John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Ok knightfly...looks like the design phase is coming to a close (although at some point I may want to add an amp room on the other side of the vocal booth...but I digress.

here is the drawing:



The left outer wall is concrete, as is the North wall, and most of the south wall. There is a pretty good size gap between the framing and the concrete...The live room/ dead room is not floated...but the control room and vocal room will be.

So which walls need to be made of what? Also, is carpeting the live room/ dead room floor going to be ok...the top of the floor is mdf. Thats about it...looking forward to your help...thanks!

Read the SAE site again on construction it covers all your wall questions thoroughly.

Bryan Giles

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_mate ... stics3.htm

Here is a quick link to that set of pages

no, I don't think it does. I am looking for something more specific, like, you should use rockwool in the vocal room, but with no drywall, as fabric will be better, and 1/2 gypsum on the walls with concrete will be good, but 5/8 on the inside walls is needed.

I do appreciate the help, but continually pointing to a link I have read a bunch of times isn't the help I need right now.

- Keith

Kieth, at the risk of irritating you even further I'd like it if you could read through a DIFFERENT thread where I lay out some basic rules for wall construction - if you can start by telling what YOU think the construction should be, it will take me a lot less time to only have to suggest CHANGES - if I see you're not even close, I'll take the time to start from scratch - Here's the link, and thanks for your patience- -

http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=598

BTW, the 2-leaf thing starts with the wall surface in one room, and ends with the wall surface in the NEXT room, NOT two walls, EACH with two leaves... Steve

knight, I have been doing a lot of reading, but still having trouble applying something like this:



to my drawing.

Yeah, I can see where that could be clearer - Why don't you start by asking the first 2 or 3 questions that come to mind, and we'll work from there? Steve

This was just for guidance showing 2 flat walls and the other 2 walls being angled

Bryan Giles

Sorry Bryan, I didn't even notice where that came from - I just realized that there's a lot we take for granted sometimes, and it can be confusing to people who are just starting out. That's why I suggested he post the first few questions that came to mind, so I'll know more where to start... Steve

True That true That. We have to always start from a novice aspect till we know the knowledge level of the recipoient of this information.

Bryan

giles117 wrote:True That true That. We have to always start from a novice aspect till we know the knowledge level of the recipoient of this information.

Bryan

Keep in mind a lot of us (myself included) are mere monkeys... even though we've read the SAE documentation and millions of posts here and on HRBBS, it takes a looooooong time to reach the level of comprehension that you guys and John have.

While I am very interested and completely fascinated with acoustical engineering, I know that my knowledge depth will never be deep enough in time for me to finish my studio, which is why I ask dumb questions and hope for smart people like yourself to say "do this". My passion is creating and composing, not hanging drywall. I can *do* drywall, but thats not my core competency, nor is determing what layers of what to use and how to affix it to the wall. So hopefully I phrased this correctly without pissing everyone off.

Trust me, when I find a building thats suitable for a "pro" studio and I embark on the journey, I know who to call, who to pay, and who's problem i can make it with the appropriate compensation Then I can remain ignorant of all the minute details that make a good studio sound awesome. Stuff I can't possibly learn in time to do it right the first time.

Make sense? If not, know that its an ass-backwards compliment to several people.

Frederic, proud monkey.

Frederic, I couldn't have put it better myself. Everyone's knowledge base, desires, and abilities are different - I can't even begin to imagine how boring our world would be if that weren't so. Each of us has priorities, as well as things we are better off "farming out" - it doesn't matter that we COULD do everything, or BE everything - what matters is striving toward doing what we ENJOY doing, as much of the time as we can.

My definition of success is when you're doing things that make you satisfied and happy (without hurting anyone in the process, of course) and if you can share some of that to others' benefit, it's just icing on the cake.

Jeez, that sounded schmaltzy - I gotta go take a "mean pill", get back on track... Steve

knightfly wrote:Frederic, I couldn't have put it better myself. Everyone's knowledge base, desires, and abilities are different - I can't even begin to imagine how boring our world would be if that weren't so. Each of us has priorities, as well as things we are better off "farming out" - it doesn't matter that we COULD do everything, or BE everything - what matters is striving toward doing what we ENJOY doing, as much of the time as we can.

