John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi! First, thank you for this great site! i have been reading this few years, and now i´m writing here first time, asking your advice. Hopefully i have understood all necessary rules.
I am 62 year old guy, ex-profession, now amateur musician (drummer) and i´m going to build a studio with control room. I´m making recordings, using acoustic drums, rock-music as genre. My adult boy is also using studio, mainly hiphop and rap scene.

Planning is to build studio in to cellar, in house where i live, most of time alone. Nearest neighbors house is about 20 meters away. My house is in downhill, cellar walls otherside under earth and other up. I made underground drain project 2 years ago and then i installed 100 mm thick insulation to outer walls under earth and 200 mm thick insulation under floor. So cellar is dry and there is no need for extra insulation for climate.
Cellar walls, ceiling and floor is made of concrete.
My budget is 2000-3000€
In attachment is a skp-file and i am asking your advice, how to plan control room and one tracking room in there?
Thanks!

Finally i can start studio project after delay!
My first question is that, what is the biggest size of skp files that i can post to to the forum. i did not find that in rules.

Thanks!

Hannu

Sorry! i found that. skp files must be under 500kb and i found how to make these smaller. Purge.

Hannu

Right! But even so, if the file is still too big to post directly, then put it on a file-sharing service (such as DropBox) and post the link here.

- Stuart -

Hi! I`m starting to build a control room and live room in my house cellar and i`m trying to decide, should i build a control room to room 1 or room 2?
Room 1 dimensions are, lenght: 385cm widht: 323 cm hight: 232
Room 2 dimensions are, lenght: 435cm widht: 372 cm hight: 232

With room mode calculator i get results in room 1(first 10 modes):
1 44.55 Hz F1 1-0-0 ax
2 53.1 Hz G1# 0-1-0 ax
3 69.31 Hz C2# 1-1-0 tan
4 73.92 Hz D2 0-0-1 ax
5 86.31 Hz F2 1-0-1 tan
6 89.09 Hz F2 2-0-0 ax
7 91.01 Hz F2# 0-1-1 tan
8 101.33 Hz G2# 1-1-1 obl
9 103.71 Hz G2# 2-1-0 tan
10 106.19 Hz G2# 0-2-0 ax

and in room 2:
1 39.43 Hz D1# 1-0-0 ax
2 46.1 Hz F1# 0-1-0 ax
3 60.66 Hz B1 1-1-0 tan
4 73.92 Hz D2 0-0-1 ax
5 78.85 Hz D2# 2-0-0 ax
6 83.78 Hz E2 1-0-1 tan
7 87.12 Hz F2 0-1-1 tan
8 91.34 Hz F2# 2-1-0 tan
9 92.2 Hz F2# 0-2-0 ax
10 95.63 Hz G2 1-1-1 obl

In room 1 there is a fireplace made of brick, on the rear right corner.

Rooms walls, ceilings and floors are made of concrete. It`s a small studio and i know that there are limitations about results, but i want to make best i can and that`s why i`m asking your advice. Which room do you prefer as planning control room, 1 or 2?

Outer walls are concrete 20cm thick+airtight gap 3 cm+ 6 cm thick brickwall. There is no insulation material between concrete and brick walls, is it a problem? ( no chance to fill)

I`m not sure, should i continue my post here or should i write new? Takes time for me to learn, how to use this (great)forum. One thing is that english is not my first language, but i will learn more.

I said wrong earlier: gap between concrete and brickwall is 20mm, not 30mm.
My question is:
1. From outer walls(concrete 200mm thick+airtight gap 20 mm(no insulation)+ 60 mm thick brickwall) to inner leaf: 1 inch gap, studs with insulation between, 2 cypsum board. How about brickwall? Should i fill the cavity( 1 inch) with insulation, between studwall and brickwall? Should i put insulation material against brickwall?

Thank you!

Hannu

Hi! Trying to get control room planning forward. Rfz-control room is my goal. Don`t know, is it possible with these dimensions. In this situation, i have two questions:

1. From outer walls(concrete 200mm thick+airtight gap 20 mm(no insulation)+ 60 mm thick brickwall) to inner leaf: 1 inch gap, studs with insulation between, 2 cypsum board. How about brickwall? Should i fill the cavity( 1 inch) with insulation, between studwall and brickwall? Should i put insulation material against brickwall(to stop possible flanking of brickwall)?

2. In flush mounting, how should i angle speakers, that the point where i sit, is in first 1/3 of room?
Skp-file in attachments is in right scale.

Waiting for answer, thanks. ( because of wintertime here in Finland, snow, snow and more snow and cold, i must start building soon)

Hannu

I have been reading this forum a lot, but haven`t find similar case or solution to my problem. So, please answer, if you know.

