after reading for a while here, this is my first post in this forum and I am hoping to get some proper advice, to upgrade my recording studio acoustics over the next few weeks of lockdown.
I am no acoustician at all, but am totally willing to learn to get the best possible out of my recordings.
After a few years of recording small live bands in the field of authentic 1950s Rockabilly, Country and Blues in my recording studio (see link in profile), I think it's time to bring the acoustics, which initially could not be taken care of optimally, up to scratch. We are located in a 200 years old Fachwerk house in the Black Forest in Germany. The plan is to do an acoustic upgrade, while maintaining the cosy vibe of the room. Although It's absolutely ok for me to have a bit of the old radio studio aesthetics in here aswell.
Budget is around 2k€ as we will do all the construction ourselves.
The room measures 5.72m x 5.13m x 2.53m. Walls are sandstone and brick, some plastered Fachwerk underneath perhaps too. It's quite hard to tell with such an old building structure. The room has a pitch pine wooden floor. There are 4 windows in the room with 1,3m height and a glass door with 2m height, but these can be covered with curtains. Until now we never had complaints from neighbours about the levels of our bands here, they mostly play moderate levels, by todays standards. I have uploaded an overview of the room in the attachment.
According to the Amroc calculator, the room modes show some cumulation between 65-70 and 90-100 Hz etc.
https://amcoustics.com/tools/amroc?l=51 ... 53&r60=0.6
I made a first simple measurement in the room by using REW to double check:
The measurement setup was such that the K+H O110 speaker was placed in a tri-corner of the room and I measured in each corner and in the center of the room at ear level. From this I created an average graph. Please give feedback if this setup does not fit, I have never measured recording rooms before.
Currently I have a combination of 6 Hofa Absorbers with 10cm Basotect in them plus 4 thinner Basotect Elements on the ceiling, 9 x EQ Acoustics L5 tiles and two Primacoustic Max Traps spread over the rooms walls and corners
Problem: The room is too damped in the mids/treble for my taste, but in the bass I have strong modes that I would like to control better. I get a nice tight drum sound, but since we often record live there are often unsightly modes on the other mics. This can be improved I think.
Goal: More balanced modes in the bass range and an interesting, airy reflection spectrum that gives the impression of a big room.
Important sidenote: We want to keep the impression of a classic 50's studio if possible and avoid modern looks, if you know what I mean
Anyhow Pegboard, absorbers with fabric covers etc will fit in nicely. It should still look homey and fit into our overall concept of the studio in the half-timbered house. Examples of studios with similar design are Dan Auerbach's Studio or Toe Rag in UK.My plan so far is as follows:
1. East and West-Walls
I would equip 2 of these opposite walls with 3-4 pieces of 20-30cm deep broadband absorbers each. Assuming that I will be using materials with 5kPa-s/m i.e. Sonorock or TP1
=> Does this make sense from your point of view? I still haven't treated the very low modes, how would you attack these?
2. North and South wall to the control room
I would like to equip everything above 1m height with perforated tiles in different depths. I have rescued about 100 pieces from an old hairdressing salon, which I would like to install here. In addition, below 1 m height perforated pegboard distributed widely across the area. I would take the pegboard material, which is available in the Bauhaus here in Germany. I have calculated 2 variants with 15cm absorption material behind each. Where I would probably rather choose the variant with larger hole spacing, because of the higher effectiveness in the bass range.
=> What do you think about the mixed concept of diffusion/middle absorption above 1m and perforated plate absorber below 1m?
Pegboard-Absorber 25mm Hole Spacing
Pegboard-Absorber 15mm Hole Spacing
3. Ceiling
This is where I'm missing a proper approach. I have these mentioned acoustic tiles available for this build and am thinking of treating the ceiling quite extensively with them. (Attached also an estimated curve for the panels, but no claim to correctness here) In addition, maybe hang a few ceiling clouds from perforated panels above the drum corner, to diffuse the reflections even more. As an alternative we could build kind of a dropped ceiling with the pegboard and play with the angles to make the reflections kind of irregular.
What are your experiences here with rooms of this ceiling height? I'd like to achieve diffusion for one thing, and of course I have prominent modes between floor and ceiling that needs to be addressed. But on the other hand I don't want to lose too much height.
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It's clear the room does have anything but the ideal dimensions and I'll only be able to mitigate that somewhat with acoustic treatment.
But still I would be happy to get some tips from your experience to get the best possible out of this.
In general: Does my approach make sense to you or would you switch walls with the treatment I have planned?
Would you add bass traps in any corners do achieve more absorption in the low end?
Thanks and greetings,
Ray