Hi Dana, and Welcome to the forum!
I want to design and build a one bedroom studio for recording and then mastering narrators for Audio Books.
OK, so to clarify: This will be a single room studio, which is basically a control room for tracking and mastering, but will also serve as the vocal room where the narrators will stand while you record them? IS that it?
I am not looking for a sound booth
Smart move! Vocal "booths" are not all that good at all. Small rooms sound bad, and the smaller they are, the worse they sound. Really small rooms, such as "booths" and "closets", therefore sound terrible! It's a fact of life, a consequence of the laws of physics, and no way around it.
After spending weeks upon weeks of reading, watching videos and reading tec manuals for pristine room sizing according to audio, that required a science calculator, my head is ready to explode!
Great! Welcome to the Wild and Wonderful World of Acoustics! Where nothing is ever they way you always thought it was, and everything costs twice as much as you ever imagined... !
I just figured that if your profile requirements where that solid, this must be the right place for advice
I think so too!
Take a look around at the numerous build threads, of studios designed and built by forum members, and you'll see that what you suspect is the way it actually happens in reality. The forum is all about helping people to make their studios great. Unlike very many "acoustic" web sites on the Internet, nobody here is out to sell you anything. John strictly forbids any advertising for acoustic products, instruments, or equipment on his forum. He also refuses to endorse or promote any products himself. The only time you'll see us mentioned specific products by name is when we know those products, and are certain they will do the job for a specific case. So the advice you will get here is not about folks trying to sell you stuff!
You'll also notice that John, myself, and a few other contributors are studio designers: this is what we do for a living, and the evidence that we know what we are talking about is in the studios we have designed. That's not meant as boasting at all! It's merely to point out that you are not in the hands of some guy on YouTube who is trying to still figure out the difference between Mass Law and Mass Loaded Vinyl, and would not be able to recognize a standing wave even if one came up and hit him over the head!
You'll probably also notice that I am very much into the science of acoustics: equations, lab tests, research, testing, prediction, etc., while John is more of an empirical guy, very much into "what has been proven to work", and extrapolation. Two slightly different approaches, but both sound, solid, and with a pretty good track record.
So yeah, we think you are in the right place here!
My goal is to set the room up in such a manner that when I bring in Narrators, they will have a comfortable recording environment. This is what I have planned out so far, as per the picture below.
Could you also do a diagram of that room, with dimensions showing the locations of the important bit? And also mark the places where you are currently planning to put your speakers, desk, DAW, mic, narrator, etc.
The room is 12' 6" x 10' 6" from wall to wall not baseboard to baseboard and the ceiling height is 8' spot on.
12.5 x 10.5 x 8 is a pretty good size for a control room, so it will work decently for a one-room studio. It happens to have a very decent ratio, actually. I'm not sure if you are aware, but there are certain ratios of dimensions that are pretty bad acoustically, such as those where one dimension is a direct multiple of another dimensions, or within 10% of being a multiple. And there are also several "good" ratios. The reason has to do with room modes. A "mode" is simply one way in which the air inside a room can reverberate (= resonate) naturally. Another way of looking at a "mode", is that it is a standing wave that occurs between some of the boundary surfaces of the room. Each mode has a very specific frequency, and if you happen to play that frequency in the room, it will "trigger" the mode, causing the room to sing along with the note... and that's a bad thing, of course, because the room will NOT sing along with notes that don't have a mode associated with them, so therefore some notes will cause the room to "sing along", while others wont. That implies that some notes will sound louder than others. Even worse, after you stop playing the note, the room will carry on singing it for a while! That might be anything up to several seconds in some rooms. And clearly, if you want to mix and master in your room, you only want to hear what is really in your mixes, without the room confusing things badly by singing along too!
Even though you are planning to record the spoken word, not music, the modes will still "sing along" if one of the frequencies in your narrator's voice happens to coincide with a mode.
The issue of "modal spread" is related to how the modes for a specific room are spread out on the audio spectrum. Ideally, you want them spread out evenly, not all clumped together in one place, and no large gaps between them, so that every note has at least a couple of modes associated with it. That way, all notes will ring and sing about the same, with nothing being enhanced more than anything else. And that does indeed happen for mid and high frequencies, because there's a lot of ways that mids and highs can bounce around the room. But the lower you go on the spectrum, the fewer ways there are for modes to happen, and as you go lower still, you eventually arrive at the point where it is impossible for a mode to occur. The lowest frequency where a mode can occur, is defined by the longest dimension of the room. In your case, it is 45.2 Hz, which is a low "F" on the musical scale. Your room does not have "modal support" for any frequency lower than that.
