John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello everyone!

Me and my friend are going to build a small bedroom studio for producing music and recording vocals. The priority is to have the best possible recording space but in the same time a decent place for production and quick demo mixes. The house is made of wood so all the walls are just gypsum with a wooden frame. Floor is coated with laminate and ceiling with wooden panels. Isolation is out of the case because of the budged and anyway the house is located in a quiet enviroment and there is no problems with the neigbours. Our budged is 2000€.

About the design: I'm basically planning to fill all the possible corners with 30kg/m3 mineral wool and hope that the most low frequency mods will be absrorb that way. Because the doors and closet should be left open I'm planning to control the side wall reflections with a heavy molton curtains. Also two 1200x1800mm cloud panels on the ceiling above listening and recording position and three or four movable panels for better control for the side reflections for the recording spot.

I know that with this treatment the room is probably going to be really dead. That's why I'm going to build all the bass traps inside the wooden frame so that later if needed they can be coated with some reflective surface.

Please tell me what you think about the design? I attached sketches and measurments to the topic.
Room dimensions L:4110mm x W:2700mm x H:2570mm

Best regards,
Vitalij

Ps. My english grammar is not the best, please ask me if you can't understand all the things I wrote

Sketch File:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xi3uB ... J0Xeh64VxS

REW File:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1nV_SY ... fBIWlxolz5

Hi there " vitopaa", and Welcome!

The priority is to have the best possible recording space but in the same time a decent place for production and quick demo mixes.

OK, so the priority is to have good acoustics for tracking instruments: What instruments? Good acoustics for a drum kit is rather different form good acoustics for acoustic guitar, for example.

Also, if the room has good acoustics for tracking, it will be lousy for mixing. Are you aware of that? It is impossible to have fixed acoustic treatment that would make the room excellent for tracking and also excellent for mixing. The only way to do that is with variable treatment. Have you considered that option?

I'm basically planning to fill all the possible corners with 30kg/m3 mineral wool and hope that the most low frequency mods will be absrorb that way.

If this is basically a live room, then you don't need to worry so much about modal issues: If you tune the room carefully, you can use some modal activity ro your benefit, as long as it is controlled.

Because the doors and closet should be left open I'm planning to control the side wall reflections with a heavy molton curtains.

That won't work. First reflections from the side walls usually need at least 10cm of insulation, and often 15cm is needed. So a curtain just a few mm thick is not going to do much. It might subdue the very high end, but wont have much effect on the low mids. So the room will end up sounding dull and lifeless.

I know that with this treatment the room is probably going to be really dead.

Yes. Which is exactly the wrong treatment for both a live room (tracking room) and for a control room (mixing room). For a control room, the acoustic response must be carefully controlled such that the room is perfectly neutral: it must not add anything to the sound coming form the speakers, and must not take anything away. It must not "color" the sound. It must be totally "transparent" and sound like it is not even there: natural. Not dead, not live. Just neutral. The actual specifications for control rooms are contained in a document called ITU BS.1116-3, which you can download. Chapters 7 and 8 tell you exactly what your room needs to sound like, if you hope to use it for mixing. Here's an example of such a room : http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=20471 . And here's an example of the process that is used to tune such a room: www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21368 That one is currently in progress, so check back regularly for updates. You can see exactly what is involved in getting a control room (mixing room) treated suitably.

Ps. My english grammar is not the best, please ask me if you can't understand all the things I wrote

No problem at all! Your English is very understandable.

Sketch File:
REW File:

I'm downloading those now, and I'll try to make some time to look at the during the week, but just from looking at the over graphs, there's clearly a lot of problems with that room, that will need fixing if you want to use it for mixing.


- Stuart -

Hi there " vitopaa", and Welcome!

Thank you Stuart!

OK, so the priority is to have good acoustics for tracking instruments: What instruments? Good acoustics for a drum kit is rather different form good acoustics for acoustic guitar, for example

Mostly rap vocals, maybe some singing, maximum acoustic guitar.

Also, if the room has good acoustics for tracking, it will be lousy for mixing. Are you aware of that? It is impossible to have fixed acoustic treatment that would make the room excellent for tracking and also excellent for mixing. The only way to do that is with variable treatment. Have you considered that option?

