John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

It's been almost a year of searching for a space, but I moved in last Monday (1/8/2018)

Here's a video tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8stN5A8 ... e=youtu.be

Sorry it's sideways.

I was trying to do a sketchup of it last night for making a new post here but the closer I got to
finishing the sketch the more lines were getting created and adding weird angles on everything.
Also It didn't help that the undo button stopped working as well as the erase.

So now we are in Signal Hill/Long Beach CA

The location is inside of a shared 2 story concrete warehouse. A few artists/Photographers, one
maybe two hip hop producers/small vocal in the box recording room, and I believe one maybe two
bands or lone drummer and one band.

Our spot is ground level and everyone else is upper level at pretty much the opposite corner of the building.

A band was rehearsing the other night and I could hear a bit of the bass drum but very faint like if I was
doing anything other than sitting quietly I probably wouldn't even notice( I need to get a meter) but maybe
there is something to do to completely get rid of that noise or maybe I can live with it.

So keeping my sound in is not a concern.

My main concerns is keeping sound out of the control room so I can do quality tracking knowing exactly
what I'm recording, control room acoustics and the acoustics of the live room.

The room has a room built inside of it like they were trying to do a control room and an iso but they pretty
much wasted all of their effort and money by not decoupling the inner and outer leafs. Instead both leafs
are attached to the same studs. Also the window is a joke, double sheets of very thin plexi-glass.

For some reason they built the east wall of it about 4.5" off the main structures wall like they were going to
decouple the room from the surrounding room but then it is attached to the north and west walls of the surrounding room.

As far as I can tell from some of the holes(An Illegal MJ grow moved in at some point) its 2x4 studs 16" on
center roxul insulation, sheets of Blue Ridge SoundStop Fiberboard and a single layer 5/8" gypsum.

From the ceiling of the inner ceiling of the control room to the roof of it is pretty thick. Need to see whats going on in there.

I was thinking i'm going to have to remove the outer leafs and decouple the existing structure as best as possible
then frame another structure over it, add more roxul, stopsound, gypsum, greenglue, gypsum. Completely remove
and seal up the existing door to the control as its in the corner and relocate it to inside the workshop
in the center on the dividing wall. Seal up that widow maybe invest in some studio glass I found a guy on craigslist selling two pieces from one control room he demoed or seal it up and just go with some cameras and computer monitors.

I know that a control room of 107.81 sqft is less than half of the normal requirement/7 foot ceiling is going to make
the acoustics a problem. Maybe to the point of having to monitor thru cans?

So Here are some specs:

outside of the control room is = 18' 6.5" wide x 8' 1" high x 10' 2"

inside control room walls = 9' 7" long x 11' 3" wide x 7' high

Isolation room/workshop/kitchen = 9' 7 long x 5'10" wide x 7' high

surrounding room = 13' 5" long x 18' 11" wide x 12' high

entrance partition = 7' 1" high x 5' 2" long x 5' 7.5" wide

My budget is hard to determine as it's not like I've set aside a bunch of money for this. It's more like my overhead/rent
for this place is very manageable compared to my income. So doing it bit by bit over a little bit of time is the plan.

The new Sketch Up Free run via the web browser sucks big time. Be sure to google and install the latest Sketch Up Make. They stopped developing it last year but it's awesome.

It looks like you have a pretty awesome space! I'm no expert, but I'd suggest that you decide what's more important to you: A big awesome live room or a big awesome control room.

You never stated what you plan to record. Full bands? Do you want a live drum room with sight lines into 1 or more smaller booths? Or just one big live room and control room? Do you want/need that kitchen room? I never saw a bathroom. Is there a common building bathroom or do you need to incorporate one into your design?

The thing that keeps going through my head is that all of that awesome ceiling height was wasted in the grow op room. I keep telling myself to tell you to rip it down and start over with nice high ceilings. I also didn't see where any HVAC was coming from... or going for that matter.

I think your best bet at this point is to get Sketch Up working good and draw up the shell of the room including any utilities that are in place. Decide what rooms you need and which one will get priority (live or control room) for the biggest foot print. Use the Amroc Room Mode Calculator or Bob Golds to determine which one will give you a good ratio. Not only is the ratio important, but good distribution of modes and a good Schroeder frequency. Those last two only come with a big room.. bigger is always better. That's why I say you can either have one awesome live room or one awesome control room. Or, of course two mediocre rooms.

Make sure to leave lots of room (either ceiling height or square footage) for your HVAC silencer boxes. You'll need these whether you like it or not in order to provide isolation between YOUR rooms.

Sketch Up the room and let's see what you're working with!

Greg

Gregwor wrote:The new Sketch Up Free run via the web browser sucks big time. Be sure to google and install the latest Sketch Up Make. They stopped developing it last year but it's awesome.

It looks like you have a pretty awesome space! I'm no expert, but I'd suggest that you decide what's more important to you: A big awesome live room or a big awesome control room.

You never stated what you plan to record. Full bands? Do you want a live drum room with sight lines into 1 or more smaller booths? Or just one big live room and control room? Do you want/need that kitchen room? I never saw a bathroom. Is there a common building bathroom or do you need to incorporate one into your design?

The thing that keeps going through my head is that all of that awesome ceiling height was wasted in the grow op room. I keep telling myself to tell you to rip it down and start over with nice high ceilings. I also didn't see where any HVAC was coming from... or going for that matter.

I think your best bet at this point is to get Sketch Up working good and draw up the shell of the room including any utilities that are in place. Decide what rooms you need and which one will get priority (live or control room) for the biggest foot print. Use the Amroc Room Mode Calculator or Bob Golds to determine which one will give you a good ratio. Not only is the ratio important, but good distribution of modes and a good Schroeder frequency. Those last two only come with a big room.. bigger is always better. That's why I say you can either have one awesome live room or one awesome control room. Or, of course two mediocre rooms.

Make sure to leave lots of room (either ceiling height or square footage) for your HVAC silencer boxes. You'll need these whether you like it or not in order to provide isolation between YOUR rooms.

Sketch Up the room and let's see what you're working with!

Greg

Thanks for the advice Greg

Man I really hope I can figure out how to make a both(control and live room) scenario workable. Even if that means monitoring thru cans all the time because of the control not sounding right. I was thinking with the room height and the space above the control room the acoustics would be good for a live room but I don't really know much.

I took your advise and downloaded Sketchup make. I seemed to have even more trouble with that version.

I went back to the online free version and got as far as I could handle with out drop kicking the computer.
watched and read a few tutorials but still don't know how to make a hole in a component with multiple parts.
So there are no doors or the 2.5" diameter holes in the concrete wall just above the control room in the left hand corner. The grow people drilled out the concrete wall to vent the grow or something probably just put the ac next to the holes.
I was thinking I could utilize those for getting air into control room somehow. The temp in here is probably a constant 65 maybe 70 degrees even when its a blazing 90 outside. I don't think i'll need any temp control maybe just something to move the air in and out of those holes. Any Ideas?

Wanna record full bands. No sight lines, just one big live room, a control room and the little workshop/kitchen area. Really would like to keep the workshop kitchen area. I wanna move the door for the control room into the workshop so the door isn't in the corner of the control room. That should help having an extra room in between the door to the control room, right?

