John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi,
first I want to thank you for this amazing site.
I am a musician and producer with more than 15 years of experience working in home studios and some professional studios as well.

Now I have the chance to design a really nice studio in a 83m2 (900 square feet) basement from the scratch.
I am not going to be the one to do the final design, this is a proposal that I will give to the financing member of the team.
We will hire a professional to do the real job.

Mainly I am going to be working with another guy in the Control Room producing many different generes of electronic music, using many vintage and new synths but we also want to build a Recording Room big enough to have a drum set, record vocals and probably an upright piano.

We are planing to have the Barefoot Minimain 12 monitors and the SSL Matrix2 mixer with a some external racks, around 10 units.

The place is a semi basement, the only neighbor is small night club sharing one of the side walls (25cm thick), probably during they opening hours we will be disturbed, but we will not disturb anybody. I usually work around 90db or less.

One of my concerns is that the ceiling height is just around 2.40m.
This is what I´ve done until now, but I am afraid that this shapes are not the best for acoustics, I´ve seen many trapezoidal control rooms but all of them have the speakers facing the biggest of the different walls, I guess that the sound needs to expand and not compress like in these design.
Is this a good approach?
Could someone please recommend me another layout?
I am stuck with this one and can´t find another option.

I could´t find any information about the best place to put the Barefoot MiniMain12, in the manual just says that the minimum recommended distance is 1 meter and that Soffit mounting the MiniMain12 is not recommended.
How far should they be from the rear wall?

Thanks

Hi there "mkkgl", and Welcome to the forum!

Now I have the chance to design a really nice studio in a 83m2 (900 square feet) basement from the scratch.

That's a really nice sized space for a studio. It can be excellent. How high is the ceiling? In most basements, that's usually the biggest problem: low ceiling.

I am not going to be the one to do the final design, this is a proposal that I will give to the financing member of the team. We will hire a professional to do the real job.

That's a very smart move. There are many, many aspects that you need to take into account when designing a studio. It's a more complex than most people realize. If you have the budget, then it is better to hire someone, for sure. I'd suggest that you contact John Sayers himself about that, and ask him to quote you for designing your place.

We are planing to have the Barefoot Minimain 12 monitors

Nice! VERY nice.

One of my concerns is that the ceiling height is just around 2.40m.

That answers my question above. 240cm is fine for a control room: I've built a few that are lower than that, and they can sound good if they are designed carefully. But for a live room it would be good to have more headroom, especially for drums. Is there any plenum space above that you could use? If this is in an office building, there is often space above the drop-ceiling that can be used. Is that your situation? Or in a basement, there might be space between the joists that could be used. There are some "tricks" that studio designers use to make a low ceiling sound a bit higher, acoustically, but there are limits to what can be accomplished.

This is what I´ve done until now, but I am afraid that this shapes are not the best for acoustics,

Right! In fact, it is facing backwards! In general, a control room should not be narrower at the back than at the front, as that can create compression artifacts under some circumstances. The front should be narrower, and the back wider, or at least the same width. It's not a good idea to have the front wider. Especially with Barefoot monitors, that have side-facing drivers.

I´ve seen many trapezoidal control rooms but all of them have the speakers facing the biggest of the different walls, I guess that the sound needs to expand and not compress like in these design.

Right! If the room is very big, with plenty of room for treatment, then you cold make it look like that.

Is this a good approach?

Not really...

But a bigger issue than the shape, is the thing just outside your studio, labeled "night club". Those are NOISY! You might need some extra isolation for your studio, so you are not affected by the noise from the night club. Have you measured the noise from the night club inside the basement?

Could someone please recommend me another layout?

There are several possible layouts in that area. It's a strange shape, but usable. One option I would try is to turn things around: Have the rear of the control room at the wall labeled "5m", with the front facing towards the entrance door, and use the triangle area above that for storage, vocal booth, machine room, HVAC, closet, electrical closet, or something like that, and the live room between the front of the CR and the entry area. That might work.

Another option would be to make that "5m" wall the front of the CR.

You might even be able to do a "corner control room" design in there. I think it would fit.

There are many options, but to be honest YOU do not need to figure that out: That's what you'll be paying the studio designer to do! That's his job. He will take a close look at the space, and use his experience to figure out the optimum layout of rooms, and the best use of space. Sometimes I go through half a dozen different arrangements before I come up with the one that works best. I think my record was eleven: I tried 11 different layouts in designing a studio before finding the one that made the most sense all around, and it turned out to be nothing like the owner had originally imagined.

So I would suggest that you should not worry about that: Just hire your designer, and let him do the work for you, in coming up with the best layout. It might look similar to what you have, or it might be totally different.

I could´t find any information about the best place to put the Barefoot MiniMain12, in the manual just says that the minimum recommended distance is 1 meter and that Soffit mounting the MiniMain12 is not recommended.

Right. Some Barefoot models are about the only speakers that cannot be soffit mounted, due to the active drivers on the sides. Most other speakers can be soffit mounted, but some Barefoot's can't. In fact, it would be a shame to try to do that, since Thomas did such a great job designing them, and they just work so well! If you tried to soffit mount those, you would damage the sound greatly. It would work, but not very well. Thomas has tuned those things very, very well. I would suggest that you get the stands that he makes especially for those speakers, and use those.

How far should they be from the rear wall?

That depends on many factors, all of which the studio designer will take into account as he designs your room. There is not just one "best" distance: that depends on the acoustic response of the room, as much as on the speakers themselves. It's a combination of the two. You need to take into account the modal response of the room, possible SBIR artifacts from the surfaces around the speaker, room shape and volume, location of furniture and equipment in the room, correct geometry for the speakers and mix position, possible comb filtering, etc. There are many things to consider when deciding on the placement of speakers in a room.

When I design a room, I design it around the speakers. The monitors are the central issue, for me. My philosophy is that the speakers are the entire purpose for having a room in the first place, so the entire room should be designed to complement the speakers as much as possible, acoustically. The room should not add anything to the sound of the speakers, and should not take anything away from the sound of the speakers: it should be transparent. It should not exist, acoustically. It should be neutral. And it should meet ITU BS.1116-2 specifications for critical listening rooms. If you are interested in what can be accomplished, here's a thread about a control room does all of the above: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=20471 There are also many other examples of rooms that work very well, all over the forum, but mostly here: http://www.johnlsayers.com/ . Those are al places designed by John.

So I would suggest that you don't need to be concerned about those factors at all: that's the reason why you would hire an experienced acoustic designer to design your studio: he will take care of all of those issues in his design.

That's why I'd suggest once again that you should contact John. Send him a PM, and ask him to quote for designing your place.


- Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:Hi there "mkkgl", and Welcome to the forum!
-

Many months happened from my last post,
I would like to apologize for not answering and thanking to such a elaborated answer that Stuart gave me.
Thank you Stuart!!

For some health issues, I was out of this project until some weeks ago, that I came to the place where the studio is being built and discovered that they are building the studio without the advice of a studio designer

It is supposed that they have finished with the isolation and already built the walls,
But the design that they are following I find it acoustically WRONG.

This is what they have done
After I explained them the importance of the symmetry in the control room
they asked me to suggest a layout solution.

This is my idea to ¨SAVE¨ the control room, without
modifying much the job that it is already done.
so to achieve this symmetrical shape they have to move that divisor wall like this.
I am still trying to get a profesional designer involved on this project, but right now I have to tell something to this builders as soon as possible so they stop what they are doing.

What are your thoughts about this??
Do you think I am in the right track with my suggestions?
How bad is to have the glass not centered on the front wall (the owner wants a big one) ?

Thanks!