Now for the problem: since there are lots of modes for mids and highs, and they get to be fewer and further between as you go lower, you also find that the highs have man, many modes for each note, the mids have at least a few, but as you go lower you start finding notes that only have one or two modes, then just one, then some notes that have none at all. That's bad. Because now there's a very audible distinction between notes that have modes, and notes that don't. Modal notes sound louder and ring longer. Non-modal notes sound quieter and don't ring at all. That's bad, because in a control room, you want all notes to sound the same, with none being enhanced or destroyed by the room! You want the room to tell the truth, not lie to you! This is where room treatment comes in: by treating the room suitably with the right type of acoustic device at the right locations, you can control the rooms acoustics such that all notes do sound the same. But of course, you have to be careful to only treat what actually needs treating, and NOT treat the things that don't!
That's the art and science of acoustics. Knowing what to treat in each room, and how to treat it to make the room "smooth" and "even" and "neutral". If you are interested in looking at the technicalities of what makes a room "neutral" then google and download the document form the ITU: BS.1116-3. That's probably the best single document on what makes a room neutral, and is frequently used as the design goal of high-end control rooms.
So you need to make sure that you have as many modes as possible in the low end, and that they are spread out evenly. There are simple calculators that can help do this. Here are the two best ones that I use all the time:
http://www.bobgolds.com/Mode/RoomModes.htm
http://amroc.andymel.eu/
In your case, the dimensions are already fixed in place, but at least those will help you understand how your room is going to perform, and plan what to do about it. They will also help you understand the rest of this post!
The top right picture shows where the room on the other side of the wall and this will be my control room.
Whoaaaa!!! I though you said it was a "one room studio"???? But here you are, adding another room to it? Ummmm..... I could swear that you said: "I want to design and build a one bedroom studio for recording and then mastering".... so where did the other room come from, all of a sudden?
All along I've been assuming that this was a "one room studio", but now it turns out that it's a TWO room studio!
So, just to be sure: do you have any other rooms hidden in there, that might suddenly pop out and surprise us?
OK, so you are not actually doing a one room studio: you are doing a two room studio, where one room will be the vocal tracking room, and the other room will be the control room.
All of the stuff I said above applies to your control room, not to the vocal room. The control room must be neutral, must be large, must meet the specs in BS.1116-3, most have good modal spread, must have good treatment to make it neutral, etc.
But that does not apply to the vocal room. That's a different thing entirely. The vocal room needs to have good acoustics for vocals, not neutral acoustics for mixing/mastering!
Option A. Cut a 2' x 4' opening out 3' from the floor centered in the 8' wide closet and install a double pane window with the glass in the sound treated room angled down.
That sounds like a good option for me, if you plan to make this into a commercial facility where you'll be recording professional voice talent. It also sounds like a good option if you hope to compete against other studios in the cities and towns around you. If your place looks and sounds like a couple of converted bedrooms with a video screen, and your competition is professional studios, or well-designed project studios, or even nicely done home studios, then guess where people would rather record?
Option B. Install a USB video camera.
Only one? So would that be so you can see the talent, or so that he/she can see you? And why would you prioritize one direction over the other? In my experience, studio recording flows smoothly when there is good visual contact between everyone and everyone else. If I were voice talent, and all I could get was a disembodied voice in my headphones telling me what to do, I'd be a bit disoriented. Not to mention insulted... On the other hand, if I can see the mix engineer through the glass, then I'd feel a lot more comfortable, respected, and inclined to perform well. We would be able to communicate visually and by hand signals to keep the flow going smoothly, instead of having to stop and start all the time...
I'd say build your wife another closet some other place in the house...
I am thinking of putting a Futon fold out Bed under the window and placing a double filter system in the vent to help with sound treatment when the AC or Heat is on.
I'm thinking it would be better to design proper acoustic treatment for the room, including an HVAC silencer system so the AC and/or heat can be on WHILE you are recording, not just in between takes!
This vent is the farthest one away from the system and is presently pretty quite when the system is running.
Then put a silencer on it, to make it completely quiet!
Vocal mics are sensitive things. Especially large diameter condensers. They will pick up the sound of air moving, and fans running, rather well, and that will end up in your recordings.
The room has commercial grade Berber carpet that is extremely dense
Pity. That will have to go, of course. Carpet has no business at all in a tracking room. Actually, carpet is a pretty good way of trashing your room acoustics, since it does the exact opposite of what small rooms need. Small rooms need a lot of bass trapping (the smaller the room is, the more it needs), some controlled absorption in the mid range on a descending curve (more at low mids, less at high mids), and little to no absorption in the high end. Carpet does the exact opposite: It sucks out all of the high end wonderfully, absorbs some of the mid range randomly on an ascending curve, and does nothing at all to the low end. So not only is it useless, it actually makes things worse. Carpet makes your room sound dull, boomy, thuddy, muddy, lifeless, and dry. It will suck out your highs, wreak havoc on the mids, and make the lows sound like someone thumping a wet cardboard box inside a concrete pipe....
