John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I am commissioned to build out a studio that is converting 3 classrooms in a church.

The left wall is concrete block with just panel board over it.
The right wall is hollow with panel board on both sides and no insulation in between the studs
The ceiling height is 9' 1" for the most part there is a sprinkler system right over the console position that would make that part 8.5'

The width of the room is 12'

The vocal booth would be 14' 8" x 11' 11" x 9' 1" ceiling height
Right now I am looking for as much advice as possible ...

I am thinking of stripping the panel board off to the studs... on the rear wall and the side wall with the door... putting insulation in and then putting 5/8" drywall over. Dependent on budget - Do a 2nd layer of drywall - changing orientation.

On the outside - single sheet of 5/8 Drywall

Looking for advice...

The Control Room:

This would be 9' 1" Ceiling height
Width is 11' 11"
Length to be 23' 3"

Thinking of a very slight angle so the nose of the control room would be closer to 11' 5"??

I have attached some sketches and photos so you can see what I am talking about...

The flooring is carpet in the vocal booth
and Laminate flooring in the control room
Would put up absorption material after it is completed and measure the room. Any recommendations on software to use for good accurate room measurements and monitor measurement.

I am thinking of stripping the panel board off to the studs... on the rear wall and the side wall with the door... putting insulation in and then putting 5/8" drywall over.

You didn't say how much isolation you need, so I'm assuming that you don't need much? If you do not have any plans to decouple your leaves or add mass, then I assume that you are fine with only about 30 dB of isolation?

Do a 2nd layer of drywall - changing orientation.

Adding a second layer of drywall to a fully coupled wall that already has two layers on it (one on each side) will increase the total mass by about 1/3, so you would get an increase of maybe 2 or 3 dB more isolation there. On the other hand, if you did that with a fully decoupled 2-leaf wall you would get an increase of maybe 8 to 10 dB from the additional sheet of drywall. That's the difference between coupled leaves and decoupled leaves. You are no longer subject to mass law alone when you switch to decoupled.

9' 1" Ceiling height
Width is 11' 11"
Length to be 23' 3"

The ratio isn't very good: The room is a bit too long for the width and height, but even worse is that the length is almost exactly double the width. You should never have two dimensions that are directly related to each other, mathematically. That implies that the modal issues will occur at identical frequencies, matching each other perfectly across the entire spectrum.

Thinking of a very slight angle so the nose of the control room would be closer to 11' 5"??

Why?

The flooring is carpet in the vocal booth

Get rid of that!

and Laminate flooring in the control room

Excellent!

Would put up absorption material after it is completed and measure the room.

That's backwards! FIRST you do a set of tests with REW in the completely empty room, as soon as the construction is finished, THEN based on the results you can decide where to put the treatment. Then you test again, treat again, test again, treat again, until it meets your original criteria. Doing it the other way is like getting into your car and starting to drive, then when you are done you decide to take out a map and plan the route....

Any recommendations on software to use for good accurate room measurements and monitor measurement.

Ummmmm.... you are using it!!!! You showed a screen.shot from REW, which is probably the best software out there!

I did a room simulation on Room EQ Wizard

.... except that you simulated only one speaker, and it's a sub with a cross-over! You didn't way what speakers you will be using in this room, but there's no sub marked on your sketch. Will you be doing 2.0 or 2.1? There's a difference....

You are also showing the listening position way too far forward in both the REW simulation and also on your sketch: For that room, the engineer's chair should be 106" from the front wall (8' 11")

Going up as high as I can which is the 9' 1". Currently it is 8' ceilings...

Excellent!

- Stuart -