Studio design help

[andYz00m]

Hopefully, this was concise enough, but also complete enough!

Adam, thank you so much for your time and thoughtful consideration.

I’ve been thinking about this a ton and we have been moving the furniture around to think about ergonomics and the flow of people coming in and out as well as ideal acoustic placement.

In general, Im prepared to do all the things mentioned here minus build a symmetrical layout (ha!) which I know can be the most important. Im thinking that option C actually might be the closest I have to a symmetrical spot.

Had a few follow up questions/clarifications:

The entire space has 10' high ceilings with 2x12 exposed ceiling joists. The entire ceiling has been insulated with 6" of R13 and then covered with a thick vinyl. I do not plan on putting drywall on the ceiling. I have no isolation issues to the outside world and the live room/booths will be fully isolated from this control room. Hoping this will help with low end!

Given the layout of the room, and how I want it to be as open as possible for people to hang, this also lends itself towards option C. I can totally build a wall across the corner behind the desk. Are there more detailed recommendations here? Should it be framed, insulated and dry walled? Or should it be a giant broadband absorber?

Also, the weirdly shaped rooms that are already in there are only 7.5' ft tall. There is a storage space above the room that is exposed. I dont know how this affects the delay time.

If I were to go with C, do I still need to build the absorption on the back walls like Ive drawn below? Im assuming they need to be floor to ceiling. Im sure some more testing and listening will reveal some of these answers too.


Honestly, I really should be just tearing out the existing rooms and building this right, but I dont have the time right now to completely upend the whole room while I build. Day job, kids, and a bunch of records to make!

Thanks again for the responses!

 

[kags]

The ceiling vinyl treatment will be great for low-end absorption and will even out a lot of issues in the room. I would still try to treat 1st reflections between the speakers and the ceiling to your listening position with a cloud to absorb mid- and high-frequency reflections.

In setup C, the front wall could be completely absorptive - just frame a wall, cover it with fabric and fill it with lightweight roll insulation, but support the insulation so it doesn't collapse on itself and compress down. The side walls will likely need some treatment for 1st reflections, but you will have little problem with SBIR!

There is now a wall that is parallel to your desk angle that should also be treated with absorption.

For the open storage space above the back rooms, you can either convert that storage space into trapping with roll insulation. If it's mostly full of stuff, it won't really matter. Just don't leave it mostly empty. Alternatively, you could put doors of some kind on the space to block it off, but that might be tight up there.

Even with this setup (config C), you should find the most balanced listing position - setup your speakers and just play sound from one of them and find the most balanced listing position. Then measure the response with both speakers on to see if there are any major problems that you need to treat. Again, I would focus less on the frequency response graph and more on the waterfall to see where your decay time needs tightening up. Shoot for even decay time across all frequencies, but the lowest octave can be a bit longer, as long as it's still below 250 ms or so.

Should wind up sounding great!

 

[andYz00m]

Should wind up sounding great!

Thank again for the help!

We framed in the new wall and got the sub panel for this control room and the live room installed.



If I go with plan C, then this is sort of what Im thinking in the drawing below. I still am a bit confused about the corner wall behind the desk. Im assuming this needs to be framed, insulated and dry walled, then absorption on top of that...

 

[kags]

Don’t drywall- if you leave it with a fabric face it will be a great front wall for the speakers with respect to minimizing SBIR. You can still mount a TV or put stuff on wall- just frame it out to plan for that. Drywall will complicate the issue and then you’ll want at least 6” of absorption in front of the drywall.

 

[C12VR]

It seems you're going for a pretty dead sound, in which case I would suggest going all the way and covering every inch of the walls and floor with carpet and insulation panels. The best sounding small studios imho were the Memphis ones, FAME studios, Muscle Shoals, and Royal Studios were all small-midsize with fairly low ceilings, but they made up for it with dampening, mixing before the mic, and clever arrangement. Not to mention Motown, though they had a dirtier sound and a lot less dampening.
This is Royal Studios:

 

[Brian Roth]

I am a fan of the Stax studio sound....a movie theater with lots of DIY damping.





Bri

 

[Brian Roth]

 

[JohnRoberts]

An old friend Ethan Winer wrote a book, the audio expert book . This book may answer some of your questions.

Note: Ethan also runs a company "real traps" making and selling sound absorption products for studio use.

JR

 

[kags]

The goal for a mixing or listening room is not a dead sound, but a room with even decay time at all frequencies. If you don’t trap the front corner, you will have terribly uneven bass response from your monitors due to SBIR. If you don’t trap the rear wall, you will have modal issues and long low-frequency decay time that will make mixing confusing.

The front wall could be reflective a mid and high frequencies and still mitigate low frequency problems. You also have a huge floor surface that will be reflective and provide a natural sounding room.

Remember - a listening room should let hear the monitors without uneven decay time and interference from the room. Therefore we control first reflections, SBIR and midal decay issues. The room should also sound natural and comfortable so we leave the floor hard and walls, like the front wall can be reflective at high frequencies.

If you treat a room with only thin absorbers (1” to 4” panels) you will wind up with a boomy room that has “dry” high frequencies. Balance your treatment for all frequencies.