There is a common building bathroom. a weird circuit panel that the growers installed taps into power from somewhere outside the room different from the wall outlets. conduit runs from the box to the ceiling boxes for grow light I assume. The pvc pipe coming from the upper left hand ceiling we think is tied into the main. there's also a drain pipe that runs out the back of the control room wall. I ran the numbers for the control room thru Amroc Room Mode Calculator: I don't really understand anything other than it's in the bolt area.

How would I even enter the live room dimensions with the space above the control room?




my main question is what to do about the existing control room walls. current makeup of the control room wall

Should I try a decouple the left side from the outer rooms wall even tho it's still gunna be attached to the rear concrete wall?

Should I take all the internal drywall and stopsound panels off and then add resilient channels then the stopsound and double up the drywall?

Should I take off the external dry wall and stopsound panels and build a new frame decoupled from the old one with a air gap inbetween then put more roxul inbetween that frame then stopsound then a couple layers of drywall?

Great work so far!

I really would use Make if you can. Remember to make components. Like, if you make a piece of drywall, as soon as you've drawn the square and pushed/pulled it to 5/8" thick or whatever, double click it and then make it a component. You could also make it a group, but groups are kind of confusing at first. From there, you can assign it to a layer - something like "Live room inner leaf drywall" or something so you can turn it on or off (visibility) with your layer selection window. When cutting doors out of components that are 3D like a 5/8" piece of drywall, it's easiest to draw the square in 2D, then cut your door, THEN push/pull it to 5/8". Annoying, but fast and easy. Otherwise, the harder way would be to double click to select the 3D component and enter "edit mode". or else you can right click the component and select "edit component". Once it's blue and highlighted (compared to everything else), it means you can draw on it. So, you can then draw your door rectangle. From there, you can push the door through the depth of your component and that section will disappear. Just remember, to do any hardcore changes like that to any component, you need to go into "edit component" mode. Again, to get into that mode, either right click it and select "edit component" or double click it.

You sure have your hands full with left over mess from the growers. Sadly, without a ton of space, you're never going to have two incredible rooms PLUS a kitchen/lounge. I understand that you want both.

I don't think i'll need any temp control maybe just something to move the air in and out of those holes.

Once you isolate your control room, you're going to need air circulating... fresh air because your room will be air tight. So yes, you need to get that fresh air in you room. I live where we need heat and air conditioning. -40 degrees celsius to +40 degrees celsius each year. And literally fluctuations in temperature meaning t-shirts to snow suits in a 10 hour window! If you think the outside temperature is enough to cool an air tight small room full of gear and people, sure. Try it. But I'd also leave room and the ability to add air conditioning if need be later on.

Wanna record full bands. No sight lines

Full bands, but one instrument at a time... or at least silent guitar/bass amp (like axefx/kemper) playing along with a drummer to lay bed tracks down right? When you say no sight lines, do you mean between the control room and live room? Like, you don't care about a window between the two spaces? Or do you want a window? If you need a window, that will determine a lot when it comes to control room layout.

The pvc pipe coming from the upper left hand ceiling we think is tied into the main

First things first, figure out where you main power is coming from? Where's the breaker panel for YOUR unit? Unless you plan to utilize that sub panel, start yanking that crap out and get the space clear of anything that could confuse you or clutter up your work area.

I don't really understand anything other than it's in the bolt area.

The bolt area means it's not a bad ratio. The only problem is that your dimensions are before you've added any isolation to your room (room in a room construction). So, after building another set of walls and another ceiling and then you add your treatment "walls", that room is going to be minuscule.

Those lines at frequencies on the Amroc page are showing you where your room modes are. Room modes are good. The more, the better, providing that there aren't multiple modes at the same frequency. That's why you have to avoid dimensions that are multiples of one another. Basically, where there is a mode at a frequency, that frequency will be boosted in volume. You can't erase that mode with room treatment, you can only dampen the time that it's rings out. Ideally then, you want to have a mode at every frequency possible so that they're all boosted. A huge room like Abbey Road will have lots of modes in the low frequencies, ultimately making that room sound super awesome and even. We can then treat how long these modes ring out with extensive amounts of bass trapping. Due to the nature of sound, tons of low frequency modes can only be generated in large rooms. Extensive bass trapping also eats up a lot of room. So to have a great room, it needs to be massive. We don't have that luxury in most situations, so all we can do is choose a room ratio that isn't horrible, make the room as big as we can, and then bass trap the hell out of it.

my main question is what to do about the existing control room walls.

Looking at the pictures, the control room is built like crap and in it's current configuration provides next to no isolation to your live room. It's ratio isn't horrible, but again, it's flanking the building's walls and it will be MUCH smaller once you build another room inside of it. If I were you, I would tear that sucker down. Keep as much of the materials as you can because chances are, you can reuse a lot of it. Small chunks of lumber will come in handy for framing up new walls and soffit walls/other treatment.

Even if that means monitoring thru cans all the time because of the control not sounding right

Mixing in headphones is the worst for so many reasons. Just google it if you don't believe me. I really do think with the size of your room, you can have a decent control room and live room. You need to mix on speakers, not headphones.

I was thinking with the room height and the space above the control room the acoustics would be good for a live room but I don't really know much.

It's next to impossible to simulate how your room will perform unless it is a rectangle. But, what I can tell from your SketchUp is that above your control room, the live room becomes basically square. That is the worst thing that can happen. Building your control room/kitchen wall all the way to the ceiling to maintain that rectangular shape would be ideal. Just avoid that square shape!

I really think you should tear out your control room and build a big control room because this is where you'll spend all of your time and ultimately, where you'll be fighting for countless hours trying to get your mix to translate properly if your room isn't great. Even with a larger control room, you will still have a decent space for a live room. Luckily, you have height to use to your advantage. Ditch that little booth too. You can keep your kitchen maybe even as is. You don't need your control room to go right to the ceiling, but you do need that space for bass trapping and ventilation ducts/silencers. You could turn the control room 90 degrees and have the back of the control room face those holes through the wall. Have your kitchen on the left and then have a not perfectly rectangular live room. You'd have to experiment, but that is how I would do a SketchUp at first to see how it all looked. Could be horrible too. I'd hope that this would allow you to utilize the awesome space you have rather than being crammed in a tiny box of a control room where you have short crappy ceilings and outside of your room you have height for days.

Really would like to keep the workshop kitchen area. I wanna move the door for the control room into the workshop so the door isn't in the corner of the control room. That should help having an extra room in between the door to the control room, right?

Using the workshop kitchen as a sound lock would be ideal for sure.

Let me know how you make out on SketchUp after reading this and playing around some more. We'll get you sorted out, don't worry. But don't take shortcuts either. You'll regret it if you do. Just remember, with that existing ghetto room, you're not really saving any money by keeping it as is and you'd be handcuffing yourself to a not ideal layout/room.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Greg

When cutting doors out of components that are 3D like a 5/8" piece of drywall, it's easiest to draw the square in 2D, then cut your door, THEN push/pull it to 5/8". Annoying, but fast and easy. Otherwise, the harder way would be to double click to select the 3D component and enter "edit mode". or else you can right click the component and select "edit component". Once it's blue and highlighted (compared to everything else), it means you can draw on it. So, you can then draw your door rectangle. From there, you can push the door through the depth of your component and that section will disappear. Just remember, to do any hardcore changes like that to any component, you need to go into "edit component" mode. Again, to get into that mode, either right click it and select "edit component" or double click it.

