John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello community!

I'm renting a house from the bassist of Foreigner which has a pre-existing studio space in it. I'm looking to optimize the space as best as possible, specifically speaker placement and room acoustics. It sounds a bit reverby at the moment as there's no absorption in it.

I would like the room to be nice and flat for mixing, I'll also be recording vocals and other instruments in the room and recording live performances. On the other side of the glass doors there's a very flat vocal isolation room already there for perfect vocal mixing.

I've attached a sketch-up I made with dimensions and a few pictures of the studio in its current form. My monitor placement you can see in the sketch-up represented by circles, with the center circle being listening position .. I tried following the triangle recommended on various acoustic references I read.

For room acoustics, I'm planning on corner bass traps in all four corners, panels on the side walls, panels covering the highest point on the ceiling, and panels on the corner that that extends out a few feet above the glass doors.

I'm thinking 4" thick roxul safe n sound panels that I will make myself. Its just way cheaper than 703 so I was planning on making it work...

For the corners, I'm debating between doing a "superchunk" method I found here (http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=535), or just placing regular 4" bass trap panels extending up the height of the corners.

If you could let me know how heavy I will need to cover the corners and angles in this room with panels and/or traps and/or diffusers that would be great! I'm ready to hit home depot, build these things, and be done with it!

Also, will putting curtains in front of the glass doors be sufficient to stop the glass from reflecting sound and ruining acoustics? Are there special curtains I should get?

Any other recommendations welcome!

Thanks

Did I do something incorrectly in my post? Let me know what I can do to get some feedback here!

Thanks

HI there " loganjames1 ", and Welcome!

Did I do something incorrectly in my post? Let me know what I can do to get some feedback here!

Actually, you did nothing wrong at all! In fact, you did everything right, as far as I can see.

The problem is just simply time. Right now, I seem to be the only moderators helping out with information here on the forum. There are hundreds of active threads, and only one of me. I'm doing my best to answer as many forum members as I can, but I also have commitments to paying customers, family, church, and other things. I really wish there were more hours in the day, and more days in the week, but there just aren't. (Instead of 24/7, I reckon a 38/12 arrangement would be about right for me... with 38 hours in a day, and 12 days in a week, I just might be able to keep everyone happy! )

But anyway "the squeaky wheel gets the grease", as the saying goes, and you did "squeak"! So here goes...

specifically speaker placement and room acoustics. It sounds a bit reverby at the moment as there's no absorption in it.

First, speaker placement:


That's the theoretically optimum placement for your speakers in your room. You didn't mention what speakers they are, so I'm assuming typical generic studio monitors.

Yes, that does leave your speakers partially covering the glass doors. So you have a choice: 1) optimum acoustics and not-so-easy access, 2) not optimum acoustics, but easy access. 3) Modify the door, so you an have optimum acoustics AND easy access.

I tried following the triangle recommended on various acoustic references I read.

The famous triangle is nice on paper, but I'm assuming that you have not had your ears surgically transplanted onto your eyeballs, so that triangle is maybe not such a good idea. Take a look at how that triangle works in practice: it aims the speaker axes at the middle of the head, which means that the perfect on-axis location is in your eyeballs! If you are built like most people, with our ears a couple of inches outwards from there, a couple of inches further back, and a little lower down, then you should probably go with a more practical layout, such as the one above...

In reality, it turns out that aiming the speakers at a point several inches behind your head, such that the speaker axis sort of grazes past the edge of tip of your ear, or even a bit further out, is much better.

For room acoustics, I'm planning on corner bass traps in all four corners, panels on the side walls,

So far so good....

panels covering the highest point on the ceiling,

You have a rather high ceiling, which is GOOD! But you also have a tall thin studio, which means you'll need to modify the typical treatment plan. I would run panels on either side of the ridge, along the entire length of the ceiling, front wall to back wall, and at least 18" wide, then I would hang a cloud above the space between the speakers and the mix position, hard backed, angled, starting at about 9' and going up at an angle of at least 8°, maybe 12° if you can make it look good.

and panels on the corner that that extends out a few feet above the glass doors.

Probably not necessary. I'd leave that until the end, and only decide on doing that after you test the room with REW.

I'm thinking 4" thick roxul safe n sound panels that I will make myself. Its just way cheaper than 703 so I was planning on making it work...

It might be cheaper, but is it as good, acoustically, for the applications you have in mind? Did you check the specs, and compare the coefficients of absorption for the frequencies that you expect to be problematic at each location in the room?

For the corners, I'm debating between doing a "superchunk" method ... or just placing regular 4" bass trap panels extending up the height of the corners.

Superchunk, for sure. It's a small room, so it will need tons of bass trapping

Your plan does not mentioned anything at all for the rear wall (which is always the one that causes the most problems), nor for the front wall, which can cause another set of problems entirely. At the very least you will need panels of 4" OC-703 between the speakers and the front wall (glass), to deal with the SBIR and edge diffraction and comb filtering artifacts and other nasty stuff, and you will need 6" of OC-703 across the entire rear wall, between the suprchunks. You will likely need to partially cover that with a suitable thickness of plastic, to keep the highs in the room, but that will have to be done carefully, as part of the tuning. process.

You might also need additional absorption on the side walls and/or the ceiling, but that will become apparent in the acoustic testing process.

I would suggest that before you do anything, with the room still empty but set up as above, that you do a set of REW tests to see how it is behaving at present, then modify the above suggestions based on that testing.

Also, will putting curtains in front of the glass doors be sufficient to stop the glass from reflecting sound and ruining acoustics?

Nope!

Are there special curtains I should get?

Nope!


- Stuart -