Converted cowshed, cathedral ceiling, One room studio build
Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 9:13 am
Apologies if this post is long, I just want to give all the detail. I think this may be an interesting project to some as there are elements of my design that don’t seem to be addressed elsewhere. I hope I have followed the rules correctly. Although I have lurked on this forum (and others) for a long time, I have never posted so, here goes.
Overview:
My project is a converted stone cow-shed in rural west of Ireland. It is a standard rectangular shape, gable roof structure. The building has approximate internal dimensions of 7.9m Long, 3.9m Wide with approximately 0.5m stone walls. The walls are 2.6m high and on this sits a gable roof consisting of 150mm rafters and a 12/12 pitch. A stone wall 4.9m from the back wall divides the floor area into two rooms (Live space and workshop area) the live performance space being approx 5x3.9m. On top of this wall and the workshop area, sits a Mezzanine area that will be the control room 2.2m above the ground level and extending 1.58m over the live area. This elevated area will contain steps up to the upper floor and a a treated acoustic space described later.
Design Points to note:
This will be a “One-Room” design meaning that all activities will be in the same acoustic space. No areas will be isolated from the others. This will hopefully make construction simpler/cheaper as I will not be trying to isolate any rooms. Also, treatment should be easier as bass frequencies have more space to expand into (Hopefully).
As this is in a rural area, sound isolation is of moderate concern there are no houses nearby and I am willing to work with outside sounds leaking in. The only Isolation will come from sealing the space as much as I can from air leaks, the 0.5m thick stone walls and the foam insulation in the roof space. Adding Isolation would reduce the size of the already small roof space (control room) too much to be practical. The added benefit is that bass frequencies are free to leave the structure rather than bounce around within it which should help with treatment.
Main treatment is from covering the entire roof with 50mm RW3 for mid and high attenuation. There are currently bass traps in the front corners which are built in and approximately 75cm deep at the deepest point. They are faced with 100mm RW3 and filled with uncompressed Knauf earthwool fluffy loft insulation. Further bass trapping is provided by filling in the space where the roof meets the upper floor with a 50mm RW3 face and the same light fluffy infill. This is approximately 30cm deep and will continue around the whole structure (See top view image).
The control room floor is 2 layers of 18mm ply, 2 layers of plasterboard between the joists, light fluffy infill, 1 layer plasterboard. This is only half finished at the moment (no in-fill or last layer yet)
A dead (ish) recording space will be under the mezzanine. The Walls here will be lined with 50-100mm RW3, fabric and then slats (if needed after measurement). the front of this area will have a movable, treated gobo/workbench (not pictured). This will give me a seperate recording space that is more acoustically dead than the rest. The gobo can be stored under the mezzanine when being used as a bench. Pulled out to give a little vocal room or guitar amps or moved to the side for full band performance.
The stone walls will be pointed with lime with deep (80mm) gaps between the stone. Hopefully this will give me some nice diffusion for drum sounds? I will add panels and traps following measurement of the space if needed.
The roof construction is 100mm Foam insulation between rafters (50mm air gap behind). There is then 50mm of Rockwool RW3 as acoustic treatment. There will then be fabric and finally slats. Slat/slot width and placement to be determined after measurement to achieve the desired RT60
The odd size and dimensions of the space makes calculations hard. Because of this, I have took a “build-measure-build” approach.
Slat/slot width on the roof and in dead space to be determined after measurement to achieve the desired RT60
There is a large living area adjacent to the construction. Tie lines will allow me to use this area for larger ensembles recording guitar amps etc.
Goals:
To have a multifunction recording space where everything is set up, ready to go.
Too finish the control room part so I can set up my equipment there as I wait and save for the rest of the build.
To have as balanced sounding control room as I can given the limitations.
Where in the process:
Currently in the project, I am working on the roof. I have completed covering it in 50mm RW3 and the bass traps are in place. My room measurements seem to be good but any further experiments with panel placement to treat anomalies seem to make the response worse. I am trying to decide if this is as good as I can get it given my limitations before I cover with fabric and experiment with slats. It is worth noting that placement of speakers is limited to a max distance between speakers of __cm and this obviously places them very close to the angled side walls. I am using a pair of Neumann KH80’s with the Neumann KH805 Subwoofer. I had originally intended to mount the KH80’s on the wall with 100mm RW3 behind in order to reduce SBIR but I seemed to get better results with them spaced 59cm away from the front stud wall. As the speakers are bass managed, this gives seems to give me some lee-way as to placement away from the wall. The sub does seem to make the floor resonate at about 20Hz but I am not sure there is much more I can do about this other than completing the damping under the floor. The sub has been mounted on an isolation platform consisting of two semi inflated inner tubes sandwiched between two concrete slabs. There seem to be dips caused by side wall reflections in the response. I have tried deepening the absorption here. I have also tried angled solid reflectors but all efforts seem to make it worse.
BUDGET:
I am time rich but cash poor so am willing to wait in order to save the cash to build this the way I want. That being said, I am also very frugal so would hope to do the rest of the bare-bones construction within €2000.
QUESTION:
Given the limitations I have, can I consider my control room REW results as good as I can get? I have tried various angled reflection panels and absorption panels but I am guessing that the proximity to the wall and the consequential shallow angle of incidence means that absorption panels are not very effective and reflect the waves more than absorb?. I am open to suggestions?