I had tried all of that as I've read else where on the net with no result. I'm thinking the problem is that I didn't give the walls any depth at all or might have included them in multiple components. I figured out the components and layer thing, that's how I got the picture with one of the walls missing and everything to stop changing everything else around it when scaling( really dumb that that's the default setting)

Once you isolate your control room, you're going to need air circulating... fresh air because your room will be air tight. So yes, you need to get that fresh air in you room. I live where we need heat and air conditioning. -40 degrees celsius to +40 degrees celsius each year. And literally fluctuations in temperature meaning t-shirts to snow suits in a 10 hour window! If you think the outside temperature is enough to cool an air tight small room full of gear and people, sure. Try it. But I'd also leave room and the ability to add air conditioning if need be later on.

What would you recommend based on what I'm working with?

Full bands, but one instrument at a time... or at least silent guitar/bass amp (like axefx/kemper) playing along with a drummer to lay bed tracks down right? When you say no sight lines, do you mean between the control room and live room? Like, you don't care about a window between the two spaces? Or do you want a window? If you need a window, that will determine a lot when it comes to control room layout.

Full bands same time gobos and mic nulls. No window, it would make the control room reflective on the left side and not the right. a camera and a flat computer monitor or projector is way cheaper than glass I found a guy on craigslist selling some panes he demoed for a studio, he wanted 600.00.

First things first, figure out where you main power is coming from? Where's the breaker panel for YOUR unit? Unless you plan to utilize that sub panel, start yanking that crap out and get the space clear of anything that could confuse you or clutter up your work area.

I meant that the owner and I think that pvc pipe is tied into the water main some how but we haven't confirmed that yet. That electrical panel on the wall is grabbing power from somewhere other than where all the outlets in the room are getting it from and might be a cleaner circuit without a bunch of other crap. Idk.

The bolt area means it's not a bad ratio. The only problem is that your dimensions are before you've added any isolation to your room (room in a room construction). So, after building another set of walls and another ceiling and then you add your treatment "walls", that room is going to be minuscule.

I don't think anybody in their right mind would think that building another frame and drywall inside of that existing size room would be a good idea.

Those lines at frequencies on the Amroc page are showing you where your room modes are. Room modes are good. The more, the better, providing that there aren't multiple modes at the same frequency. That's why you have to avoid dimensions that are multiples of one another. Basically, where there is a mode at a frequency, that frequency will be boosted in volume. You can't erase that mode with room treatment, you can only dampen the time that it's rings out. Ideally then, you want to have a mode at every frequency possible so that they're all boosted. A huge room like Abbey Road will have lots of modes in the low frequencies, ultimately making that room sound super awesome and even. We can then treat how long these modes ring out with extensive amounts of bass trapping. Due to the nature of sound, tons of low frequency modes can only be generated in large rooms. Extensive bass trapping also eats up a lot of room. So to have a great room, it needs to be massive. We don't have that luxury in most situations, so all we can do is choose a room ratio that isn't horrible, make the room as big as we can, and then bass trap the hell out of it.

Thanks for explaining that.

Looking at the pictures, the control room is built like crap and in it's current configuration provides next to no isolation to your live room. It's ratio isn't horrible, but again, it's flanking the building's walls and it will be MUCH smaller once you build another room inside of it. If I were you, I would tear that sucker down. Keep as much of the materials as you can because chances are, you can reuse a lot of it. Small chunks of lumber will come in handy for framing up new walls and soffit walls/other treatment.

yeah acoustical construct is sh*t but i would think it would be more efficient to rework the existing structure than to tear it completely down.

I could decouple the the left side like the right side already is but decoupling the roof of it from the back concrete wall would be a big pain because that link is how the 2x6 roof stringers are supported. I could take the outer drywall & Soundstop off exposing the studs and roxul. build another 24" oc frame over the existing one with a 2" air gap .

Has anyone ever used square steel 1" tubing for studs? I could weld em up and they would be more load bearing and take up less space in the final result.

It's next to impossible to simulate how your room will perform unless it is a rectangle. But, what I can tell from your SketchUp is that above your control room, the live room becomes basically square. That is the worst thing that can happen. Building your control room/kitchen wall all the way to the ceiling to maintain that rectangular shape would be ideal. Just avoid that square shape!

23' 5" x 18' 11" is technically more a rectangle than a square

I really think you should tear out your control room and build a big control room because this is where you'll spend all of your time and ultimately, where you'll be fighting for countless hours trying to get your mix to translate properly if your room isn't great. Even with a larger control room, you will still have a decent space for a live room. Luckily, you have height to use to your advantage. Ditch that little booth too. You can keep your kitchen maybe even as is. You don't need your control room to go right to the ceiling, but you do need that space for bass trapping and ventilation ducts/silencers. You could turn the control room 90 degrees and have the back of the control room face those holes through the wall. Have your kitchen on the left and then have a not perfectly rectangular live room. You'd have to experiment, but that is how I would do a SketchUp at first to see how it all looked. Could be horrible too. I'd hope that this would allow you to utilize the awesome space you have rather than being crammed in a tiny box of a control room where you have short crappy ceilings and outside of your room you have height for days.

The little booth is a entrance partition that surrounds the door. Kinda cool, I mean it's not like you wanna put anything in the swing of the door anyways. throw some crap up there idk doesnt bother me that much.

That layout sounds like it would be far worst but maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

if you run the numbers in amroc you'll see that increasing the control room ceiling height makes it progressively worst even if you went all the way to the 12' ceiling. Pretty much those dimensions plus 7" ceiling height are the only ones within the bolt area.

Hi there "SunkenCity", and Welcome! Additional to what Greg has said, I'd add the following comments:

I was trying to do a sketchup of it last night for making a new post here but the closer I got to finishing the sketch the more lines were getting created and adding weird angles on everything.

With SketchUp, each time you create an object (such as a stud, piece of drywall, glass, acoustic panel, or whatever) you need to tell SketchUp that the various faces and edges all belong together as one unit, which they call a "component". So you have to select all the faces and edges, then right click and choose "Make Component". After that, it all stays united as one unit, and will not interfere with any other components, faces, lines or anything else that you draw. If you do that every single time you create something that obviously belongs together, you will never have that problem of "things" getting tangled up in other "things".

There are many good tutorial videos on how to use SketchUp.

I was thinking i'm going to have to remove the outer leafs and decouple the existing structure as best as possible

From my point of view, if that were my place I'd probably just rip it all out and re-do it from the outside in. Fix whatever is wrong with the actual shell so it can be used as the outer leaf, then build each room as a single inner-leaf. You'll gain space, and the whole thing will be better isolated, more functional, and do what YOU want it to do. From what you say, it seems that this would involve less work than trying to patch all of the bits and pieces that you have now.

outside of the control room is = 18' 6.5" wide x 8' 1" high x 10' 2"
inside control room walls = 9' 7" long x 11' 3" wide x 7' high

How come you lose seven feet in length from outside to inside??? And also 13" in height?

