New design

Plans and things, layout, style, where do I put my near-fields etc.

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1970428scj
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:44 am
Location: california

New design

Post by 1970428scj »

Hi everyone,
I have looked off and on over the years at this wonderful forum.
I now find myself building a new studio.
I am looking for advise to get the best room I can.
I have attached a basic floor plan for your review. I am drawing in scetchup. And I started on 3d models
What would you do different?
Building is 2x8 construction , stucco outside,is 1200 sq/ft 40x30 and has 32’ trusses for the roof, concrete tile is the roof material,
has a dry wall ceiling (now) and is 10 feet tall
I just demo ed the space so I am starting with a nice open space.
Gregwor
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Location: St. Albert, Alberta, Canada

Re: New design

Post by Gregwor »

Welcome!

With a wide open space like that, you have lots of options but if you are wanting a layout similar to what you drew, I would suggest considering the following:

- Don't put doors in corners as that's where you need bass traps.
- Line of sight to the live room isn't great and you've drawn a treatment device on top of your window.
- Your small booth has poor isolation to the live room which in my opinion kind of yields it useless (poor isolation means you can't track live off the floor) so now you've just made your live room smaller and created a booth that won't have great modal distribution and therefore won't sound great to record in anyway). If I were you I would decide if tracking bands live off the floor is something you want to do enough to sacrifice the size of your live room. If you keep just one large room and want to track dry tighter sounding vocals, use gobos.
- You don't have a storage room.
- You don't have a place for your air handler unit.
- Your doors do not look like 3' wide doors (I could be wrong), but I'd recommend at least that width for moving gear in and out.
- I'd experiment with creating a layout that allows access to the iso booth (assuming you still want one) from the control room.

Is that where your washroom has to be due to plumbing locations?

Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
1970428scj
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:44 am
Location: california

Re: New design

Post by 1970428scj »

Hi Thank you so much for the reply, I have drawings that I believe addressed some of the door layout issues you have pointed out. I will post an updated version.
Your suggestion on taking out the Iso is nice aswell as next to the control room.
There are windows, a front door and rear sliding glass door. My current plan is to take these out and rebuild to match original outside wall construction, Add new outside doors ,window where I want them and restock the outside.

I was planning for the AC compressor to be on the side of the building on its out pad.

Here is where the plumbing is.
1970428scj
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:44 am
Location: california

Re: New design

Post by 1970428scj »

Here is a 3d of the building as it is now.
1970428scj
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:44 am
Location: california

Re: New design

Post by 1970428scj »

Hi please review as I have changed up a few things.
Gregwor
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Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 6:03 pm
Location: St. Albert, Alberta, Canada

Re: New design

Post by Gregwor »

Can you do a 1200 px screenshot of the design? I can't quite make out important details.

Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
1970428scj
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:44 am
Location: california

Re: New design

Post by 1970428scj »

Hi
Been working on the design have not finished but wanted to get feedback on what looks right what looks wrong l.
Thank you
Gregwor
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Location: St. Albert, Alberta, Canada

Re: New design

Post by Gregwor »

A few things I'm concerned about:
- the gap between your inner and outer leaves are small in some spots and massive in others. Unless these cavities are holding HVAC silencer boxes or something useful, I see the large gaps as a waste of space.
- the control room looks almost square in dimensions. I know your space isn't a rectangle, but have you checked the dimensions on Bob Golds Room Mode Calculator site to see if you're remotely close to a good room ratio?
- Your control room inner leaf has the rear portion of the side walls angled inwards. How come? The back of your room should never get smaller.
- Your control room door is near the back corner where you should have bass trapping.
- The front shape of your control room won't really allow you to soffit mount your speakers.
- Your storage room has no doors.
- You need windows to see between your control room and live room.
- It looks like you're going to be sitting directly in the middle of your control room.
- Have you considered the length of your room visually after you put a good 2 feet of insulation across your rear wall? You need to consider your Initial Time Delay Gap. That is the reason newer control room designs have a long control room rather than a short wide one.

I think you're on the right track but personally I don't think this layout is quite done. Try to address the issues above. This is a major build so please make sure you have a solid plan before you start building! Good work on the drawing by the way!

Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
1970428scj
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:44 am
Location: california

Re: New design

Post by 1970428scj »

Greg,
I’m a little confused , maybe you can help.
My control room , when calculating modes
Do I use the the square Dimensions or do I use measurements where soffit framing, etc.
Started on updating the floor plan a revised drawing.
Inside of room is 16.5’ x 15.6’
Attached is Bonello 1/3 octave

There are 2 vents in the roof top and on the edge under the out side wall where the roof hangs over. What is used to seal these up? what can be done with them?