Recording rooms have very different goals and treatment options.

 

[kags]

An old friend Ethan Winer wrote a book, the audio expert book . This book may answer some of your questions.

Note: Ethan also runs a company "real traps" making and selling sound absorption products for studio use.

JR

Ethan has very good advice - especially his effective use of membrane absorbers for low frequency modes.

 

[andYz00m]

So... I built a room and am currently shooting out the initial layout.

Attached are the phase/SPL and waterfall a responses from the KRK V8 monitors and the NS10s (no sub). I tried out a bunch of different configurations and positions and this corner seems to have some weird phase issues even with the massive cloth covered wall.

There seems to be a huge node around 70-95Hz and the difference between left/right is large.

Any feedback welcome. If this corner configurations doesnt work then I will rethink the construction and the layout of the room. Would love to make this work though if possible.

This is what I would do if this layout doesnt work.
I think I can easily modify the room with the sliding glass door and then frame in the wall above the existing closets to make a more functional and symmetrical room.

 

[andYz00m]

Now here is on the opposite wall in a position that really sounds good to me. It shouldn't make sense, but it sounds good.

Some 30-50 Hz buildup here but it's actually not bad.

This is so tough!! Stressing me out trying to figure out what the best spot is. This second test is making me think that even if I don't modify the existing structures the way they are, this long wise configuration is going to be better.

 

[andYz00m]

I found my copy!

Had this for a long time. It is an excellent resource.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I helped Ethan Proofread his original manuscript...

JR

 

[andYz00m]

I helped Ethan Proofread his original manuscript...

JR

Some really important passages about the different opinions on focusing on stereo imaging versus low end optimization when thinking about positioning and layout.

Also, clearly he wrote the book on modern trapping and absorption. Rewieving this is giving me some good insight into maybe I am over thinking things a bit. The position I found yesterday is really good and I will be adding some 30-50 Hz trapping to help deal with the long delay there. Otherwise, things are looking good!

 

[kags]

You need to find the best listening position before you can get the rest of your geometry correct. Just place one speaker in the front corner of your listening area and play a slow sine sweep from 30hz up to 150 Hz while sitting in your intended listening position. Note what frequencies are severely attenuated or boosted. Then Move your listening position forward and back from ther e and listen over and over. You’ll find the most even bass response and this will be the best listening position. Now place your speakers in something close to an equilateral triangle from there.

The “sustained “ freqs in the waterfall plot are environmental noises- not modal problems. The seem to continue forever.

Be careful about symmetry around the listening position to keep your stereo image solid. If you are not sitting in a “centerline” position in a left-right dimension, you may have to place gobos to create a symmetrical setup.

The 50 hz mode will show up in a room sim using REW. My guess would be the floor-ceiling mode, but check the sim.

The deep notches in the 150 - 250 range are like SBIR caused by the distance from the face of your speakers to the front wall. You get a distinct 1/4 wavelength cancellation and then a roller coaster above it.

Incremental changes will get you there! It’s mostly time and effort- more then expense or technology.

 

[kags]

The farther away the rear wall is, the better off you’ll be.

This is so tough!! Stressing me out trying to figure out what the best spot is. This second test is making me think that even if I don't modify the existing structures the way they are, this long wise configuration is going to be better.

 

[kags]

Btw, it looks like you only filled the ceiling with a few inches of insulation. Why didn’t you fill the cavity completely with roll insulation? At least 8 inches of insulation ( I think you have 12 inches of space) will help with the floor-ceiling mode and also with the other two axial modes. Should clean up the low end decay time. If you’re worried about making the room too “dry” just use paper faced insulation with the paper facing into the room.

 

[andYz00m]

Btw, it looks like you only filled the ceiling with a few inches of insulation. Why didn’t you fill the cavity completely with roll insulation? At least 8 inches of insulation ( I think you have 12 inches of space) will help with the floor-ceiling mode and also with the other two axial modes. Should clean up the low end decay time. If you’re worried about making the room too “dry” just use paper faced insulation with the paper facing into the room.

The ceiling joists are 2x14s they are huge. Theres a bit more in there than it looks. The batts are about 7" deep. The ceiling was insulated before this project was started. I had originally thought the amount that is in there would be effective.

I did some more testing tonight and found some improvement. In the position below ("Good"), the low end seems to sound much more even, on the graph there is still a dip in the 50-70Hz range but not as bad. There is a pretty big dip at 125-150ish that im assuming is due to the speaker being right in the corner.

So far, even tough its not making sense, the second image is showing what is sounding and graphing the best, but has the SBIR dip @ 125-150Hz. It's crazy because this is where the desk was originally! Haha.

 

[MicMaven]

It's crazy because this is where the desk was originally! Haha. . . .

__________________________________________

Once again, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Sidebar - As an ersatz musician, I am OK with the lovely blue refrigerator (a necessary piece of kit.) But, I am not quite sure about what appears to be a doggy bed on the door. Of course, you should always eschew appearance and go with what works best - function over form, ya know !

(Just spitballing, old man ... nothing serious here ... except the bit about the fridge. I am enjoying looking over your shoulder on this project. ) . James/K8JHR