The new Sketch Up Free run via the web browser sucks big time.

There's a LOT of SketchUp users who agree with that, and are complaining very loudly! Feel free to add your voice: https://forums.sketchup.com/t/what-s-up ... /55219/511

That's why I am no longer recommending SketchUp, and I'm looking for something else to replace it. HUGE mistake by Trimble. Many, many users are jumping ship. And so far, Trimble does not seem to care: They have an agenda, and are dead set on implementing it, no matter what. They are not listening. But maybe if enough people yell at them, they might get the message.

The thing that keeps going through my head is that all of that awesome ceiling height was wasted in the grow op room.

There's LOTS of wasted space all over. This could be a great studio, if it were torn down and re-built to make the best use of space.

I keep telling myself to tell you to rip it down and start over with nice high ceilings.

I agree. Totally.

I also didn't see where any HVAC was coming from... or going for that matter.

Ditto.

Man I really hope I can figure out how to make a both(control and live room) scenario workable.

If you rip out everything, how much floor area would you have? There might be enough space for both....

The grow people drilled out the concrete wall to vent the grow or something probably just put the ac next to the holes.

I think you are missing Greg's point: Studio HVAC is not just an air conditioner next to a couple of holes in the wall: It is entire system that is carefully calculated to proved the correct air flow volume at the correct air flow velocity while removing the correct amount of heat and humidity from the room, adding the correct amount of fresh air, and removing the correct amount of stale air, with all of that varying according to occupancy (how many people are in the room) and equipment heat load. It's one thing to have a single person sitting at the console, and an entirely different thing to have half a dozen musicians jamming hard with all their instruments and gear! Many many thousands of BTU/Hr difference. Easily a couple of thousand watts of sensible heat load, not to mention the latent heat load.

I don't think i'll need any temp control

Are you sure about that? Have you tried squeezing in several hot sweaty musicians, a couple of WAGS, several amps and cabs turned up to 11, lights, some boxes of hot pizza, some effects units, and a couple of computers? Did you measure the total heat output of all of those? Along with your speakers, console, DAW, outboard racks, ... Did you measure the latent heat load? Are you sure that you need "nothing" to deal with teh heat and humidity?

Wanna record full bands.

I think you just answered the question about needing a proper HVAC system... !

First things first, figure out where you main power is coming from? Where's the breaker panel for YOUR unit? Unless you plan to utilize that sub panel, start yanking that crap out and get the space clear of anything that could confuse you or clutter up your work area.

Absolutely! If that was an illegal drug operation in there, then chances are the power feed is illegal too! Get an electrician to check it out, and ditch it if it is not legal, or does not meet code. If that were to cause a fire, YOU would be responsible and the insurance would NOT pay...

the control room is built like crap and in it's current configuration provides next to no isolation to your live room.

Mixing in headphones is the worst for so many reasons. Just google it if you don't believe me. I really do think with the size of your room, you can have a decent control room and live room. You need to mix on speakers, not headphones.

Agree!

Ditch that little booth too. You can keep your kitchen maybe even as is.

You could be smart, and make the kitchen usable as a booth, in an emergency. Maybe not isolated, but still good enough for a bass guitar, electric guitar, keyboard player, or anything else that isn't an acoustic instrument, and doesn't need isolation to record.

No window, it would make the control room reflective on the left side and not the right.

Nope! Not true. Think in acoustics, not light. Drywall and glass are not too far off in terms of acoustic reflectivity... Many studios have glass on one side and drywall on the other, yet have really good acoustic symmetry...

a camera and a flat computer monitor or projector is way cheaper than glass

Not really... becuase you need TWO cameras and TWO screens... you need visibility in both directions. And video screens mess up room acoustics: If you put them anywhere in front of the mix position, they will cause all types of nasty artifacts, from edge diffraction to comb filtering. Not to mention reflections... So instead of having reflections from the glass window, you'd have reflections from your video screen... in other words, you gained nothing, and lost more.

That electrical panel on the wall is grabbing power from somewhere other than where all the outlets in the room are getting it from and might be a cleaner circuit

And it might be an illegal circuit, as well as a fire hazard.

I don't think anybody in their right mind would think that building another frame and drywall inside of that existing size room would be a good idea.

Then I guess, by your definition, I must not be in my right mind... even though I design studios as a living!

i would think it would be more efficient to rework the existing structure than to tear it completely down.

I don't agree. There is so much wrong with what you have that you can never fix it. If you take it apart carefully, you can re-use the materials to build the new place properly.

Has anyone ever used square steel 1" tubing for studs? I could weld em up and they would be more load bearing and take up less space in the final result.

Have you checked your local building code to see if that is legal? How did you calculate that 1" steel tubing provides more load bearing capacity that normal timber framing? Why do you think that saving space inside the wall is important? Have you done the math using the MSM equations to see if the reduced air gap would still provide enough resilience for the resonant frequency to be low enough such that the wall really will isolate at the frequencies where you need it to isolate? Or are you just taking wild guesses, without actually checking if it will work or not?

if you run the numbers in amroc you'll see that increasing the control room ceiling height makes it progressively worst even if you went all the way to the 12' ceiling. Pretty much those dimensions plus 7" ceiling height are the only ones within the bolt area.

Forget room modes! I still don't understated why people get so fixated on this one single and not-very-important aspect of control room design. Maximizing room VOLUME is far more important than modal spread. The MINIMUM recommended air volume for a control room is 1400 cubic feet. Yours is far short of that. Schroeder frequency is far more important than room ratio. You need to get that as low as possible, and one way to do it is to raise the ceiling. Avoiding early reflections from the ceiling is far more important than room ratios. With a 7 foot ceiling, there is insufficient room for any form of treatment, leas of all a cloud. Room geometry is far more important than modes: getting your speakers and mix position in the correct locations, at the correct distances and angles. Dealing with SBIR is far more important than room ratios. Ensuring that the earliest reflections are diffuse, arrive at least 20ms after the direct sound, and 20 dB quieter is far more important than a good room ratio. I just don't get this blinkered focus on room modes, as though it were the holy grail of control room design. It's like people read some place that "room modes are second only to God", so they spend vast amounts of time trying to tweak the last fraction of an inch to get get a "perfect" ratio, when in reality there's no such thing. Room modes are one small aspect of good room design. The ONLY thing you need to know about them is that it's not a good idea to have dimensions with a direct mathematical relationship, or within 5% of having a direct mathematical relationship. That's it.

So forget about the things that don't matter all that much, and concentrate on what DOES matter: Maximize room volume, maximize room length, maximize ceiling height, check that you are not close to a bad ratio, then set up your speakers at the right locations, tight up against the front wall, on stands, with correct separation, angled correctly, and your mix position in the right location, then treat accordingly. You'll have a MUCH better control room like that, than if you shrink it down to unworkable dimensions, in the hunt for the impossible.

- Stuart -

Hey Stuart thanks for chiming in

From my point of view, if that were my place I'd probably just rip it all out and re-do it from the outside in.

I'm not understanding what you mean. If you rip it all out how would you start from the the outside in. Wouldn't starting from the outside in be removing the outside layer of dry wall?

