Control room question

[OSC46]

I am soon hoping to get permission to build my studio, mostly designed by Stuart. I am thinking about the control room and I would like to do 5.1 mixing possibly and I was wondering can one design a control room that is equally good for 5.1 and stereo mixing? if you make it perfect for 5.1 will it be less good for doing mainly stereo mixing??? If you want to do 5.1, do you have to have a dedicated control room??

Thanks
scott

[Soundman2020]

Welcome back! Glad to here you are FINALLY getting permission! It's been a long, tough haul...

I am thinking about the control room and I would like to do 5.1 mixing possibly and I was wondering can one design a control room that is equally good for 5.1 and stereo mixing?

You sure can! It is possible yes. The two designs are different, though. Taking a studio that is already built for stereo and trying to adapt it for 5.1 isn't easy: That needs a lot of modification, since the rear surround speakers would end up facing reflective surfaces at the front of the room. On the other hand, if you start out with a room designed for 5.1 and just run stereo in it, then there's no problem. Lots of places do that. Running 2.0 or 2.1 mixing in a 5.1 room is just "business as usual", basically. So if you do want to go 5.1, we could take the existing design and modify it for 5.1, then you build that, even if you only set it up as 2.0 pr 2.1 initially. You can add the other speakers and gear later, but what's important is that the basic layout and treatment of the room allows you to do that, considered in the design. That would be your best option: design and build it as 5.1, then set it up as 2.0 if you haven't make the final decision, and just add the additional stuff at the time you do decide to go 5.1. Or 7.1.

So what's different about it? First, the control room should be larger: specs for stereo rooms state 20m2 as the minimum recommended floor area, but that jumps to 30m2 for multi-channel. That doesn't mean it would be terrible if it is smaller than 30m2, but it's still smart to get is as big as possible. Second, the shaping of the room is different for 5.1, because you have speakers all around you facing all sides of the room, rather than just at the front facing backwards for 2.0. Third, the treatment is different, for the same reasons as above: some speakers are facing the front, so care is needed in dealing with possible reflections. Fourth, the tuning is different. Modifying the design you already have would not be too hard. It would be a good idea to allow more width for the building, to accommodate the extra CR floor area and change in shape. Hopefully, you can still fit that in to your permit application. If not, then we could probably modify the interior in other ways to make it work.

When do you expect to get the permits? I sure hope they stop messing with you, and actually give it to you this time!


- Stuart -

[OSC46]

Thanks Stuart. We will actually have a bit of extra width in the control room as we are going to make the building a rectangle now (see the picture). I think the current control room is 22m2 and this will add a bit more to the width.

There are still a lot of details to be made but I hope to find out this week if we they have met to approve the studio.

Thanks for this information. I think I will try to make these modifications to start with. I need to speak with the builder though.
scott