Secondly, it is on the floor, which means it destroys the reflections from the floor that your brain relies on to build an "acoustic picture" of the room. All your life, wherever you go, your ears are exactly the same height above the floor, and your brain is very, very accustomed to figuring out the acoustic signature of the room based on the reflections it hears from the floor. If you sit down, your brain recognizes that, and adjusts it's "image" of the room accordingly. It does not use the ceiling or the walls for that, because the distance from your ears to the walls and ceiling changes all the time, many times per second as you walk around, so the "signature" is not constant or consistent. Ceilings are different heights, and when you walk outdoors, there is no ceiling at all! But there is still a floor, and it is still the same distance from your ears as every other floor.
If you have carpet on the floor, your brain no longer has any reflections to use for this. And mics are really good at capturing the "acoustic signature" of a room. Much better than our ears!
So forget the carpet. You'll find it really hard to have a good acoustic setup in a room with thick carpet on the floor. Take a look at some photos of high-end pro studios: how many of those have thick carpet on the floor?
There's a reason for that...
and the house sits on a three foot craw space. I have easy access to add extra insulation if need be in the sub floor area
Insulation is great for keeping the room warm, but does practically nothing to isolate a room. It's a common misconception that putting mineral wool of fiberglass insulation on the walls will stop the sound from getting in or out, but in reality it does about zero for that. Yes, it's great stuff for
treating a room, and excellent as a damper inside tuned MSM walls to greatly improve isolation, but when used all by itself it does next to nothing to stops sound.
Think of it this way: If you spill water in your kitchen, then a porous sponge is a great way of mopping up that water and getting rid of it. But if you put that same sponge across the end of the tap in the sink and turn it on, the sponge does nothing at all to stop the water getting through...
My wife loves quilts and I was thinking maybe I will start checking yard sales or Craig's list and buy some. I can make the frames and attach them to some of the walls with a 3" standoff from floor to ceiling.
Those would make nice
covers for your acoustic treatment, but would do next to nothing to actually treat the room.
My Father told me at a early age that the only difference between an amateur and a pro, is a pro will stop and seek advice when they don't know how to figure something out. I intend to make a very good living doing this and I will except nothing but professional results.
Smart man!
For the life of me, I simply can not grasp the theory of bass traps. Some say put them in the corners at the ceiling and others say run them throughout the entire room. Some say run your acoustical 12 x 12 panels in a checkerboard fashion while others say keep them all the same. Some say suspend the floor and some say why bother if you have carpet. See, that's why my head hurt
... and all of them would be wrong!
... in one way or another...
OK, here's the deal: Bass trapping is all about dealing with room modes. I explained those above: low frequency standing waves that form in your room at certain frequencies, and because there are not enough of them, they trash your recordings. You cannot get rid of modes: they are a fact of life, and are set in stone by the dimensions of the room. So you can't make them "go away" (well, you can, but you'd need a bulldozer to do that....)
However, what you CAN do is to "damp" those modes so that they don't "sing along" any more. Basically, you put a sock in their mouth! A very big, thick sock. Since modes are large dangerous animals that fill the entire room, you need large dangerous treatment to damp them. It's that simple.
OK, more technical stuff: I already mentioned that modes are caused by the boundary surfaces around your room: the four walls, the ceiling and the floor. If you could change the position of a wall, then the modes associated with that wall would also change. And if you put treatment on a wall, then the same things happens: you will damp the modes associate with that wall. But ONLY the ones associated with that wall! Putting thick absorption in your left wall will do nothing at all for the modes that are associated only with the ceiling and floor, nor will it help the modes that are associated with the front and back walls.
But think about corners: A corner is a place where two walls meet. So if you put treatment in a corner, then you will be affecting the modes associated with BOTH of those walls, not just one of them. And if you put it in the corner where thee surfaces meet (two walls an the floor, or two walls and the ceiling), then you will be dealing with the modes associated with all THREE of those surfaces! So obviously, the most effective place to put bass trapping in any room, is in the corners. Especially the "tri-corners" where three surfaces meet. And that's also why the most effective form of bass trap for general modal issues, is the "superchunk", which is a triangular bass trap that completely fills a vertical corner in the room, from floor to ceiling, and extends out along both walls a couple of feet. That's the single most effective type of treatment you can put in your room for dealing with modal issues.
