Slat Resonator - (using existing drywall as the back seal?)

[digi001]

When creating the corner or side-wall absorbers shown here:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm

Is it ok to use the existing wall (which in my case is 5/8 type X drywall) as the back piece of the resonator? Or does it have to be completed framed in the back with MDF or some other material?

Is John basically showing us this idea here?:
http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Pages/Walls.htm

Frame the resonator with 2x4s, seal top bottom and sides, but can use the plasterboard (drywall) as the back seal?

[Soundman2020]

When creating the corner or side-wall absorbers shown here:

Firstly, why do you think you will need one of those? For what reason? Where? In which room? What frequency range will you tune it to? Will you tune it broadband, or as a set of individual Helmholtz resonators? And why that specific range?

Is it ok to use the existing wall (which in my case is 5/8 type X drywall) as the back piece of the resonator?

Depending on the answers to some of the above questions, it MIGHT be possible to just use the drywall, assuming that there are enough layers of it, and it is framed rigidly enough, but I would suggest going with John's design, which uses entire sheets of MDF as backer boards on both side.

Or does it have to be completed framed in the back with MDF or some other material?

There's no framing in the back of that device. Just thick sheets of MDF.

- Stuart -

[digi001]

Stuart,
Ok if you ask...then you shall receive
Since you have been super helpful and quick to respond....I'll take the time to give a full overview of my basement studio design, and Ill check the guidelines/rules again regarding how to post.

However I must admit, you will probably find many issues and problems with the space....but hopefully it can come out functional in the end, and I will get some useful feedback.
I've been waiting a good 5-6 years to finally get a space to produce music in for myself and friends ...(the last few apartments have been limited to mostly headphones and occasional monitor sessions) But we finally bought a house of our own....and with a full basement .. I must admit I am on a very expedited timeline and the budget is running dry. However framing hasn't started yet for the ISO-room, so there are some important decisions to be made. 2 weeks (or less) about until framing starts for iso-room.

But maybe my studio can be a good example of a functional, somewhat on a budget solution for a basement setup. It's also unique in that I DO NOT plan on having any bands in my studio. It is for singer-song writer / overdubs / mixing only. 2-3 people max really (including me) I figure at a time.

Glad I found this website and Ill get some info up here soon for your advice.

[Soundman2020]

However I must admit, you will probably find many issues and problems with the space...

That's actually my number 1, bestest, wonderfullest, most keenly sharpened purpose around here! And is also the reason so many studio builders come the forum in the first place: because they WANT to find out about the things that are wrong with their studios, so they can FIX those, and make their studios amazing... (see my signature on every post... )

That's what I do best: looking and analyzing and prodding and poking and prying, to try to identify as many things as possible that would limit the isolation, operation, function, or acoustic perfection of the studio. And when I see something, I'll speak out about it. Loudly. And persistently. And harshly. Some people mistake that for belligerence, or arrogance, or know-it-all bragging, or insults, or sarcasm, or "bashing a guy while he's down", or whatever, but that's not the case at all. I'm just trying to help you in the best way I know. It's a strategy I use to catch your attention, and make YOU look at your OWN studio in a different light, so you can see the things that I see. If I waffled on with great political correctness, and a gentle snowy, soft, careful, feel-good, rainbows-and-butterflies approach, slowly edging around the issue until I eventually whisper it to you softly and with great tact, you very likely would not notice, and would do nothing about it.

If I were to say: "Well, actually, there have been some indications in theory and already built studios, that a studio room that unfortunately is not endowed with somewhat large dimensions could possibly end up with less-than-satisfactory performance in some areas of the musical scale, such as the lower notes for example, so perhaps you might want to maybe think about considering the likelihood of a possibility of slightly nudging the dimensions of your wonderful and beautifully crafted dream of room, to improve this non-preferred situation, since it seems that your drum recordings could benefit from such an approach, causing more beautiful warmth in your esteemed and highly praised musical productions". ... And you would promptly ignore it, not seeing any importance at all in there. But if I tell you "It is impossible to get good drums sounds in a small room like yours, due to lack of modal support" then I most definitely have your attention, and you do start thinking about, and wondering what the hell I'm talking about, and what the hell you can do to fix it!

I don't do PC. Sorry.

Considering how far you have come over the past few days, I'm sure you can see that this strategy works!

