John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I'm designing a new studio and I'm looking into variable acoustic devices such as curtains that can be opened/closed to adjust reverb time, etc. The curtains don't work well in my space because the wall is curved in plan view. So, I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen a variable acoustic louver. Like, imagine vertical wooden louvers running most of the height of the wall and placed just in front of it. Each louver is 2-6" wide and the whole system could be as wide as the wall. The outside of the louvers is wood or something reflective and the inside is highly absorptive. The wall is also covered in highly absorptive material. Then you can vary how far you open the louver to adjust reverb time.

Has this been done? Any thoughts on how well it would work?

That could work, yes. The only issue with louvers is that you'd be changing the reflections too. You'd be sending reflections to different parts of the room that didn't have any before...

- Stuart -

Thanks for the thoughts. You raise an interesting point on reflections. I'll research that some more, but I'm leaning toward doing this.

Are we talking about a control room? Live room? Drum booth? Isolation booth? Vocal booth? Something else? Those are all different scenarios.

It is certainly possible to build variable-acoustic devices. Here's one I designed for one of my customers a couple of years ago, for a vocal booth:

Under construction:

Completed (On the wall to the right):

- Stuart -

Very cool. This is roughly what I had in mind, only I was thinking of making them more like skinny 4-6" louvers instead of big panels. The need is for my Live Room. It will function both for recording and as a performance space, so I want to be able to dial the reverb time depending on the use.