Is it better to use mini splits or traditional A/C compressor outside and vent to rooms?
Thank You
Last edited by 1970428scj on Wed Mar 11, 2020 4:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
1970428scj
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:44 am
Location: california

Re: New design

Post by 1970428scj »

Here is other photo
Gregwor
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Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 6:03 pm
Location: St. Albert, Alberta, Canada

Re: New design

Post by Gregwor »

My control room , when calculating modes
Do I use the the square Dimensions or do I use measurements where soffit framing, etc.
Great question. This allows us to clear up confusion with your plan. Right now you seem to have your outer leaf frame and then for your inner leaf frame, you are drawing up framing that resembles acoustic treatment, not an inner leaf frame. So, what you should do is make your outer leaf rectangular. Then, frame up your inner leaf as a rectangle as well. The gap between your framing, along with the sheathing you use, will determine how much isolation you will expect. THEN, inside of that inner room framing, you would put all the angled walls like you've drawn. The angled walls I just mentioned will actually just be acoustic treatment. The angled walls where your speakers will live are referred to as soffits. The angled sidewalls that attach to the soffits are referred to as soffit wings. You can use the search feature on the forum here to find a bunch of threads about these and it will hopefully make more sense.

Here is a picture showing an inner and outer room with soffits and wings framed inside of the inner room.
Soffit Example.jpg
There are 2 vents in the roof top and on the edge under the out side wall where the roof hangs over. What is used to seal these up? what can be done with them?
I would have to see real life pictures to see what you mean. But, these are probably necessary for ventilation in your roof. You would have to build and seal an outer leaf ceiling and leave the vents as that's how the building was designed.
Is it better to use mini splits or traditional A/C compressor outside and vent to rooms?
There are pros and cons to each. If you're dealing with a very tight space, mini splits are a great option because the ventilation portion of the design and build is much smaller. You only need your ventilation (this would be an inline fan or HRV/ERV along with big home made silencer boxes) would have to move ~25-30% of your calculated CFM for your room. However, the downside is that in some areas in the world, mini splits are very expensive. Also, some people hate the idea of the wall unit being so exposed. You can get units that mount up into the ceiling though! Also, you need a place to drain liquid from the wall unit.
Here is other photo
Draw up an outer and inner room and punch the dimensions of the inner room (where, if the room was empty, the sound would bounce around in) into Bob Golds Room Mode calculator and see if it passes all 3 tests :thu:

Greg
It appears that you've made the mistake most people do. You started building without consulting this forum.
Paulus87
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Location: Wales, UK

Re: New design

Post by Paulus87 »

Hi,

I would just like to add to what Greg has said. Regarding the use of angled walls vs treatment walls etc, it all depends on your design concept. A lot of true RFZ rooms do indeed have angled inner leaf walls at the front and sides - they rely mainly on geometry and diffusion to reduce destructive reflections in the listening position.

They have a couple of advantages over heavily trapped designs;
1. The angled inner shells do not waste space if designed well, as the space does not get eaten up by excessive trapping but instead just create interesting, non parallel walls which can be good for tracking rooms and iso booths.

2. They keep a lot more high end "life" in the space which if done correctly can make the environment more comfortable to work in. However, they are difficult to design and build correctly, they require rather large rooms so that the geometric RFZ is big enough as well as achieving the correct initial time delay gap.

My personal opinion is that they are not predictable rooms, and can end up being an expensive disaster. The main problem for me is that you cannot effectively predict the modal spread of these rooms as room mode calculators rely on the room being perfectly rectangular (as well as perfectly dense, rigid, solid boundaries) and averaging dimensions to enter into the calculator isn't accurate. The only way to know how to effectively treat such rooms is by taking a leap of faith, building it, measuring it and then treating it... or if it cannot be effectively treated then knocking it down and trying again. Each true RFZ designed room will sound quite different to another true RFZ designed room. This concept looks like your current design concept, so be wary of what you're trying to achieve.

Then there's the non environment style rooms which are usually rectangular outer and inner leaves with a lot of heavy trapping. this heavy trapping is usually a "third" shell within the room itself which is full of acoustic treatment, often meters thick. The treatment is mainly large acoustic hangers and membranes on the ceiling, side walls and rear wall with the front wall and floor being highly reflective, dense and rigid.

These rooms rely on complete absorption (instead of unusual geometry) of reflections, ideally of all frequencies down to at least an octave below the lowest working frequencies of the monitors (if the space is big enough to accommodate such trapping). These rooms are very accurate, but some believe they are unnatural to work in due to the environment being stressful to our subconscious.

The other potential problem with these rooms is the couch position. Due to the heavy trapping on the rear wall the couch will be forward of the rear wall by several feet, which usually is a null point for the length mode, which means the low end will sound thin at that position. This is dependant on dimensions of course, but that is a potential problem if not designed correctly and if that's important to you.