Fix whatever is wrong with the actual shell so it can be used as the outer leaf.

well the major thing is that the outer leaf is attached to the same studs as the inner leaf. So you can't fix it you have to remove it and build the outer leaf on it's own decoupled frame.

then build each room as a single inner-leaf. You'll gain space

If I build a decoupled frame inside of the existing studs of the control room it will be even small than it already is.
wouldn't it make more sense to build a decoupled frame(2" air gap) around the existing control room structure after removing the outer layers of drywall?

How come you lose seven feet in length from outside to inside??? And also 13" in height?

2x6 beams in the roof of the control room being the main thing

The control room structure including the workshop/kitchen area is 18' 6.5" wide.

The interior of the control room is 11' 3" wide and the workshop/kitchen is 5' 10".

11' 3" + 5' 10" = 17' 1"

add all the studs, drywall, soundstop and your pretty much to 18' 6.5".

they might have used 2x6s in the dividing wall between the control room and the workshop as well have to take a peak.

There's LOTS of wasted space all over. This could be a great studio, if it were torn down and re-built to make the best use of space.

I'd like to see what you're envisioning as this statement is pretty VAGUE.

If you rip out everything, how much floor area would you have? There might be enough space for both....

18" 11 x 25' 5" is about 442 sqft

You could be smart, and make the kitchen usable as a booth, in an emergency. Maybe not isolated, but still good enough for a bass guitar, electric guitar, keyboard player, or anything else that isn't an acoustic instrument, and doesn't need isolation to record.

Which is it? Tear everything down or keep the the kitchen.
Using it as a booth if needed was my original intention pretty much everything in there now is on casters and can be moved very easily.

Absolutely! If that was an illegal drug operation in there, then chances are the power feed is illegal too! Get an electrician to check it out, and ditch it if it is not legal, or does not meet code. If that were to cause a fire, YOU would be responsible and the insurance would NOT pay...

How would it be an illegal power feed it it's coming from a different part of the same building. These guys were pot smokers not utility hackers probably hired a electrician to hook it up. I tested it the other day It's 220. It's a good idea to have some one who know what they are doing look at it I agree but don't go putting that bad luck on me with your what ifs. The owner doesn't seem to have a problem with the panel even told me to utilize it.

If that were to cause a fire, YOU would be responsible and the insurance would NOT pay...

Good thing you read my lease agreement as well and know what I am and am not responsible for

Then I guess, by your definition, I must not be in my right mind... even though I design studios as a living!

so then building a decoupled timber frame with a 2" air gap inside of a 9' 7" x 11' 3" x 7' room must be a great idea.... Nope still sounds like it would make a small room smaller even tho there is plenty of space on the outside of it let's use the finite small space on the inside and make it even smaller sounds like what a pro would do.

concentrate on what DOES matter: Maximize room volume, maximize room length, maximize ceiling height

You'll have a MUCH better control room like that, than if you shrink it down to unworkable dimensions

sounds like the opposite of building a single leaf structure inside of a 9' 7" x 11' 3" x 7' room.

Have you checked your local building code to see if that is legal? How did you calculate that 1" steel tubing provides more load bearing capacity that normal timber framing? Why do you think that saving space inside the wall is important? Have you done the math using the MSM equations to see if the reduced air gap would still provide enough resilience for the resonant frequency to be low enough such that the wall really will isolate at the frequencies where you need it to isolate? Or are you just taking wild guesses, without actually checking if it will work or not?

I just figured a steel frame would support more weight with less vertical beams than a frame with 24" oc studs.

Why do you think that I think saving space inside the wall is important?

more about reducing the total footprint of a double wall.

It would still be a 2" air gap.

Wild guesses no! trying to think outside the box and run it past other to see what they think! Blasphemy!

Forget room modes! I still don't understated why people get so fixated on this one single and not-very-important aspect of control room design. Maximizing room VOLUME is far more important than modal spread. The MINIMUM recommended air volume for a control room is 1400 cubic feet. Yours is far short of that. Schroeder frequency is far more important than room ratio. You need to get that as low as possible, and one way to do it is to raise the ceiling. Avoiding early reflections from the ceiling is far more important than room ratios. With a 7 foot ceiling, there is insufficient room for any form of treatment, leas of all a cloud. Room geometry is far more important than modes: getting your speakers and mix position in the correct locations, at the correct distances and angles. Dealing with SBIR is far more important than room ratios. Ensuring that the earliest reflections are diffuse, arrive at least 20ms after the direct sound, and 20 dB quieter is far more important than a good room ratio. I just don't get this blinkered focus on room modes, as though it were the holy grail of control room design. It's like people read some place that "room modes are second only to God", so they spend vast amounts of time trying to tweak the last fraction of an inch to get get a "perfect" ratio, when in reality there's no such thing. Room modes are one small aspect of good room design. The ONLY thing you need to know about them is that it's not a good idea to have dimensions with a direct mathematical relationship, or within 5% of having a direct mathematical relationship. That's it.

That's a big rant. Funny how someone tells me(still pretty new)to run the numbers thru amroc then a few posts later FORGET ABOUT ROOM MODES!!!!!! Quit getting fixated on room mode! Jeez I didn't realize how obsessed I had become with room modes over the course of a few posts.

I guess I'll re think the HVAC but I don't have alot of options as I'm on the first floor in a room with out any windows or vent to any sort of system. Just some nice holes in the wall.

I'm not understanding what you mean. If you rip it all out how would you start from the the outside in. Wouldn't starting from the outside in be removing the outside layer of dry wall?

No. That's a common misconception, or misunderstanding of what "room-in-a-room" or "two-leaf construction" means. What it REALLY means is exactly what it says: you have an OUTER room, which is the building itself, and that has to be one single leaf. Then each part of your studio is built as an INNER room, also with one single leaf. Like this:
There you see a typical basement or warehouse type studio, where there are three actual studio rooms that are fully isolated, plus also a corridor on the left that is not isolated: maybe a staircase, or an office area, or storage, or something like that. You can see that there is an outer shell around the entire thing, which is the building itself (in this diagram I show it as a stud frame with drywall on only ONE side of it, but for a basement it would probably be concrete blocks, or bricks, or something like that, but still one single leaf), and in this case that "outer leaf" has been continued across the building with a stud framed partition, to divide it into the non-isolated corridor, and the isolated studio. So now you have a "shell" around the studio area that is a single leaf in all directions, and within that shell you have three other rooms, each of which is a single stud frame with drywall on only one side. Those rooms might be, for example, the control room, a live room, and an iso booth.

Of course, that's just a simple diagram to show the concept: in a real studio you would need doors, windows, HVAC, etc., the rooms would be different sizes and shapes.

I didn't show the ceilings in that diagram, for clarity, but they are done the exact same way: There is an exiting "roof" over the entire outer-leaf shell, then each room has it's own independent ceiling that is built as a framed ceiling with drywall on only one side.

well the major thing is that the outer leaf is attached to the same studs as the inner leaf. So you can't fix it you have to remove it and build the outer leaf on it's own decoupled frame.