The link to an .mdat file is here
I include some screenshots as well.
Many thanks in advance.
Overview:
My project is a converted stone cow-shed in rural west of Ireland. It is a standard rectangular shape, gable roof structure. The building has approximate internal dimensions of 7.9m Long, 3.9m Wide with approximately 0.5m stone walls. The walls are 2.6m high and on this sits a gable roof consisting of 150mm rafters and a 12/12 pitch. A stone wall 4.9m from the back wall divides the floor area into two rooms (Live space and workshop area) the live performance space being approx 5x3.9m. On top of this wall and the workshop area, sits a Mezzanine area that will be the control room 2.2m above the ground level and extending 1.58m over the live area. This elevated area will contain steps up to the upper floor and a a treated acoustic space described later.
Design Points to note:
This will be a “One-Room” design meaning that all activities will be in the same acoustic space. No areas will be isolated from the others. This will hopefully make construction simpler/cheaper as I will not be trying to isolate any rooms. Also, treatment should be easier as bass frequencies have more space to expand into (Hopefully).
As this is in a rural area, sound isolation is of moderate concern there are no houses nearby and I am willing to work with outside sounds leaking in. The only Isolation will come from sealing the space as much as I can from air leaks, the 0.5m thick stone walls and the foam insulation in the roof space. Adding Isolation would reduce the size of the already small roof space (control room) too much to be practical. The added benefit is that bass frequencies are free to leave the structure rather than bounce around within it which should help with treatment.
Main treatment is from covering the entire roof with 50mm RW3 for mid and high attenuation. There are currently bass traps in the front corners which are built in and approximately 75cm deep at the deepest point. They are faced with 100mm RW3 and filled with uncompressed Knauf earthwool fluffy loft insulation. Further bass trapping is provided by filling in the space where the roof meets the upper floor with a 50mm RW3 face and the same light fluffy infill. This is approximately 30cm deep and will continue around the whole structure (See top view image).
The control room floor is 2 layers of 18mm ply, 2 layers of plasterboard between the joists, light fluffy infill, 1 layer plasterboard. This is only half finished at the moment (no in-fill or last layer yet)
A dead (ish) recording space will be under the mezzanine. The Walls here will be lined with 50-100mm RW3, fabric and then slats (if needed after measurement). the front of this area will have a movable, treated gobo/workbench (not pictured). This will give me a seperate recording space that is more acoustically dead than the rest. The gobo can be stored under the mezzanine when being used as a bench. Pulled out to give a little vocal room or guitar amps or moved to the side for full band performance.
The stone walls will be pointed with lime with deep (80mm) gaps between the stone. Hopefully this will give me some nice diffusion for drum sounds? I will add panels and traps following measurement of the space if needed.
The roof construction is 100mm Foam insulation between rafters (50mm air gap behind). There is then 50mm of Rockwool RW3 as acoustic treatment. There will then be fabric and finally slats. Slat/slot width and placement to be determined after measurement to achieve the desired RT60
The odd size and dimensions of the space makes calculations hard. Because of this, I have took a “build-measure-build” approach.
Slat/slot width on the roof and in dead space to be determined after measurement to achieve the desired RT60
There is a large living area adjacent to the construction. Tie lines will allow me to use this area for larger ensembles recording guitar amps etc.
Goals:
To have a multifunction recording space where everything is set up, ready to go.
Too finish the control room part so I can set up my equipment there as I wait and save for the rest of the build.
To have as balanced sounding control room as I can given the limitations.
Where in the process:
Currently in the project, I am working on the roof. I have completed covering it in 50mm RW3 and the bass traps are in place. My room measurements seem to be good but any further experiments with panel placement to treat anomalies seem to make the response worse. I am trying to decide if this is as good as I can get it given my limitations before I cover with fabric and experiment with slats. It is worth noting that placement of speakers is limited to a max distance between speakers of __cm and this obviously places them very close to the angled side walls. I am using a pair of Neumann KH80’s with the Neumann KH805 Subwoofer. I had originally intended to mount the KH80’s on the wall with 100mm RW3 behind in order to reduce SBIR but I seemed to get better results with them spaced 59cm away from the front stud wall. As the speakers are bass managed, this gives seems to give me some lee-way as to placement away from the wall. The sub does seem to make the floor resonate at about 20Hz but I am not sure there is much more I can do about this other than completing the damping under the floor. The sub has been mounted on an isolation platform consisting of two semi inflated inner tubes sandwiched between two concrete slabs. There seem to be dips caused by side wall reflections in the response. I have tried deepening the absorption here. I have also tried angled solid reflectors but all efforts seem to make it worse.
BUDGET:
I am time rich but cash poor so am willing to wait in order to save the cash to build this the way I want. That being said, I am also very frugal so would hope to do the rest of the bare-bones construction within €2000.
QUESTION:
Given the limitations I have, can I consider my control room REW results as good as I can get? I have tried various angled reflection panels and absorption panels but I am guessing that the proximity to the wall and the consequential shallow angle of incidence means that absorption panels are not very effective and reflect the waves more than absorb?. I am open to suggestions?
The link to an .mdat file is here
I include some screenshots as well.
Many thanks in advance.