So if you listen to those folks that tell you to put bass traps on the walls, you'll only be dealing with some bass problems, not all of them. And they won't be very effective anyway...
The folks who are telling you to checker-board treatment on opposing walls, are not talking about bass traps: they are talking about dealing with flutter echo, which is an entirely different animal....
And the folks who are telling you to float your floor are not talking about treatment at all! They are talking about isolation, which is something entirely different. And it¿s a BAD idea to try to do that anyway, unless you are one of the very few cases that actually needs it, and you have very deep pockets. Here's why:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... f=2&t=8173
And finally, the folks telling you that putting carpet on the floor is great for making a bass trap, are either very ignorant of acoustics, or certifiably crazy. (or both): Here's why:
carpet-absorption-spectrum-RIVERBANK-S00.jpg
That's an actual test of real carpet done in a highly respected independent acoustic test laboratory, and it shows the plain truth. Carpets are "high suckers" and nothing else. Notice that the absorption in the lows is nothing. Zilch. Nada. Zip. Carpet is dead useless as a bass trap, and will totally mess up your room in other senses.
So there's the elusive truth about bass traps that most people won't (or can't) tell you. Bass traps are best in tri-corners, because that's where all the room modes terminate, but they are also pretty darn good in all other corners. There are twelve corners in a room...
OK, one more thing about bass traps: they do not suck up bass exclusively. They are like giant vacuum cleaners that suck up everything in sight, including the mids and highs! (OK, they don't actually "suck up" anything, but it's a good mental picture of what happens in reality in a room that has badly designed bass traps). Yes the affect the lows (unlike carpet) but the also affect the highs (better than carpet), and that's a bad thing, for the same reason that carpet is bad. So you have to do something about that, to prevent them from "sucking up the highs". There are many ways of doing that, but two good ones are to tune your bass traps so they only affect lows, by putting carefully sized and carefully located wood slats across the front of the bass traps to reflect back some mids and highs, or to put plastic across the front of the bass traps for the same reason. But you have to be careful here: your final goal is to have a well balanced room that is lively enough for vocals to sound good, but not so live that it is harsh, and is dead enough that low frequencies are not a problem, but not so dead that it sounds dull and lifeless.
Once again, that's the art of acoustic treatment: using the right tools and tricks to balance the sound in the room, for the intended purpose.
I also will need to hang two 50" monitors in the room as well. I was told the best place was towards the ceiling, tilted down.
Let me guess: you were told this by someone who is NOT a professional voice talent narrator!
I'm not sure if you have spent much time standing in a room, staring upwards at the ceiling corner all day, but if you ever do that, make sure you have a supply of neck braces handy, and some good pain killers to deal with the pain in your neck!
(Not to mention the strange sound you'd get from his voice, due to having his esophagus fully extended all day...)
Take a look at where they put the teleprompters in TV studios, political rallies, event halls, ADR studios, voice-over booths, etc.: in front of the presenter, where he can read it easily and comfortably! Put it on an adjustable arm, roughly in front of where your talent will be standing, with a large range of movement on the arm, so that the talent can adjust it himself/herself, to the position where that he/she finds most comfortable.
One will act as a teleprompter and one is so they can view the control room.
You'll only need one, not two, since you'll have a real window into the CR, through which your talent can see you, and you can see him. The teleprompter on its long movable arm can go next to that, on one side or the other. Then the talent can choose the best position, where he can see the teleprompter screen, and also see the window.
I would also like to run a wall or ceiling mount speaker system in the room for communication between the two rooms.
Headphones. That's normally the way communications is handled in studios. That way you can talk to the talent WHILE he is recording without the sound of your voice getting into the mic. And also if you ever plan to do voice-overs or ADR, the same applies.
You can also have a couple of return speakers in there, for sure, especially if you might ever want to record instrument in there, or do ADR work. But most of the time your talent will be on the cans. (Does that phrase give away my antiquity ???
Does anybody still use that expression? )
I know I have probably left out a few things and that is why I do not want to rush into this.
Let's start with that sketch of your COMPLETE studio layout, showing BOTH of the rooms in your one-room studio (
), as well as any others that you forgot to mention, and take it from there.
- Stuart -
Now that you know I have a sense of humor, YOU ARE THE MAN!
Ummm.... not sure at all what that means! Why would the modal response affect your window position? Or your window sight lines? Sorry, I'm not following at all...
Glad it helped you to wrap your head around the issue. In many ways, sound does behave like water, so I have quite a few water analogies up my sleeve. Glad you liked that one!
! (And your HVAC system will supply the airflow you need anyway...)