No. The outer leaf is the BUILDING itself! It's not something you have to make: it is already there. All that you have to build is the INNER leaf of each room. You might have to do some work on the existing outer leaf to make it more suitable, by adding mass in some places, or sealing it air-tight better, or maybe even adding a partition wall if you want part of it not isolated (such as your kitchenette).

If I build a decoupled frame inside of the existing studs of the control room it will be even small than it already is.

Right. But that's only because you are thinking about this wrong! Because that's NOT the way to do it! The way to do it is as above: forget about building any "outer leaf" here, because it already exists. Take out EVERYTHING that isn't part of that outer leaf, fix any problems with it, then build your studio as two separate inner-leaf rooms, each of which is just ONE stud frame with drywall on only ONE side.

If you do that correctly, your rooms will be BIGGER than the are right now, not smaller. And especially if you use the "inside out" construction method, invented by John Sayers.

2x6 beams in the roof of the control room being the main thing

That does NOT mean that you have to loose all that space! If you build "inside out", then the area between the ceiling joists is INSIDE the room, not outside it, and therefore it is part of the air volume in the room. The same applies if you build your walls "inside-out": in that case the space between the studs is open to the room, so that also counts as part of the air volume inside the room. You can make the room much bigger acoustically like this, and also have the benefit of visible studs for simple mounting of any acoustic treatment that you might need. Pretty much all of the studios I design these days are done "inside out".

18" 11 x 25' 5" is about 442 sqft

Ummmm... 18'11" x 25'5" is 482 square feet! That's a very nice sized space for a studio. I once designed a FOUR ROOM studio in less than 400 square feet: Control room, live room, drum booth and vocal booth. That was in a basement in Canada, and worked out rather well. Tight, yes, but possible. With 482 ft2, you could have a control room of maybe 150 ft2 (small, but usable), and a live room of maybe 230 ft2, plus a small kitchenette/lobby.

Which is it? Tear everything down or keep the the kitchen.

Both! Tear everything down, and rebuild it intelligently, making the best use of space, and making a new kitchenette / lobby / iso booth in the most usable space.

How would it be an illegal power feed it it's coming from a different part of the same building

It would be illegal if it is not installed according to electrical code. It would be illegal if it is bypassing the meter. It would be illegal if there are no fuses / circuit breakers in that circuit. It would be illegal if it uses the wrong diameter cables. It would be illegal if the wiring is not attached correctly. It would be illegal if there is no fire-blocking on wall penetrations. It would be illegal if it was not done by a qualified and certified electrician. It would be illegal of there is no paperwork for it on file with your local authorities, signed by the electrician and approved by the inspector.
It could be illegal in may dozens of ways, any one of which could end up causing or intensifying a fire, in which case YOU would be responsible for all the damages, inures and deaths.,

probably hired a electrician to hook it up.

"Probably" will not stand in a court of law! You can tell the judge all about probabilities, but unless you checked and confirmed that it was done legally, by a qualified electrician, and the correct paper work was filed and approved with the authorities, then the judge will STILL hold you responsible, since you did know about it when you rented the place, and didn't check. "thinking" and "hoping" that something is "probably" OK, is not a defense. Ignorance of the law is not a defense. You can't tell a judge that you didn't know it was illegal to drive drunk: that's not a valid defense. You can't tell the judge that you didn't know that the wiring in your room was illegal: that's not a valid defense. The simple fact that there is no circuit breaker in that distribution panel indicates that it is illegal....

but don't go putting that bad luck on me with your what ifs.

Huh? Say what? I?m not putting ANYTHING on you! You are putting it all on yourself. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

The owner doesn't seem to have a problem with the panel even told me to utilize it.

Do you have that in writing? If not, you better get him to write it and sign it. If you have it in writing, then it's on him, not you.

Good thing you read my lease agreement as well and know what I am and am not responsible for

Silly boy! I don't need to read your lease to know what the LAW says! That's funny.... You cannot delete parts of the law by having a contract. The insurance company WILL NOT pay if you have illegal, non-approved, non-certified modifications to the building. And you WILL Be responsible, legally, before the courts, if there is a fire and it was caused by YOUR illegal wiring. Nothing in the lease can remove that responsibility. It is either on you, or on the owner, IF he signed that he takes it all for himself. The law governs the lease, not the other way around. The law lays out the responsibilities and penalties, and they cannot be removed by a lease. They either apply to you, or to the owner, and unless he specifically signed something to say that he accepts that responsibility, then it is yours.

so then building a decoupled timber frame with a 2" air gap inside of a 9' 7" x 11' 3" x 7' room must be a great idea....

Yes it is. That's they way studios are almost ALWAYS built.

Nope still sounds like it would make a small room smaller even tho there is plenty of space on the outside of it let's use the finite small space on the inside and make it even smaller sounds like what a pro would do.

It only sounds that way to you because you don't understand the concept correctly....

sounds like the opposite of building a single leaf structure inside of a 9' 7" x 11' 3" x 7' room.

Once again, it only sounds that way to you because you don't understand the concept correctly....

I just figured a steel frame would support more weight with less vertical beams than a frame with 24" oc studs.

You can't "figure" that unless you do the math. You can't figure that unless you are a qualified structural engineer that understands things like Young's modulus, bearing strength, sheer strength, live load, dead load, stress, strain, buckling behavior, and all the rest of it. If you don't know what this equation means, or how to use it for your round steel framing, then you cannot "figure" it: E= 1/2 F * Delta L.

Here too, if you built that structure based on your "figuring", and it then collapsed killing or injuring someone, YOU would be responsible for that. In this case it would definitely NOT be the building owner, since you modified the structure without using approved materials or methods that are allowed by the building code. Regardless of your lease, all of that would be on YOU. And that would be criminal liability, not just civil.

Why do you think that I think saving space inside the wall is important?

more about reducing the total footprint of a double wall.

Ummmm... just think about those two sentences for a second, and you'll see what you just did there: You asked why I have the impression that you want to save space inside the wall, then you described why you want to save space inside the wall.... "reducing the footprint" is the exact same thing as "saving space inside the wall". If you make the wall thinner (ie, "reduce the footprint"), then you have indeed "saved space" inside the wall...

It would still be a 2" air gap.

Wild guesses no!

So please do tell me then, what answer you got from this equation, when you applied it to the wall: f0 = C [ (m1 + m2) / (m1 x m2 x d)]^0.5 That's the MSM equation (as I'm sure you know). If you did NOT apply it to your wall, then you are taking wid guesses that our 2" air gap is the right one for your situation. Did you use that equation? What answer did you get? If so, did you also use the empirical mass law equation for each leaf, and then combine the two results using these equations?:

R = 20log(f (m1 + m2)) - 47 ...[for the region where f < f0]
R = R1 + R2 + 20log(f x d) - 29 ...[for the region where f0 < f < f1]
R = R1 + R2 + 6 ...[for the region where f > f1]

If you did not do all of that, then yes, you are taking wild guesses.

Acoustics and studio design are not about guessing and hoping and "figuring". They are about using the established equations and techniques to come up with a valid design that does what you want it to do.

I didn't realize how obsessed I had become with room modes over the course of a few posts.

Perhaps you didn't realize it, but we did, as soon as you started saying that raising the ceiling made your modal response worse, so you were not going to do that...