Two of the walls in control room(and in live room) are external walls and i don´t know should i think that they are 2 leaf or one.
External walls from out to in: concrete 200mm +airtight gap(no insulation) 30mm+ 60mm brickwall. Is this 2 leaf wall?

I´d appreciate your help.

Hannu

Room 1 dimensions are, lenght: 385cm widht: 323 cm hight: 232
Room 2 dimensions are, lenght: 435cm widht: 372 cm hight: 232

I would go with Room #2. It's bigger and has pretty good modal response.

Rfz-control room is my goal.

With Room #2 it should be possible, but room #1 might be a bit small for that.

1. From outer walls(concrete 200mm thick+airtight gap 20 mm(no insulation)+ 60 mm thick brickwall) to inner leaf: 1 inch gap, studs with insulation between, 2 cypsum board

That would be fine. It's a three-leaf system, but there's plenty of mass on your existing leaves, so you should be OK.

Should i fill the cavity( 1 inch) with insulation, between studwall and brickwall?

Yes! Definitely! But the gap will be much more than one inch. If you leave a 1 inch gap between the brick wall and the stud frame, and you use standard studs that are 3-5 inches deep, then you will have a gap of 4.5 inches. Which is good!

Should i put insulation material against brickwall

Yes! You should fill the entire cavity with insulation: all 4.5 inches.

2. In flush mounting, how should i angle speakers, that the point where i sit, is in first 1/3 of room?

You should set up the room so that your ears will e about 38% of the distance from the front wall to the back wall, roughly ( it does not have to be exact!), then set up the speakers so that the are centered about 28% of the room width from the side walls (it does not have to be exact!), and aim them so that they are both aiming at the same spot about 12 to 16 inches behind where your head will be.

Two of the walls in control room(and in live room) are external walls and i don´t know should i think that they are 2 leaf or one.
External walls from out to in: concrete 200mm +airtight gap(no insulation) 30mm+ 60mm brickwall. Is this 2 leaf wall?

Yes it is a two-leaf wall, but don't worry about it: you have a LOT of mass in there, so as long as you leave a decent size gap for your final inner-leaf wall, you should be fine.

- Stuart -

Hi Stuart and thank you so VERY VERY much!

I choose room 2 for Control room. Next i`m gonna REW both rooms and go on planning control room.

Hannu

This seems to be a long way, but now back in busines! Here is link for rew data:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7p3czkbuh0b3 ... -SEIa?dl=0

After measuring with REW, we listened some music in empty room. For the start, it was not bad at all. I suspected that it would have been worse. Cellar is partly under earth and there is lot of mass, maybe that`s good thing?
Measurement mic is Klark Teknik A.T.I. 1617, but i haven't found cal data of it.

I cant`analyze rew graphs and i really appreciate your possible help. And maybe i learn something.

Hannu

Sorry, here are pictures!

I tried, but can't understand those measurements. Could somebody explain me a little?

Hannu

Have i missed something?

Anyone?

I tried, but can't understand those measurements. Could somebody explain me a little?

First of all, you need to remove ALL of the EQ that you have applied in your system! You have it set up with a very large bass boost of about 10 dB, and a very large treble boost of around 5 dB, which produces the typical "smiley face" frequency response curve. Here's what it looks like, smoothed to one octave:
And what it looks like smoothed to show the way your ears actually perceive it: And what the mic actually measured, not smoothed:
That should look like a flat line across the page, ideally, under perfect circumstances. Take a look at this thread, to see what the graphs should look like for a very well tuned room: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=20471

Next, the decay times in your room are too long in general. Here's how they look right now, and the horizontal line I put in there at 250 ms is roughly where it should be: Next up, the "waterfall" plot, which shows how the energy in the room is decaying for each frequency, over time. In this case, I'm just showing the low end of the spectrum (the most important part) under 500 Hz: The mountain peaks are modal issues in your room. They need to be damped.

And finally, the spectrogram, which shows the same data in a different format: The spikes are modes. The empty gaps are reflections, probably SBIR: So, what all of this means is that you are going to need a lot of bass trapping in that room, but to balance it such that it does NOT also absorb all of the highs. Then you are going to need absorption on your first reflection points (side walls and ceiling), plus between the speakers and the front wall.

But before you do any of that, first adjust your sound system to get rid of that equalization that you are applying: it makes the music "sound good", yes, but that's NOT what a control room should do! It should not make the music sound like anything! The entire purpose of a control room is to tell the absolute truth: it should not add anything to the true original sound, and it should not take anything away from the true original sound. It should only transmit that sound as accurately as possible to your ears, without altering it any way. That includes the room AND the sound system: it must all be tuned totally flat, exactly as shown in that link above to Studio Three Productions.

So first of all, remove all the EQ and leave it that way forever, then repeat the tests at the correct level (you did not calibrate your system either, it seems). Follow the instructions here: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =3&t=21122


- Stuart -

- Stuart -