So please do expect a no-holds-barred, in-your-face, but also accurate-and-to-the-point response to your initial plans. And take into account that the purpose is not to insult and smash you down, but rather to make your studio so much better than you imagined it could be.

Take a look at some of the comments by forum members who have completed their studios, and you'll see what I mean. I might not be making a lot of friends initially with this approach, but in the end people are VERY thankful for having been ripped into shreds at the start, as their studios turned out amazingly better than what they had hoped for.

Here's one such case: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=17363

Please do take the time to read over that one, and see what happened. The poor guy was convinced his drum room was going to be the best ever.... until we pointed out a long list of the things he was doing wrong. That got him annoyed at first (understandably), then worried, then he did some tests and found out we were telling him the truth. So he ripped out his entire studio, which was approaching completion, and re-built it the way we told him. And now he's the happiest drummer in Greece! And he's also VERY grateful that we annoyed him and angered him enough to get his attention.

There are many such threads on the forum. Some of those members take offense, insist they are doing fine, refuse to take advice, and say they will carry on their way to show us ... but then they never come back to gloat about how right they were! That's strange. You'd think that after we insulted them, they be VERY motivated to come tell us how wrong we were, and rub our faces in their success... but they never do... The reason is pretty obvious: they never succeed. They found out we were right after all. And that makes me sad, actually.

On the other hand, there are also many cases were people have taken our words to heart, fixed the problems, then carried on to build excellent studios.

Here's one of those: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17499 Rod (the owner) started out all enthusiastic, then got a bit upset when we dumped a bucket of reality on him, and rightfully questioned our credentials. Take a look at what RJ Hollins replies to him about that. Long story short, Rod realized we were the real deal, took our advice, and built one of the best darned studio I've ever had the pleasure to be associated with! Here's the result: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=20471 and here: http://studio3productions.com/ Take a look at "the making of" part. Take a look at the performance of that studio.

I guess the question here is, which list do you want to be on? The "proud losers" list, or the "insulted winners" list:) Maybe you'll be the first to say that we are full of it, and that you can do it just fine yourself, your way, then actually REALLY come back and show graphs like Studio 3 Productions, proving just how wrong we were and how right you are! Maybe.... Perhaps.... And one day it might actually happen! But I'm betting against it. And I'm hoping you will be on the "success" list, along with all the many other actual success stories all over the forum, of people who saw their errors, asked for help, then built fantastic places, and gushed about the results.

but hopefully it can come out functional in the end, and I will get some useful feedback.

Absolutely! And hopefully you won't be telling me "I'm NOT going to take your advice"...

I must admit I am on a very expedited timeline and the budget is running dry.

That can happen, but that's a very bad situation to be in.

However framing hasn't started yet for the ISO-room, so there are some important decisions to be made.

Ummm... that implies that it HAS started for the other rooms? Not good.

2 weeks (or less) about until framing starts for iso-room.

Then there's not much hope for your build. Sorry. I did promise to be blunt, harsh and in your face, and that's it. I'll go further: with a time-line lie that, I would predict failure at worst, or very mediocre results at best.

In two weeks it is flat-out impossible to design a complete multi-room studio at the level of detail that is needed for good success. Not even if you hired me right now (after bribing all my current clients to not shoot me as I wont be able to do anything for them for a while!), and I worked 24 hours per day for the next 14 days, without eating or sleeping. I would just be getting started at that point.

Let me give you some perspective: The very fastest I have ever taken a studio from initial design to final completion, is three months. It was exactly three months and a couple of days form the minute the customer first contacted me by phone, begging me urgently to design his place, until the day he had his first customer walk in the door and start tracking (while the workmen were still painting the bathroom and installing the lights). It was a fairly simple situation too: garage conversion to a small two-room studio (CR plus drum/iso booth) with bathroom and storage. And it was the most hectic three months of my life! I started designing that same day, while the customer's construction team started gutting the garage down to bare bones, repairing some problems, blocking up the garage door, reinforcing the structure, and running new power. By the time they were done with that a few weeks later, I had an initial design for the isolation system, so they got to work on building that while I carried on designing the control room. When they finished the isolation, they started building the control room while I carried on designing the iso-booth / drum booth. While they did that, I worked on the next part. Etc. Every day I had to advance enough with the design to give the crew something to build the next day. That was a six-man construction team, with lots of experience in building, and they didn't need much hand-holding from me, so we could go fast. Very fast. Too fast for my likings, as I was forever worried that I had missed some small but important detail. But fortunately it worked out rather well in the end. The customer was happy, but I was exhausted and so was his construction team. Working like that, it took me about seven weeks to complete the entire design, then the last few weeks were more about resolving issues they bumped into along the way, and tweaking the acoustics, and a few bits that they hadn't built yet. But I would never want to do that again, if I can avoid it. The pace was just too fast for everyone. It burned me out for a while.

