the perfect room

[Mysterious]

I will be moving house soon and want to find the perfect room for a studio. I will be making hip hop music with dj's and mc's. I plan to move into a one bedroom flat and sleep in the lounge while using the room for my studio.
What type of room should I search for?
Is there anything I should do to it to get a better sound?
Whats the best way i should set up my equipment?
My equipment is: A pentium3(800mhz, 256mb, 20gb), delta 1010lt souncard, a keyboard, a couple of mics, a set of moniters and a behringer 16 track mixer that I'm about to buy. I'm using the programs reason and logic platnium.
Also is there any other equipment I should consider getting for production?

[John Sayers]

Firstly I'd put the gear in the living room annd sleep in the bedroom The bigger the room the better.

Then I'd build some wall panels that will treat the room.

http://www.locall.aunz.com/~johnsay/HR/index1.htm

Comeon, I'm a Kiwi and I know all Kiwis can build

cheers
JOhn

[knightfly]

"I'm a Kiwi and I know all Kiwis can build " -

Not to mention making all that great shoe polish, and those wierd green (but great tasting) "strawberries" ... :=)

[John Sayers]

Those strawberries were originally called Chinese Gooseberries and they changed it to Kiwi fruit. Inventive buggers thoses Kiwis. play good Rugby too

cheers
JOhn

[barefoot]

Like John said, bigger is better. Look for a place with big rooms and high ceilings. A flat with vaulted ceilings would be outstanding.

For hip-hop low frequency monitoring is very important. You should consider getting full range "mid field" monitors rather than near fields.

barefoot

[Mysterious]

Why is bigger better? and what is a vaulted ceiling?

[John Sayers]

In a bigger room your first reflections will be later and less likely to impact on your listening field. Vaulted ceilings are angled ceilings, not a standard flat plaster ceiling like in most flats.

cheers
john

[barefoot]

Originally posted by John Sayers
Vaulted ceilings are angled ceilings, not a standard flat plaster ceiling like in most flats.

Yes, a vaulted ceiling follows the angle of a gable (inverted V) roof. This type of room is more difficult to heat, but it has a few significant acoustic advantages. It has a larger volume for a given floor area (I’ll explain why this is a good thing below). The angles break up the strong floor/ceiling standing waves which occur in rooms with parallel floors and ceiling. The angels also help reduce monitor frequency response anomalies caused by early ceiling reflections.

Originally posted by John Sayers
In a bigger room your first reflections will be later and less likely to impact on your listening field.

Yes, this one big advantage. The other big advantage is that larger volume makes it easier to achieve even bass response due to a reduction in the "Allison effect". This is the effect where the pressure fluctuations of bass waves reflected off the walls cause frequency dependent changes in the acoustic loading on the woofer cone. So basically, the woofer puts out some bass, a pressure peak or dip is reflected back which in turn effects how well the woofer can transmit the new bass wave it’s trying to produce.

So, if you can find a large room with non-parallel walls or ceiling you’ll be better off - unless it’s perhaps directly under an airport flight path.

barefoot

[cordura21]

I got a couple of questions:

if besides a vaulted ceiling you also angle on wall would that improve it?
Or is better to angle both of them?
Is it good to angle the front and rear walls, or will that be problematic?

Thanks, and great thread. Andrés

[barefoot]

Anytime you make opposing walls non-parallel it’s going to be an improvement. One concern however is left/right symmetry. You want the stereo field to be symmetric. Often times the rear wall is V shaped for this reason.

barefoot

[cordura21]

thanks for the answer. Another one:

I know you can use a bookcase as a difussor on the rear wall. Can you use compact... well case, a bookcase full of cd's with different depths ? Or would the plastic cases be too hard?

[barefoot]

Diffusors are reflective. Absorbers are absorptive. Books fall somewhere in between. So yes, CD’s could potentially work as diffusors.

barefoot

[Dr X]

Which is better: to have your monitors in line with the apex, or set up across the angles? If you see what I mean? ie sloping walls on either side of monitors or sloping walls in front and behind?

[cordura21]

From what Barefoot says I guess you goal is to have symmetry to achieve a good stereo field. From the drawings I saw it looks like the best thing is to angle the sidewalls, both of them. Next thing would be to make angles in the front and rear walls, but in an equal way for each half of the room.

I also read that raisng and angling the monitors also helps avoiding standing waves, just keep sure that they are still pointing at your ears.

[barefoot]

Originally posted by Dr X
Which is better: to have your monitors in line with the apex, or set up across the angles?

Well, it depends on the geometry of the room. You would need to look at the where the first reflection points are in both layouts. The analysis is more complicated because you are dealing with compound angles. A refection that appears to intersect with the listener from one perspective actually might not when you analyze it from the 90 degree perspective. I’ve attached an example graphic illustrating both layouts from a single perspective. This perspective might lead you to choose one layout, but rotating the image you might possibly come to another conclusion. Like I said, it all depends on the specific geometry.

I’ve also included a graphic of what I mean exactly by vaulted ceilings. I’m talking about the types of rooms with normal wall heights, not attic type rooms with truncated walls.

barefoot

[barefoot]

Originally posted by cordura21
I also read that raisng and angling the monitors also helps avoiding standing waves, just keep sure that they are still pointing at your ears.

This actually is more of a solution for wall and mixing console reflections rather than for standing waves.

barefoot

[ola]

Originally posted by barefoot
I’m talking about the types of rooms with normal wall heights, not attic type rooms with truncated walls.

Is the unhappy guy in your picture unhappy because you're not talking about his room or because his truncated walls are a bad concept all together?

[barefoot]

Originally posted by ola
Is the unhappy guy in your picture unhappy because you're not talking about his room or because his truncated walls are a bad concept all together?

Well, for a given volume room angled walls are better. But rooms are generally based on floor area, so truncated walls will almost always mean less volume and closer reflective surfaces. In most cases I think you would be better off having a larger volume rectangular room. This leaves you the flexibility to build angled partitions and use the volume behind them as bass traps.

barefoot

[kjam22]

I'm in a room similar to your 3rd guy.... the one with the frown. Truncated walls are 4 feet tall. Room is 15 feet wide between the truncated walls.... and 22 feet end to end. 8 feet tall in the middle. (it's above a two car garage). Best acoustics I've ever had in any home studio.

The vaulted ceilings make a huge difference.

The only bummer is that everything I take in and out of the studio has to be carried up or down stairs! And I'm getting way to old for that!!

[Michael Jones]

Originally posted by John Sayers
Those strawberries were originally called Chinese Gooseberries and they changed it to Kiwi fruit. Inventive buggers thoses Kiwis. play good Rugby too

cheers
JOhn

We call those "Monkey Balls"!

[Dr X]

Yes, I'm Mr Frown as well. Ah well, at least I've got my health.