I guess I'll re think the HVAC but I don't have alot of options as I'm on the first floor in a room with out any windows or vent to any sort of system. Just some nice holes in the wall

You can probably use those holes in the wall, yes, provided that you plan the entire HVAC system correctly, and build the silencer boxes that you will need to retain the isolation that you want while also providing the flow rate that is required by code, which is based on the ASHRAE recommendations.

- Stuart -

Sorry for the delayed reply been a bit busy and was having problem remembering my password.

Right. But that's only because you are thinking about this wrong! Because that's NOT the way to do it! The way to do it is as above: forget about building any "outer leaf" here, because it already exists. Take out EVERYTHING that isn't part of that outer leaf, fix any problems with it, then build your studio as two separate inner-leaf rooms, each of which is just ONE stud frame with drywall on only ONE side.

If you do that correctly, your rooms will be BIGGER than the are right now, not smaller. And especially if you use the "inside out" construction method, invented by John Sayers.

How does reducing every inside dimension by at least 6 1/2"(2 inch air gap, 3 1/2" stud and 5/8" drywall x2) except the floor make it bigger?

I've known from the beginning that doing it like this was an option and definitely the way to go for ful iso from outside noise and containing noise generated inside the room but my original questions were pertaining to a just isolating the control room from live room noise not the live room and control from outside noise/noise escaping the two. The reason I was trying to go about it this way was because I'm renting the space and a little hesitant about investing in building it up that far not being able to take a good amount of the investment with me.

But after thinking it over a good deal more and exploring my options I'm considering going the full mile.

I really really want and need the space above the control room for storage & such and like how it feels being able to see up there it gives an illusion that the space is bigger than it is. When I first got the spot it was blocked off with a layer of drywall after taking it down it's nice being up there looking down.

I'm not opposed to raising the roof inside the control but I need the space above to still be usable.

It should be possible to do a true room within a room and have the live room leaf extend up and over the control leaving the loft space right?

The other big thing is I tryed to also rent the small room across the hall from mine for a control room separate from the live room but someone rented it out right after I inquired about it. I hoping it will open up at some point and I'll rent out both and turn my existing room now into one big live room. But who knows when that with be....so I should make the best of what I have right now.

That does NOT mean that you have to loose all that space! If you build "inside out", then the area between the ceiling joists is INSIDE the room, not outside it, and therefore it is part of the air volume in the room. The same applies if you build your walls "inside-out": in that case the space between the studs is open to the room, so that also counts as part of the air volume inside the room. You can make the room much bigger acoustically like this, and also have the benefit of visible studs for simple mounting of any acoustic treatment that you might need. Pretty much all of the studios I design these days are done "inside out".

I'm not really understanding how the space inbetween the studs would be open to the room? the studs are inside the air gap and drywall between you and the inner leaf studs. Confused

so then building a decoupled timber frame with a 2" air gap inside of a 9' 7" x 11' 3" x 7' room must be a great idea....
Yes it is. That's they way studios are almost ALWAYS built.

You must be misunderstanding those are the inside dimensions of the EXISTING control room and doing another frame inside of that space would make it incredibility small.

Ummmm... just think about those two sentences for a second, and you'll see what you just did there: You asked why I have the impression that you want to save space inside the wall, then you described why you want to save space inside the wall.... "reducing the footprint" is the exact same thing as "saving space inside the wall". If you make the wall thinner (ie, "reduce the footprint"), then you have indeed "saved space" inside the wall...

That space that would be saved would be outside of the wall, space that the wall does not take up. The AIR GAP/INSIDE THE WALL would remain the same even if you made the wall thinner and has nothing to do with reducing space inside the wall.

The steel frame was just an idea I was throwing out there didn't think you would respond so negatively.

So please do tell me then, what answer you got from this equation, when you applied it to the wall: f0 = C [ (m1 + m2) / (m1 x m2 x d)]^0.5 That's the MSM equation (as I'm sure you know). If you did NOT apply it to your wall, then you are taking wid guesses that our 2" air gap is the right one for your situation. Did you use that equation? What answer did you get? If so, did you also use the empirical mass law equation for each leaf, and then combine the two results using these equations?:

R = 20log(f (m1 + m2)) - 47 ...[for the region where f < f0]
R = R1 + R2 + 20log(f x d) - 29 ...[for the region where f0 < f < f1]
R = R1 + R2 + 6 ...[for the region where f > f1]

If you did not do all of that, then yes, you are taking wild guesses.

Acoustics and studio design are not about guessing and hoping and "figuring". They are about using the established equations and techniques to come up with a valid design that does what you want it to do.

what is planning and designing with out sketching out some ideas and trying to figure stuff out.

Of course I did that equation it was the first thing that was recommended to me when I made this post. oh wait...

The surface density would be the same for the recommended 5/8" drywall x2 for each leaf

but the stud depth for one of the studs would be 1" not 3 1/2"

Air gap would be the same

How does the resonant frequency fit into deciding how big your air gap should be?

Perhaps you didn't realize it, but we did, as soon as you started saying that raising the ceiling made your modal response worse, so you were not going to do that...

Seemed like it made sense considering it was some of the first pieces of advice received

Hey dude!
Glad you're back!

To answer a bunch of your questions as most of them are all related, I'll specifically answer the following question you had:

I'm not really understanding how the space inbetween the studs would be open to the room

I've attached a picture. The picture is of a room constructed using John's inside out method that Stuart mentioned. What Stuart was implying was that if you built a room inside of your control room using normal construction methods, you would end up with a horrible sounding room due to it having only exposed drywall. THEN, you would have to frame up yet another skeleton type wall directly on that drywall in order to stuff it with insulation. So, your new wall/ceiling plus acoustic treatment framing would drastically shrink the size of your room. As you can see in the picture I attached, the drywall is attached to the outside of your inner leaf frame, exposing the studs to your room. In those studs, you would stuff insulation. This allows you to not have to add an extra skeleton frame for acoustic treatment. I hope that clears up what he was saying regarding sizes and exposed studs.

It should be possible to do a true room within a room and have the live room leaf extend up and over the control leaving the loft space right?

I know you hate SketchUp, but to answer this question, you really need to just attempt to frame it up in SketchUp to see how difficult this would be to pull off in real life. Yes, it would be possible, but insanely difficult when I picture it in my head. The only thing I will say is that you should not worry about how it looks. You should worry about how it performs because ultimately, that's all that matters. It's like having the hottest wife on earth, but she is insane. Or have a beautiful (not hottest in the world) wife who is the best wife/person ever.

The bottom line to what Stuart and I both suggested was that you have an incredible space to work with. We both said that you should just knock down the old crappy room and keep some of the materials to use in a new amazingly perfect build. It's really that simple. You have to tools (room mode calculators) to know what you're getting yourself into acoustically. You have endless information and people on this forum to help you with your design (remember, design it stud for stud in SketchUp before you build anything in real life). You have the us and the forum to look at pictures of your progress all along the way and offer free advice. You don't have to spend insane money on insane pre-fab doors and acoustic treatment and pre-made dampened drywall. You can do it much cheaper and probably better than a lot of off the shelf products. Just take the time and put in the effort to do it right instead of having a half assed studio in a professional building (presuming you want a pro studio).

