John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

http://membres.lycos.fr/tenkas/plan.gif

this is a link to a very simple picture I created.

This represents the room I will have for my homestudio (GOD DARN SMALL).

In this room, I will have a computer, a drum, 2 guitar amps, a bass amp when the bassists come to jam.

This room is mainly for jamming but I will also use it for recording, mixing, everythink.

As you can see, I do not have access to more space so don't tell me it's too small for a studio (I have already seen smaller I swear... it was a 5feet by 5 feet BOX)....

Also, I want to tell you that the TOP and the RIGHT walls are EXTERIOR walls. the left wall is a DOUBLE wall (with extra souns isolation) and the BOTTOM wall is an interior wall.

The top, right and bottom walls are cement (foundation walls) but there is already giproc on the TOP and RIGHT wall.

I would like to know, what king of sound absorber, difuser I should use and how I should dipose it. I read a lot on the net but my room shape seems very particular and I would like you to tell me what you think about it. You can draw over the image I posted and repost it so I can have a good visual.

I heard that 4 inch fiberglass boards are the best cheap absorbers. What is fiberglass boards? Is it rigid fiberglass?

thx a lot and sorry for the long post. When I get all my stuff setup, I will send you guys some pics. Thx a lot


I forgot to mention that the left wall is not already constructed so I can stick the door anywhere on that wall. I was thinking of putting the door in the bottom left corner.

Also, I have seen people putting their monitor speakers IN the wall (or in a fake wall). Would that be a good idea if I have a pair of yorkville ysm-1i?

thx

tenkas - that room is a fair size. where are you from?? It really helps if we know what country you are from so we can have an idea of available materials etc.

here's the plan

cheers
john

Hi!

I didn't expect a fast replay like this!

I learned from your website on the homestudio.com bbs, bluebear told me to come here.

I live in Canada (Quebec), near Montreal. I went shoping a little and my friend suggested I should buy some SONOPAN (I think that's how it's called, it's an acoustic panel that helps sound profing). The left wall is going to be built like this:

5/8 gypse - sonopan (acoustic panel) - special acoustic isolation fiberglass - sonopan - 5/8 gypse. It's like a double wall I guess.

I don't know much in contruction but my friend is in renovation and construction so he gives me lot's of advices.

I hope I can learn a lot here and thx for the quick reply!

Ok - you need to read up a bit so you can understand our advice - check out these two links.

http://johnlsayers.com/Studio/index.htm

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

cheers
john

Hi, I already read all of the sea college website. It's really a great website. I have already read a 300 page book about recording and mics so I have a good basics of recording technics, acoustics. I just have a lot of difficulty to imagine how I could build and manage a good studio. There is so many factors to take in consideration, it's like a life time quest!

I am now ready to receive the advise, I know the vocabulary even if my first language is French.

Thx a lot John

Hi, I already read all of the sea college website. It's really a great website. I have already read a 300 page book about recording and mics so I have a good basics of recording technics, acoustics.

well then, what do you propose to do?? what gear do you have - where are you using it now etc.........

We are here to help, we are not a free design service.

cheers
john

Hi,
Sorry for my lack of experiment in giving the right informations.

Here is what I have :

a computer (15 inch CTR screen) and a very tall tower casing for my computer.

I have a pair of yorkville ysm 1i. (http://www.yorkville.com/products.asp?c ... =33&id=119)

I have a behringer mixer mx2004 (YES I KNOW....)

I have a few mics (but this doesn't really matter for the design.. I guess lol)

I have to put a drum which takes 7'x6' of space (soo darn big).

I also have 2 guitar amplifiers which take 2'x1' (always talking wight and lenght)

I also have a 88 note keyboard/controller which measures 4'4'' x 1'.

I also have a power amp 1'9'' x 1'4''.

My curent desk measures 4'10'' x 3'. It has a removable rectangular part that measures 1' x 3'. That means the desk can be 3'10'' x 3' or 4'10'' x 3'.

All measurements represent a TOP VIEW of the objects.

