calculators that will help you find a good set of dimensions. The two best ones are:

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

http://amroc.andymel.eu/

The second one actually shows where your ratio is in relation to the Bolt Area, but both of them give you a lot or information than just that: they show you where all the modes fall on the musical spectrum, and whether or not there is a smooth distribution of modes, if it meets certain criteria for being considered "good", and how it compares to the best ratios, etc. Play around with those, until you find a good set of dimensions.

In this case I wouldn't want to really build using drywall ... I'm thinking any cheaper thinner material would vibrate and throw off anything I'm trying to do

Then you won't actually be building anything at all! Room ratios refer to the hard, solid, massive, rigid boundaries of the room, not flimsy panels that might happen to be inside it. Sound waves won't even notice "cheaper thinner" material. The MINIMUM you could use to get a decent boundary, is a single layer of 5/8" drywall. 1/2" drywall could also be used, but won't get you very good results, for the same reason you mention: it will vibrate and throw off everything you are trying to do.

I just build temporary walls using a basic frame and some ultra touch insulation?

That would do nothing at all. Low frequency sound passes straight through insulation and out the other side, so the boundaries of the room would still be where they are right now: the type of sound that causes modal issues wouldn't even notice that.

Could i perhaps build something in front of the door or 'treat' the garage door (Maybe using SheetBlok)?

That would not be treatment: that would be isolation. They are two entirely different and unrelated aspects of acoustics. "Isolation" refers to setting up the room boundaries and making them acoustically tough enough to stop a certain proportion of the sound from getting in or out. That "certain proportion" is called "transmission loss" in technical jargon, and is measured in decibels. A typical house wall gives you about 30 dB of isolation, your garage door right now probably gives you less than 20, and a well isolated home studio might get as much as 50 or more. So your first job should be figure out how much isolation you need to meet the legal requirements for the noise regulations in your area. That will define what you need to to to isolate the room. Isolation is accomplished with massive, large, hard, solid, heavy, rigid, sealed materials, such as drywall, concrete, glass, OSB, MDF, plywood, bricks, and things like that.

Treatment is an entirely different thing. Treatment deals with what happens to the sound inside the room. Since isolating a room prevents the sound from getting out, the logical conclusion is that the sound stayed in! And all that sound energy bouncing around in the room makes the room sound bad. Treatment is what you do to make it sound good again. Treatment is accomplished mostly with light, fluffy, soft, open, flexible materials, such as fiberglass insulation, mineral wool insulation, acoustic foam, and similar things: Other forms of treatment can include solid materials arranged in uneven surfaces, such as diffusers, and in specially tuned arrangements, such as Helmholtz resonators, panel resonators, and suchlike.

So if you want to isolate your room to keep out unwanted sounds that might spoil your recordings, or to keep in you own sounds so they don't bother the neighbors, then you would do that by building walls and a ceiling using framing and drywall. That's also what you'd do to get a good room ratio such that you have a usable space.

But if you don't care at all about isolation or a good room ratio, then you don't need to do that. If you just want to make the existing room sound good, then all you need is treatment inside it.

I'm leaning towards building two walls to make an L shape and just block off the windows/garage door but I'm not sure if its worth it.

That would certainly work, but don't forget the ceiling! Sound is 3D and so are rooms. The ratio is expressed as X : Y, but Z is implied in there too. Your ceiling is just as much a part of the room as the walls are, and is critical for both isolation and treatment.

- Stuart -

Thanks for the reply! I think I've decided a good direction to go with in order to do this in the most efficient way possible. I've decided to kind of turn the room and treat the "length" as the side that is against the house (or parallel with the garage door), and the width as the window side. Im thinking that will allow me to just build one wall straight across and avoid the L shape. The only problem I'm have now is with the numbers. I checked out the sites that you posted here and this is where I am at:

Which one? There is no such thing as one unique perfect ratio

- The one I initially was going to go with is as follows 1 (H) X 1.60 (W) X 2.33 (L) Which would give me a room that I'm attaching (labeled Option 1). According to that ratio Im a little over on my length side but I'm willing to live with that.

- Using this website:
http://www.bobgolds.com/Mode/RoomModes.htm
I got the following dimensions: 1 X 1.963 X 2.593. Im attaching that wonderful Microsoft Pain mock up as well (labeled option two). The only problem with this ration is I'm actually about 5 or 6 inches short of where I need to be.

Which case is the best scenario?

The MINIMUM you could use to get a decent boundary, is a single layer of 5/8" drywall. 1/2" drywall could also be used, but won't get you very good results

I'm probably going to do 1/2 dry wall - insulation - 1/2 drywall again. Ive read on a couple of forums that would give me a good amount of isolation.

That would certainly work, but don't forget the ceiling!

For that im probably going to put something over my listening area. More or less a drum cloud but not nearly as huge.

Thanks for the info on isolation/treatment! Im hoping to make this area as close to workable as possible so I dont have to do a lot of treatment. I know no room is perfect, but I'm trying to make this is as simple and effective as possible.

I'm probably going to do 1/2 dry wall - insulation - 1/2 drywall again. Ive read on a couple of forums that would give me a good amount of isolation.

Then you've been reading in the wrong places! Take a look at IRC-761, and you'll find out the truth: over 300 different wall constructions, tested in proper acoustic laboratory, across the full spectrum. Pretty much every single combination of drywall, studs, insulation, gaps, resilient channel, and everything else.

The one you mentions is pretty close to the bottom of the list. You'll find it on page 19, with variations on the following pages. They all give isolation around STC-30, or a bit more. Which is pretty lousy, as you'll see when you read the rest of the report. And even more lousy, when you look at the full TL graphs, which show deep valleys in the isolation around 120 to 150 Hz. They barely make 10 dB of isolation in that region, which of course is pretty much where drums, bass, keyboards, guitars, and suchlike put out a lot of energy.

On the other hand, if you use of 5/8" drywall on separate frames, (two layers) then you get about a thousand times more isolation: Yup, you did read that correctly. A wall built correctly like that will indeed stop about 1,000 times as much sound as the one you describe. It will, indeed, get you around 60 dB of isolation, with over 50 dB at 150 Hz.

For that im probably going to put something over my listening area. More or less a drum cloud but not nearly as huge.

I was actually talking about the room ceiling, not something you hang inside the room, below the ceiling. The ceiling is what isolates the room, acoustically. A cloud is what you do to treat the room, acoustically. Those are two very different things. Clouds do nothing at all to isolate, and isolation ceilings do nothing at all to treat the room.

I was pointing you to the absolute necessity of also building a new ceiling across the top of the room, to isolate it. Without that, you have no isolation.

- Stuart -