Glad my comments weren't taken the wrong way, and glad you can appreciate the position a lot of us monkeys are in. I'd love to understand all this to the degree you do, but for me to do that would mean my home studio would never get finished. Its much easier to beg for advice and have people say "do this". Unfair to you guys, but I can offer advice back on electrical and syncing issues

Or hot rod advice, but that would require a seperate forum I guess LOL

Jeez, that sounded schmaltzy - I gotta go take a "mean pill", get back on track... Steve

I have that every morning while standing in front of the coffee pot waiting for the dripping to stop.

Grrrrrr.

"I have that every morning while standing in front of the coffee pot waiting for the dripping to stop" - cool, a fellow addict...

Hey, that's an area ripe for improvement - I've yet to find a coffee maker that both makes good coffee, doesn't take a Nintendo freak to run, and will push its OWN button half an hour before my alarm goes off - had one, made by "Puke-tor Silex", the first one made two pots of coffee and died, the second lasted a week and died, I finally took it back and got a Bunn - closest thing yet, but no timer - oh well -

On another sub, just bought CARA a couple weeks ago, haven't had much time to play yet but noticed several posts by you (?) on their forum. Made a couple myself, couldn't help noticing the lack of activity there. I was thinking of getting their "AC Controller", but can't find much info on it, the Canadians don't handle it, and the German site won't talk Englisch for that page. Problem is, it's apparently only RS-232, and I'm not sure if it would survive one of those Serial to USB converters or not, since my new laptop has no serial ports. Guess if I get serious I could find a PC card serial adapter - Oh well, enough projects for this millenia anyway... Steve

knightfly wrote:"I have that every morning while standing in front of the coffee pot waiting for the dripping to stop" - cool, a fellow addict...

Hey, that's an area ripe for improvement - I've yet to find a coffee maker that both makes good coffee, doesn't take a Nintendo freak to run, and will push its OWN button half an hour before my alarm goes off - had one, made by "Puke-tor Silex", the first one made two pots of coffee and died, the second lasted a week and died, I finally took it back and got a Bunn - closest thing yet, but no timer - oh well -

On another sub, just bought CARA a couple weeks ago, haven't had much time to play yet but noticed several posts by you (?) on their forum. Made a couple myself, couldn't help noticing the lack of activity there. I was thinking of getting their "AC Controller", but can't find much info on it, the Canadians don't handle it, and the German site won't talk Englisch for that page. Problem is, it's apparently only RS-232, and I'm not sure if it would survive one of those Serial to USB converters or not,

Wild guess, I'd say "probably" because the rs232 data coming out isn't real time, therefore its not a big deal.

since my new laptop has no serial ports. Guess if I get serious I

A docking station is your friend

I intend to skip products like the cara, and use a basic Db meter I have from rat shack, and walk around the place playing sinewaves from 25hz to 20Khz.

Not an ideal method, but beats clapping.

Wish my laptop offered a docking station - had one for the old one, but it's not up to newer apps and out of drive space with no internal options available. I only found two laptops with both firewire AND stereo line IN and OUT - both were Toshiba, and the line in/out function and firewire were NOT negotiable. Thank God for PC slots... I know I could have opted for a PC audio card, but didn't think about that til the deal was done. Still, not too bad - I hook up power (bought two adapters, one for the road and one for the desk) , RJ-45 and a USB mouse (hate touchpads) and I'm there for home.

Far as room tests are concerned, I'm not convinced that steady state sine waves are all that's necessary since I've yet to find a piece of music I like that only uses them So I'm probably going to spring for the ETF package soon, including mic and pre. Runs about $550 for everything.

Even though the CARA stuff appears to be quite powerful at a very reasonable price, it's probably too time-consuming for my intended use. See next -

My goal is to be able to walk into a customer's place (whether commercial or consumer) with a laptop, powered nearfield(s) and small bag of misc. stuff, and tell them within 20 minutes what/where/how they need to do to fix their sound. If I can accomplish that, I could probably quit my DDJ (Dreaded Day Job) and just play with fun toys - Ahhh, hope springs eternal... Steve