John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello,
this is my first post. I am from Germany and my english is not good.
So I hope you understand my questions.....

My plan is to build a studio in an old big horse stable of an old farmer house. So I have enough space to built everything without a ceiling limit
because the stable has an hight of 9 meters.

So my idea is to make a floating floor (with wood framing or concrete)
and built all my different rooms on these individual Floors without any conections to eachother.

Now I have a few questions:

1. Building the walls. Which Version is the right way to go for:



I think the first one, but i am not shure. You look from above on the wall.
The Black is 3 layers of gypsum. The orange is the framing with insulations and the white is the air.


2. Can I built for each room a "little houses in house"? What i mean is: Is it a useable way to built the ceiling on the new walls?

3. When i built the ceiling on the new walls should i build it with the same system like the walls (like in point 2).

4. Which hight ist good for a) Control room b) Big Live Room c) Vocal booth & d) Drum Room. I don´t want the "perfect hight" I only want an idea of....

Many many question and a bad english. But I hope you can help me.

Kindest regards

Hendrik

Hendrik,

Welcome to the site. If you haven't done so yet, read some of the sticky's at the top of the forum. The one on "complete section" has lots of good info on walls, etc.

In your drawing, I would say the first one. Here's a diagram that shows the difference in STC ratings, etc just by placing the same materials in different locations of the construction.

Hi Aaronw,
i have read a lot on this site. It´s a great Information pool.

I know this "STR Picture" But the question is:

Is the left site of this "STC 63 System" for 1 room and the right side on the other room, or have i need 2 of these "STR 63" Systems. One on the first room and one for the second room.

Easier: Have I built 2 Frames or 4?... I think (hope..) 2.....

Hi hendrik,
Your left side of "STC 63" illustration is one room and the right side is the other room!
So you only have to build one frame in one room and one frame for the other room.
cheers

Hi Sen,
thank you very much. I had already fear....

So, it would be very nice, if someone could answer my other questions.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards
Hendrik

Hendrik, first of all welcome to the board; no apologies necessary here, your English is vastly better than my German (or any other language, for that matter)

1 - the other guys got this one - between any two places you want to block sound, you need two masses separated by air and insulation. Each mass can be multiple layers, as long as there is no air gap between layers. So your example of 3 layers of gypsum/insulation/air/insulation/3 layers of gypsum is fine - this should be your total construction between the air space in any two rooms you're isolating from each other, or from the outside world.

2 - Building your inner ceiling mass supported by the inner walls is a very good way to get isolation - ceilings, walls, floors, windows and doors ALL follow the same laws of physics as in question 1.

3 - Answered in #2 -

4 - Height is like money - more is always better. However, the WORST thing you can do for ANY room is to make any two dimensions the SAME - and a perfect cube is the worst of all. There are several accepted ratios for length/width/height that give better acoustic properties, only one of these is the ratio of 1:1.6:2.33 - an example would be a room that is 10 feet high by 16 feet wide by 23.3 feet long. There are several others -

Also on this site is a basic room mode spreadsheet (Roomtune) I wrote over 20 years ago that can help pick ratios that work - a more advanced one was written by Jeff Szymanski, Head Acoustic Engineer for Auralex Acoustics - you can find it here -

http://www.studiotips.com/tools

Download ModesV2.xls - for both spreadsheets, you will need Excel on your computer.

I can help with any questions you may have on these, just ask... Steve

Hi Steve,
thanks a lot. Question 1-3 is answered and the important thing is:
I understand it!...

But 2 more questions:

A) Is a larger air space better? Or does the air space stands in relation to the STR level.

B) It doesn´t matter which kind of room that is, when i use any "good" ratio? Is it right when i say "The more largely the room, the more highly the ceiling" (depends on the used ratio)?

It would be nice, if you can answer my questions.

Thanks in advance

Hendrik

a - yes, larger space is better - I was going to ask whether you mean the space between wall panels or the space in the room, but realized the answer is the same. More space between wall panels (where the insulation goes) will improve isolation between rooms. More space within the room gives a more uniform sound field and a more natural sound.

b - you're correct in your understanding of this. Also, as far as these ratios are concerned - for a smaller room, such as a vocal booth, it doesn't matter which dimension is which - the room can be taller than either of the other two dimensions, as long as the ratios are good. What you need is for no two dimensions of the room to be simple fractions of each other, like 1:3, 1:4, etc -

The larger the room, the less acoustic problems you will have from these dimension ratios - this is because the further above the prime resonant modes of a room you get (in frequency of sound) the more closely spaced the resonances become, until they blend together and stop being noticeable as separate effects. What the larger room does is to "push" these separate resonances down in frequency until they are not audible.

Hope that helps... Steve

Hi Steve,
thanks a lot. I understand that and yes, I meant the air space between the wall panels.

A further question concerning the Ratio thing.

How do I calculates the room size, if the room does not have parallel walls? Should I use the maximum width, depth and height of the room?

Thanks in advance

Hendrik

For non-parallel surfaces, there is no easy way to be exact - you can get a pretty good idea by using the AVERAGE dimensions. So if your walls are 5 meters apart at one end and 5.5 meters apart at the other, you would use 5.25 meters.

Sorry, but both the spreadsheets I linked to are in feet and inches; you'll need to convert metric values yourself... Steve

knightfly wrote:For non-parallel surfaces, there is no easy way to be exact - you can get a pretty good idea by using the AVERAGE dimensions. So if your walls are 5 meters apart at one end and 5.5 meters apart at the other, you would use 5.25 meters.

Ok, thats fine.

knightfly wrote:Sorry, but both the spreadsheets I linked to are in feet and inches; you'll need to convert metric values yourself... Steve

No Problem. I´ll try to built a studio. If that is too heavy, I should give up...

Can I ask you, if I have further questions in the planning phase?

Thanks in advance.
Hendrik

Absolutely, that's why we're here... Steve

My first picture test...

No problem, Hendrik - however, I couldn't get your image to work - can you try again? Thanks... Steve

Hi Steve,
Ok, something gone wrong.

Here is the picture now.

and here are the questions again.

Question1:

How much degree should I angel the side walls of my control Room?
I mean the brightly blue ones. I heard about 6 degree, but this is not really working in a 5.1 setup.

Question2:

How much degree should I angel the ceiling? In the front (where the 3 front speakers are) the ceiling hight should be lower, right? and in the back (where the sofa is) the ceiling should be higher, also right?
But how much degree is a good startind point.

Question3:

I have a entrance Problem for the control room. Is it possible to make the door in the back where the sofa is? Or can I make the entrance in the side walls between the rear wall and the rear speakers? I don´t want an entrance through one of the recording rooms....


Finally this is a basic plan. The recording rooms are not optimized. Please only help me with my Control room. I will design the recording rooms later.


Thanks in advance.

Regards
Hendrik