Yes, I'm aware of that and yes I'm open to all solutions to get best results. That's why I was planning to build those movable acoustic panels in the first place. So let's reshape my goal: The goal is to have a good room for tracking vocals but in the same time decent room for music production and moderate for mixing.

If this is basically a live room, then you don't need to worry so much about modal issues: If you tune the room carefully, you can use some modal activity ro your benefit, as long as it is controlled.

Still low frequencies should have some defenition. It doesn't have to be perfect even for vocals if that takes mixing to a better level.

That won't work. First reflections from the side walls usually need at least 10cm of insulation, and often 15cm is needed. So a curtain just a few mm thick is not going to do much. It might subdue the very high end, but wont have much effect on the low mids. So the room will end up sounding dull and lifeless.

Ok, thx. I need to consider about building some broadband panels on the side walls too. Will 10cm thick mineral wool panels coated with fabric, placed on the first reflection points work?

Yes. Which is exactly the wrong treatment for both a live room (tracking room) and for a control room (mixing room). For a control room, the acoustic response must be carefully controlled such that the room is perfectly neutral: it must not add anything to the sound coming form the speakers, and must not take anything away. It must not "color" the sound. It must be totally "transparent" and sound like it is not even there: natural. Not dead, not live. Just neutral. The actual specifications for control rooms are contained in a document called ITU BS.1116-3, which you can download. Chapters 7 and 8 tell you exactly what your room needs to sound like, if you hope to use it for mixing.

With that document and formula in it I calculated reverberation of 0.16s for 200hz-8hz for my room.

Here's an example of such a room : viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20471 . And here's an example of the process that is used to tune such a room: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=21368 That one is currently in progress, so check back regularly for updates. You can see exactly what is involved in getting a control room (mixing room) treated suitably.

Yes, I have read those topics, really impressive!

I'm downloading those now, and I'll try to make some time to look at the during the week, but just from looking at the over graphs, there's clearly a lot of problems with that room, that will need fixing if you want to use it for mixing.

Thank you for your efforts!

Best,
Vitalij

Also what you think about speaker placement in this room? how far distance from front and sidewalls?

Anyone?

Still low frequencies should have some defenition. It doesn't have to be perfect even for vocals if that takes mixing to a better level.

Vocals don't usually get down low enough (in frequency) to cause modal issues. They also usually aren't loud enough to trigger modal response. Modal response is a problem for music, though: instruments that have a lot of energy in the low end, such as bass, drums, keyboards, electric guitar, etc. If you will be mixing those, and need to mix well, then you are going to need large bass traps.

Ok, thx. I need to consider about building some broadband panels on the side walls too. Will 10cm thick mineral wool panels coated with fabric, placed on the first reflection points work?

Yes, that would be fine, as long as the density of the mineral wool is correct. Somewhere around 50 kg/m3 would be about right. However, if you use fiberglass insulation instead, then the density would need to be around 30 kg/m3.

With that document and formula in it I calculated reverberation of 0.16s for 200hz-8hz for my room

Right, but since you want this for tracking too, I would go a little higher on your target: make it around 180 or 190ms. Otherwise it will be too hard to have variable panels that can brighten it up more for tracking.

Also what you think about speaker placement in this room? how far distance from front and sidewalls?

It's a small room, so you have no choice with speaker placement: they MUST go tight up against the front wall, except for a 10cm gap where you will insert a 10cm thick panel of OC-703 or OC-701. The room is also rather narrow (only 2.7m), so you won't be able to get an equilateral triangle layout for your speakers and mix position, but that's fine. Not a big problem. Just set up your mix position at the correct location (your head about 150cm from the front wall), set your speakers about 75cm from the side walls (thus about 120cm apart), and angle the speakers so that they are both aiming at a point about 50cm behind your head. It doesn't matter much what the actual angle is here, as long as the geometry is correct. Once you have things set up like that, you can use REW to see if there is a better location for your head, or for the speakers. Do this by moving the test mic forwards and backwards from that theoretical best position, but in small steps (just a couple of cm), then also move the speakers outwards or inwards in small steps. Check each REW result to see which one is giving you the best bass response, and use that. Just don't move anything more than about 25cm, or you'll be messing up other issues.

- Stuart -