Stuart and everyone on the forum are not here to bitch at you about ideas like steel tubing for ceiling joists. They only point out things that could fail and cause harm or ruin your entire project. When you're given advice to calculate (or get a mechanical engineer to calculate it for you), it's for safety and ultimately to save you money in the end. It's no different than something building a super tall building without doing the math to see if it will fall over or not. The math is quite simple and even for that MSM equation, I recently posted an excel file that calculates it all for you in the acoustics forum!

How does the resonant frequency fit into deciding how big your air gap should be?

First off, that resonant frequency will help you determine the transmission loss at certain frequencies (that's the f < f0, f0 < f < f1, and f > f1) part of the math.
Secondly, depending on what frequencies your modes land at for you room, imagine you had a mode at the exact frequency you wall was tuned to. . . Double trouble, or worse.
I'm not an acoustician... far from it, but learning. I'm sure there are a bunch of reasons to be aware of the walls resonant frequency. Hopefully someone will chime in with wisdom so I can learn about that specific topic. Thanks for asking!

Keep up the good work and thanks for touching base again.

Greg

The math is quite simple and even for that MSM equation, I recently posted an excel file that calculates it all for you in the acoustics forum!

Your excel file is what I looked at to understand what Stuart was talking about.

So if your room modes are somewhat equally spread how do you decide what to tune your wall to and how far from the closest mode should it be?

As you can see in the picture I attached, the drywall is attached to the outside of your inner leaf frame, exposing the studs to your room. In those studs, you would stuff insulation. This allows you to not have to add an extra skeleton frame for acoustic treatment. I hope that clears up what he was saying regarding sizes and exposed studs.

So starting from the outer shell of the entire room(outer leaf) you have two sheets of 5/8" drywall, 2x4 studs with insul in between, a air gap, two sheets of 5/8" drywall, 2x4 studs and insul in between? like the inner leaf is the inverse of the standard msm wall construct?

if the beams and insul are the last layer on the inside of the control room won't it just be really dead and unfinished looking or do you cover the studs and insul with fabric?

The only thing I will say is that you should not worry about how it looks. You should worry about how it performs because ultimately, that's all that matters.[/quote

Sounds big in here so far but with a short decay time idk. I'm thinking that beside the benefit of storage/chill space up there it increases the live room air volume and has acoustic benefits? I'm I wrong?

Recent Updates:

I scored a pair of solid core doors with pemko and zero industries auto door seals installed into the bottoms

IMG_01522.jpg

IMG_01542.jpg

Tore out the door frame and widow

Started taking down the drywall, soundstop board and Pink insul inside the control room

IMG_01502.jpg

So if your room modes are somewhat equally spread how do you decide what to tune your wall to and how far from the closest mode should it be?

You seem to be confusing two totally unrelated things! Room modes happen INSIDE the room, after it is completed. They are stand waves that form between the walls of the room, and affect the acoustic response of the room interior. They have noting at all to do with the MSM tuning of the walls, which surround the room. That refers to the resonant frequencies of the walls themselves, and it affects how they isolate. It is not related in any way to the modal response of the room.

So starting from the outer shell of the entire room(outer leaf) you have two sheets of 5/8" drywall, 2x4 studs with insul in between, a air gap, two sheets of 5/8" drywall, 2x4 studs and insul in between? like the inner leaf is the inverse of the standard msm wall construct?

Correct!

if the beams and insul are the last layer on the inside of the control room won't it just be really dead and unfinished looking or do you cover the studs and insul with fabric?

Yes it will be dead to start with, but that's a good thing, because then it is eay to liven it up again to the correct level, by adding reflective and/or diffusive surfaces. Here's an example of that tuning process, that is going on right now, in a control room that was specifically designed and built "inside out": http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=21368 You can clearly see that as soon as the insulation was placed in the stud bays inside the room, it became very dead. Now we ae in the process of getting it back to life again.

Sounds big in here so far but with a short decay time idk.

The only way to fully understand the acoustic response of the room, is to measure it! Here's how: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =3&t=21122

I scored a pair of solid core doors with pemko and zero industries auto door seals installed into the bottoms

Nice!

- Stuart -

You seem to be confusing two totally unrelated things! Room modes happen INSIDE the room, after it is completed. They are stand waves that form between the walls of the room, and affect the acoustic response of the room interior. They have noting at all to do with the MSM tuning of the walls, which surround the room. That refers to the resonant frequencies of the walls themselves, and it affects how they isolate. It is not related in any way to the modal response of the room.

How should I determine how big to make the air gap between the frames of 2x4 studs?

Yes it will be dead to start with, but that's a good thing, because then it is eay to liven it up again to the correct level, by adding reflective and/or diffusive surfaces. Here's an example of that tuning process, that is going on right now, in a control room that was specifically designed and built "inside out": viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21368 You can clearly see that as soon as the insulation was placed in the stud bays inside the room, it became very dead. Now we ae in the process of getting it back to life again.

The inside out approach seems like it offers a lot more options for controlling the room acoustics.

Would it still work if one of the walls was concrete without studs on it?

What if the inner and outer leafs where decoupled from each other but connected to the concrete floor and one concrete wall?

The only way to fully understand the acoustic response of the room, is to measure it! Here's how: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21122

I downloaded rew a while back been meaning to set all that up. That guide looks like it will come in handy.

How should I determine how big to make the air gap between the frames of 2x4 studs?

Make the resonant frequency as low as you can. You can use my calculator there to determine the resonant frequency.
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =3&t=21373
Basically, there is a point where you don't get much more benefit with a bigger gap. So you have to decide how much space you're willing to give up to get the performance you want. Soundman2020 just replied to a thread yesterday explaining how if your resonant frequency of your wall is say 100Hz, if will not isolate 100Hz from passing through your wall. In fact, it will amplify that frequency, both inside of your room, and outside. It is true for 1.414 times that frequency, slowly diminishing until it starts to isolate again. I'm not sure what the scientific reason for the root mean square value having a direct relationship to this phenomenon is, but yeah, it does!

The bottom line is, if you want to isolate really low frequencies, you need to make sure your gap is large enough that your resonant frequency is low enough to not have any real audible frequencies fall within that Fo x 1.414 range.

Would it still work if one of the walls was concrete without studs on it?

100%. The concrete wall would act as your inner leaf mass (like drywall)... it would just have a different mass value than drywall. That's all.

What if the inner and outer leafs where decoupled from each other but connected to the concrete floor and one concrete wall?

Concrete has awesome mass, but the beauty of a concrete floor slab is that IT is coupled with the earth... which is the biggest mass we as humans have access to. So, it's alright to have flanking on the floor. The wall, however, is sitting on the earth, but it doesn't have the rigidity like a floor slab would. I would personally have to guess that the answer is no. Do not flank to a concrete wall. Only the floor.

Greg

I can decouple the inner leaf structure without a whole lot of trouble but I think the outer leaf should to be tied to the concrete wall to save space( wont have to step out the inner leaf structure to make space for outer leaf support for roof) the roof now is tied to the concrete wall and doesn't have a frame on that side.

So I took down some more drywall and soundboard the wall between the control and the workshop was double framed with a gap. Might be able to decouple it and utilize it with out too much trouble. Our rug came in the mail!