Some designers have developed this concept such as John Brandt's balanced non environment rooms, or Thomas Northward's Front to Back rooms, in my opinion these rooms make much more sense. The very thick trapping on the rear wall will usually be replaced with thinner membrane traps which are targeting the modal issues in that particular room, and there are several more carefully placed reflective devices in the room which combines all the benefits of the traditional non environment room with some of the liveliness of traditional RFZ rooms. The reflective devices are usually slats, diffusers and the floor. The front wall will have angled flush mounted monitors (as is the case with all these designs) sometimes a hard flush, sometimes a soft flush, but without the "soffit wings" leading to the side walls, instead the rooms' acoustic shells will be largely kept rectangular with absorption creating the RFZ. The reflective devices are for the benefit of those working in the environments so that they feel at ease rather than for the sound coming out of the speakers (as is the case with RFZ rooms). In my opinion this design really is some of the best most accurate and comfortable rooms you can hope to achieve providing you start with good dimensions and you are happy to keep your room completely rectangular. The trapping and treatment can be angled for specific reasons (for example if there are slatted traps opposite each other they can be angled to avoid flutter) and the speaker "soffits" will be angled in from the front wall, but the front wall (the inner leaf) will be kept rectangular. This provides you with 4 vertical corners where you can put bass traps easily.

The above approach is similar to what most people do on this forum, sometimes with a few differences. A lot of it depends on whether its a complete design from the ground up or using a pre-existing space. But usually some kind of hybrid between RFZ and non environment works well.

Hope this helps,
Paul
Paul
Paulus87
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Location: Wales, UK

Re: New design

Post by Paulus87 »

One more thing, regarding your roof vents. This means you have a cold roof design.

There's 3 approaches you can implement here:

1. As Greg says, leave the roof and vents as they are, build an "outer" leaf ceiling within your roof, below your vents. This would mean your roof would be sort of a triple leaf, but not completely as it would be very leaky to sound as well as having a rather large cavity between it and your second leaf. This approach would work fine, but it would eat up a lot of space that you could use for your treatment...

2. You can attach battens to your roof rafters (I'm assuming it's pitched as you have a ridge vent) leaving at least a 50mm gap under your roof deck and attach your "outer leaf" to those battens. The gap would be clear all the way down to your soffit vents (where your roof meets the walls) and ridge vent, and the layers of mass you put on the battens for your outer leaf would go down and join your wall layers of mass, forming a completely sealed leaf all the way round. You would have to make sure your current rafters could withstand the extra load that this would create and I would use a water resistant drywall as your first layer of your "outer" leaf.

3. You can completely seal up your vents and convert your roof into a warm roof design. This would be your best option by far, though probably the priciest. This would enable you to use your roof deck as your outer leaf (with additional layers of mass if needed) and use all of that loft space for your treatment. To do this you should research warm roofs on google, but basically you would insulate (for warmth) on top of your roof deck above the rafters and apply your actual roofing (tiles, shingles or whatever) above the insulation. By doing this you will eradicate the need for roof vents altogether as condensation will not be able to form.

Hope this helps,
Paul
Paul
1970428scj
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:44 am
Location: california

Re: New design

Post by 1970428scj »

Paulus87 wrote:One more thing, regarding your roof vents. This means you have a cold roof design.

There's 3 approaches you can implement here:

1. As Greg says, leave the roof and vents as they are, build an "outer" leaf ceiling within your roof, below your vents. This would mean your roof would be sort of a triple leaf, but not completely as it would be very leaky to sound as well as having a rather large cavity between it and your second leaf. This approach would work fine, but it would eat up a lot of space that you could use for your treatment...

2. You can attach battens to your roof rafters (I'm assuming it's pitched as you have a ridge vent) leaving at least a 50mm gap under your roof deck and attach your "outer leaf" to those battens. The gap would be clear all the way down to your soffit vents (where your roof meets the walls) and ridge vent, and the layers of mass you put on the battens for your outer leaf would go down and join your wall layers of mass, forming a completely sealed leaf all the way round. You would have to make sure your current rafters could withstand the extra load that this would create and I would use a water resistant drywall as your first layer of your "outer" leaf.

3. You can completely seal up your vents and convert your roof into a warm roof design. This would be your best option by far, though probably the priciest. This would enable you to use your roof deck as your outer leaf (with additional layers of mass if needed) and use all of that loft space for your treatment. To do this you should research warm roofs on google, but basically you would insulate (for warmth) on top of your roof deck above the rafters and apply your actual roofing (tiles, shingles or whatever) above the insulation. By doing this you will eradicate the need for roof vents altogether as condensation will not be able to form.

Hope this helps,
Paul


Wow guys thank you so much for the info.
Things are really coming together.
I have sent this drawing to a structural engineer to try to get the ceiling height up as much as I can.
I will make changes and repost.
The control room is 17 x21x10
In the last post, looks like the length of the room effects how low it goes.
I am gonna try and get 17’x23’x12’ for control room.
I was trying to house my emt140 and 2” tape decks in the storage room behind the control room but I may need a new plan

Thank you all
1970428scj
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:44 am
Location: california

Re: New design

Post by 1970428scj »

Made some progress tonight
Please have a look and advise.
Thank you
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