So, here's the cold hard advice: Figure three to five months to get your design in order, at the very least, before you can even think about starting to build. That's realistic.

But that assumes that you are already an experienced acoustic designer, with deep knowledge of all the ins and outs of acoustics, as well as all the ins and outs of construction design, materials, techniques, HVAC design, structural design, and a bunch of other things. Hopefully you'll admit this is not the case. So you will need time to learn the basics of acoustics, the basics of structural design, the basics of 3D design software, the basics of HVAC, etc. Realistically, that will take you about six months, studying hard for several hours every day. When that time is up, THEN you can actually start designing your place, and only once the complete design is fully finalized, in all detail, down to the last nut and bolt, only then can you pick up a hammer.

Not what you wanted to hear, but that's reality.

Yes, I know what you are about to say, since I've heard it dozens of times before: This is the point where you come up with an entire boatload of very valid reasons why you absolutely cannot wait a minute longer, and totally must start right now. But really, save yourself the trouble, because not one of those reasons is really valid, when you think about it coldly and logically. I've been through this same discussion many times, with many forum members, so I pretty much know what your reasons will be, and they are not valid.

Here's reality: If you carry on building now before you have a complete detailed workable solid sound design in place, your studio will fall way short of what it could be. Very very far short. It won't be excellent, it won't even be good. Perhaps it might be barely acceptable, but more likely it won't even rise to that level, and you will have waste stacks of money, stacks of time, and stacks of effort, all for nothing.

Think of this: You have been waiting for over five years to get to this point, where you can actually have a decent studio: would waiting another few weeks be so bad? I see your passion, and your need to have a studio that really works for you, where you can turn out your best work, easily, etc. But that won't happen if you don't design it correctly first.

It's that simple.

But maybe my studio can be a good example of a functional, somewhat on a budget solution for a basement setup.

Let's hope so! But if that is what you REALLY want, you'll have to take a large step back, pull the plug for a while, and take the time to design it so that it really WILL be all that.

It's also unique in that I DO NOT plan on having any bands in my studio. It is for singer-song writer / overdubs / mixing only. 2-3 people max really (including me) I figure at a time

Excellent! That's pretty much the identical scenario to the one I mentioned above, hectic rushed designed and built in three months. That was also for a singer/songwriter duo. Very similar situation. That was a garage, yours is a basement, but that's about the only difference.

Glad I found this website and Ill get some info up here soon for your advice.

Cool! I'm REALLY looking forward to it! And I REALLY hope you do the smart thing here, and wrap up your tools in lightly oiled rags for the next three to six months...

Hope I didn't smash you down too hard! Not my intention. But I sure do hope I have your attention now, and you will take it all to heart


- Stuart -

[digi001]

Stuart, I really like your style man.

I have to admit, you might be disappointed with my room sizes and shapes, however they are already sort of pre-determined at this point. This is not a 'forever' home for us and whatever I come up with needs the wife approval and re-sell-ability as a bedroom / walk in closet. (people love having a air tight sealed window into their closet right?) ...but that's pretty much what I am dealing with.

Having said that, I can do whatever it takes inside the starting dimensions to build angled slat resonator walls or 10 inch deep bass traps or a wall of lava lamps, whatever you recommend...as long as can be done with a somewhat initial tight budget. (can always probably upgrade down the road)

I have my initial plans and will upload them later this weekend for the forum's critique.

The major decision that needs to be made for the Iso-room (besides size/shape, which is almost already set in stone) is the construction method of the walls.

[Soundman2020]

or a wall of lava lamps,

Now THAT would be interesting! Hmmmm... you got me thinking...

(They would likely act similar to an array of small poly-cylindrical diffusers, but with broad tuning, due to the slightly conical shape.... but they would look pretty darn cool! )

- Stuart -