I have a few other pieces of equipement but I may not keep them in my studio (speakers, stereo receiver, cd player, tv, vhs, other computer screen).

If you look at the very very basic plan I drew, there is a window that measures 3'x10'' by 1'7'' (view from the side of the wall). I will include a new picture with the window indicated. It is at 5'9'' from the floor.

Also, on the new image, I added the little beveled part on the right wall which is where is located the electric box (in the beleved part). I have to find to way to isolate the electric box too but it's an exterior wall and because we have big winters here in canada, we have highly isolated exterior walls.

I don't have any programs that allow me to type dimensions and create a room. I am usually good to learn new programs but I didn't find any free programs that would let me do that.


And also, I was thinking of mouting my yorkville FLUSHMOUNT. I read on http://www.saecollege.de/ in the construction section (speakers) and it seems to be a way to get a better response out of speaker and it creates bass traps. I was thinking of mounting them on the left wall (where eventually a door will be placed).

For construction, the left wall seems ok if I do it like a double wall and the to cover the electric box, I don't really know how to do it.

I mostly need help for the bottom wall, it consists of 5'1'' (height) of concrete and the top (up to 7'11'' so 2'10'' (always height)) 2'10'' is just nothing and that section (2'10'') must be isolated because it is connected to the living room. (boy I hope it's not too complicated with my poor english).


and for the seeling, I would put fiberglass isolation (special for acoustic isolation) and after I would but a fiberboard (acoustic panel) and after gypsum. Should I do gypsum (1/2) - fiberboard - gypsum (5/8)?

This is about everything I have to say about my home studio for now. I know it may seem impossible to put everything in there, but I just want to have a not professionnal but the most profressionnal recording, mixing, live room possible. It's hard to be a student like me but for now, that's the best I can do. I am open to many solutions and again, I thank you John for this incredible website and for you help.

Again thx a lot and sorry for the incredibly long and (maybe or maybe not) not very well constructed post... lol

If the image doesn' appear, here is the link:

http://membres.lycos.fr/tenkas/plan2.gif


thx again a lot. It's now 1pm and I am working tomorrow (gotta pay that studio hehe) so feel free to post anything suggestions. If you have a program that let you do plans, maybe someone could make one so that the dimensions could be proportionnate.

thx

Cool - forgive me - I didn't realise that a Canadian can have english as a second language, my bad. It's important that I, and Steve and Thomas know this because we can say go read this and go read that, but if english isn't your first language it can be vary hard because of the jargon we use.

I stress to everyone........please state your location when you register.

OK - it's bedtime for me so I'll look at your plan tomorrow.

cheers
john

Hi again,

I would like to know if my drawing is too confusing. I was trying to do something the most proportionnate possible but I guess it didn't really worked out. I have already measured the room so if someone could tell me what is the program everyone is using to draw their plans. I saw a lot of plans and it seems to be a very specific program...

and do you know any program that has drums and keyboards already drawn and I can just move them to do a layout?

and also, my monitors are nearfield monitors (yorkville ysm), should I mount the in the wall like on sea college websit?

thx

You can download a free demo of Smartdraw here -

http://www.smartdraw.com

That's what John and most members here use.

I think you'll have to draw your own equipment, but you can save what you draw and use it in future drawings -

Soffit mounting is better by far as long as your speakers either have compensation switches for it or can be compensated with external filters... Steve

Hi,
I would love to soffit mount my speakers but I have no switch on my yorkville YSM 1i. I posted a link earlier to yorkville website.

These speakers have an opening in the front and that's all. Should I still soffit mount them like it is shown on www.seacollege.com ?
thx

To keep the bass from having an unnatural rise on the low end, if you soffit them you would need to find (or build) a clean, stereo filter that can give you a shelving response with adjustable "knee" frequency. I'm not aware of any specific models at the moment, maybe Barefoot knows of one? Or, he's posted designs (if you're up for construction) of filters that would work for that.

You'd probably be better asking this particular question in the Speaker forum, just to be sure Thomas sees it... Steve