John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi all. GREAT FORUM!! First post

My room is W:304 L:548 H:300 cm

Cement floor and ceiling. Drywall/rockwool the rest.

I want a balanced and deadish mixing and overdub room (no booth just one great sounding room)

Now I know that having basically the same height and width is bad.
I plugged in my dimensions to this genius thing I'm sure you all know: http://amroc.andymel.eu/
I notice if I 'lower' the height to 221cm I am 'almost' in the BOLT area.

I was going to build a nice rockwool cloud anyway but should I perhaps make very big one and back it with something very hard to artificially lower the ceiling reflection point?
I could hang it from chain and then I could also adjust the angle to give a sloped false ceiling.

Anyone care to offer some advice on this as I'm learning on the run here

Thanks!!

Hi there "civvie", and Welcome!

Cement floor and ceiling. Drywall/rockwool the rest.

Not sure I understand you there: Where is the rockwool? Inside the wall cavity, behind the drywall? Then it is not in the room: it is isolation, not treatment. Inside the room? Then it really is treatment, but does not count when measuring your room dimensions.

Room dimensions are measured form the hard, solid, rigid, massive surface of the walls the define the room itself. What you see as you stand inside the totally empty room, without any furniture, treatment, gear, or anything else. Just the bare inner-leaf walls.

I want a balanced and deadish mixing and overdub room (no booth just one great sounding room)

OK, but that's only partly about modal response (room ratios). Yes, having a good room ratio is important, but there are many other aspects of the room that need attention to get it sounding good.

Also, if it is "balanced" then it isn't "deadish"! That's a contradiction in terms. If it is balanced, then it will have the right decay time for the room volume and room purpose. If it is dead, then it isn't balanced!

Now I know that having basically the same height and width is bad.

Oh yes! For sure. And you are preyy much identical there. But I'm not clear if we are talking about the dimensions of the empty space where the room will be built, or the final dimensions of the inner-leaf after the room is finished. Those are probably two different things, unless you don't need any isolation....

I notice if I 'lower' the height to 221cm I am 'almost' in the BOLT area.

Studio design is all about trade-offs: Less of this to get more of that, nudge here to improve over there, etc. The Bolt area is a good place to be, but if it means bringing your ceiling down very low then it might NOT be such a good place to be. It might be better to sacrifice a bit of width or length instead (or both. Or all 3). Then again, making the room smaller overall isn't a good idea either: you really should aim for the most possible volume you can get...

In other words, you should fiddle around with all of the dimensions until you get a reasonable compromise. You do have a lot of height to play with, which is rare in home studios, so don't waste that just to hit a good ratio! You do need to reduce it a bit,, but only by about 15cm or so. As long as there's more than about 5% difference between dimension, you are reasonably OK. 10% would be better. So bringing your ceiling down to 280cm or maybe even 270 would be a possibility, but I wouldn't go lower than that. 280 sounds reasonable.

THEN with that done, yes, by all means build a hard-backed angled cloud over the mix position, and tilt it to whatever angle you need to get optimum performance. Probably something like 10° to 20°, but that would depend on the rest of the room as well, and also how the cloud is designed.

The cloud does not need to cover the entire ceiling: just the front section of the room, in the area over the desk/console/mix position/speakers, roughly.

I'd suggest designing your room in SketchUp, then posting the design here so we can take a look and see if there are ways it might be improved.

It would also help if you post photos of the room as it is right now, and provide as much detail as possible on what you plan to do in there.


- Stuart -

Thanks for the reply!

Sorry for lack of detail, I'll elaborate.

The room is in quite an old factory in London which has been converted in to artist studios. The room has cement floor and ceiling and 1 wall of cement rendered brick which has a window in it. The remaining 3 walls are constructed of a single layer of drywall each side with rockwool in between.

The dimensions are W 304 L548 H300
The window is W 145.5 H 182 and is recessed to the building exterior with aprox 20cm cill. (I will put in a second window to be flush with the interior wall)

If I clap loudly in the middle of the empty room I hear about a 1 sec long 'pinging' sound which I guess is my 300 x 300 height and width adding up.

I can't spend a fortune on the place as it's a shortish lease and too risky to invest heavily at this stage. I want to make it as functional as possible for mixing and tracking (I am a professional and work for long established UK labels) So lowering the actual ceiling is out of the question.

I plan on constructing 4 1200 x 600mm baffles with 50mm rockwool for the walls. 2 for the L R first reflection points and another 2 a bit further back in the room.
Then 2 1200 x 600 baffles with 100m rockwool for either side of the window which will be behind the speakers. Might angle these in the corners if that sounds best.
Then I plan on building a 180cm square cloud with 100mm rockwool to be centred over the mix position.

Questions.

Will hard backing the cloud with MDF help with mode issues?

Should I slant the cloud? (and is this pointless without hard-backing?)

What else should I do/ what should I do different?

The attached diagram has second door I plan on building and next to that I have a heavy cushy sofa that fits perfectly that I'm hoping will be a bit of a bass trap too.

Hi all,

SO FAR:

I've built 4 panels with 50mm thick Rockwool RW3 (density 60kg/m3) for first wall reflection points. They have 50mm air gap behind them.
Q: Would it be better to go 2 sheets for 100m thick for these L R first reflection points?

I've built another 2 panels 100m thick with 2 sheets of RW3 with 50mm air gap behind. Plan on putting these directly behind speakers on front wall. (speakers will be on stands and placed as close to wall as possible only allowing room for some treatment.)

I've also built a 180cm square cloud with with 2 layers of RW3 100m thick hanging about 80cm below ceiling.
Q: would hard backing this with thick MDF help at all addressing with my unfortunate ceiling height?

TO DO:
I plan on building two front wall floor to ceiling super chunks with RWA45 (density 45kg/m3) with 120cm x 85cm x 85cm triangles (120 cm at the front, 85cm along walls)

Left over rock wool will go on rear wall for more broadband absorbtion, with as much air gap as I can though prob no more than 15cm.

Am I doing it right?
Any other info you guys might need to offer some advice?

(Unfortunately I'm far too busy to learn sketchup and I have a tight deadline to get this room online so learning as I build which is obviously not ideal at all.)

Thank you!

Just realised that the superchunk edges will come right up to my window, so will be behind the speakers. So no need to build extra absorbers for behind speakers. I take it this is a good thing any way as a superchunk is a hefty absorber!