Please suggest some Control Room dimensions

Macross · Post by **Macross** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 4:42 pm

I should like to know what some good dimensions would be for a meduim-small to small-medium sized control room. Desk will take up approximately 2.5m (DMX-R100 in console) by 1.5m. Will have small (2m) rack behind listening position and small couch at back wall. What size would be ideal length and width? What size could I get away with also?
Thanks!

Sen · Post by **Sen** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 5:05 pm

They say that around 18' X 15' X 12' is a good place to start....that's a pretty comfortable CR, and not many can afford that kind of space...
Anyway whatever you do, you shouldn't have the same dimensions (10X10 etc) and they shouldn't be multiples of each other (8X16 etc)....
Or something like that anyway...

...I'm sure you'll get ebtter comments from the others...

good luck

Macross · Post by **Macross** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 5:30 pm

12' being height? Thanks for the reply.

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 9:10 pm

Actually, it doesn't matter which dimension is the height from a modal response standpoint - The BBC has used rooms that are "stood on end" for better ratios in vocal booths, where they didn't want to take up too much floor space but still wanted proper ratios -

There are several sets of "golden ratios" for rooms, and even splayed wall, Reflection Free Zone rooms can benefit from sticking to one of these ratios. Unfortunately, a room with dimensions of 12 x 18 would fall into the "no-no" category - just figuring primary, or axial modes will show that the third harmonic of a 12 foot dimension is the same as the second harmonic of an 18 foot dimension, so that would put two axial mode resonances coincident, causing a coloration at that frequency. The same would happen at twice that frequency, etc -

Two of the more common ratios for rooms include 1:1.4:1.9, and 1:1.6:2.33 - these would translate to rooms (assuming a 10 foot ceiling) of 10x14x19, and 10x16x23.3 feet, respectively. There are various spreadsheets available for calculating other combinations, one of which I originally wrote about 15 years ago. Mine is called "roomtune" and can be found here -

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/downloads.nsf/category

Another, more comprehensive one is called ModesV2.xls, and can be found here

http://www.studiotips.com/tools/

On roomtune, double-click the .exe file and it will extract into 123 and 3xcel versions plus a .doc file with basic instructions.

The 123 version was created on Lotus Smartsuite for '97, the Excel was done on Office 97. Dimensions L,W, and H are to be entered in feet and tenths of feet, as in 14.7, 23.3, etc.

On MODESV2, the first page of the spreadsheet has directions for use. Remember to convert room dimensions to inches for this one -

When designing a control room, consider EVERYTHING you expect to be able to do in it so you can size it accordingly - working in a telephone booth isn't a lot of fun... Steve

Macross · Post by **Macross** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 12:16 pm

Excellent info. Thanks!

Post by **John Sayers** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 5:14 pm

"I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and it's hurting my eyes."

I think it's a train coming the other way;)

cheers
john

Sen · Post by **Sen** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 8:21 pm

Macross wrote:12' being height? Thanks for the reply.

yes...or any other dimensions having that ratio between themselves

Macross · Post by **Macross** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 6:59 am

John Sayers wrote:"I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and it's hurting my eyes."

I think it's a train coming the other way;)

cheers
john

Yeah, definitely could be!

Charles Dayton · Post by **Charles Dayton** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 4:35 pm

Hey how about a roomtune for us poor Mac users?

giles117 · Post by **giles117** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 8:41 pm

No wars, but I didn't know us MAC users were poor.

You could use Virtual PC to extract it and just open the excel files in... Excel. They run kinda slow though.

Bryan Giles

Charles, If you send me your email, I'll email you the extracted files.....

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 10:00 pm

Yeah, my kid (32, graphic designer) uses Macs (even though I TRIED to raise him right :=) and has had no prob whatever using Virtual PC for the few things he's needed to do. I also read a review a couple years ago of some heavy PC music software that was done on a Mac using Virtual PC. I was amazed it worked at all. (Not because it was a Mac, or any of that - just because most music software for PC tends to take a while to sort out even which chip set will/won't work with whose hardware, etc...

You might check here for Mac stuff, their ModesV2 works great on PC -

http://www.studiotips.com

Their site didn't want to talk just now, I entered the url manually. Go to the files/calculation tools link, there are mac versions of several of their helpful stuff... Steve

Paul Cavins · Post by **Paul Cavins** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 10:00 am

We Mac users are poor because we've just spent all of our money on our computers!

giles117 · Post by **giles117** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 10:08 am

I guess I am a fortunate NON poor MAC User.

I Just charge more. (You know, never buy unless it is paying off.)

Cravin a G5.......

Bryan Giles

Charles Dayton · Post by **Charles Dayton** » Wed Jul 09, 2003 4:46 pm

Well I hear that protools runs fine on Windows XP, but I haven't tried it. I hear a lot fewer complaints from Mac users about upgrading or changing equipment. I've never heard "my Mac's video card doesn't work with this program...etc.etc." However, the PC price point is alluring......