Thank You Trusted Members!

ENIGMACODE

ENIGMACODE

New member
Hello ;)

I haven't been here in a while, but it's time to thank everyone for helping me convert the basement of an 80 year old rowhome into a cozy little acoustically tight music studio. After almost 3 years, and $7,000 (plus), this project is finally completed! To folks like: knightfly, Rod, RICK, Innovations, John Sayers, frederic, fitZ2, Michael Jones, and others - I say: THANK YOU!

My main philosophical goal here was to go through the entire process from beginning to end, and learn as much as I could. Although I've been in the Electrical Construction Industry for 30 years, I've never tackled anything like this before. And even if I move out of my present home, I'd gladly do it all over again, (now that I know what I'm doing). My biggest challenge here (since the room was so small), was to create as much useable space as possible without of course any direct connection to the surrounding structures. The result: Even with a full drum kit in the studio, there is only a faint sound next door, (lower in DB than that of a small boom box!)

My recording projects so far have included various voice overs that I'll be using in a WWII documentary that I've been working on. And after that project is completed, I look forward to having my band rehearse in a room where we can finally actually hear what we're playing.

I took hundreds of photos of the construction process, but I'll post a just a few here for you to see:

These shots were taken BEFORE:
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-1.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-2.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-3.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-4.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-5.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-6.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-7.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-8.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-9.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-10.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-11.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-12.jpg

These shots were taken AFTER:
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-24.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-2.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/3-room-tagged.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/4-room-tagged.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/14-room-tagged.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/25-room-tagged.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/26-room-tagged.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-7.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-9.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-10.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-15.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-19.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-20.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-22.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-23.jpg

Thanx again
Best Regards
Michael Fraticelli
 
Last edited:
ENIGMACODE said:
Hello ;)

I haven't been here in a while, but it's time to thank everyone for helping me convert the basement of an 80 year old rowhome into a cozy little acoustically tight music studio. After almost 3 years, and $7,000 (plus), this project is finally completed! To folks like: knightfly, Rod, RICK, Innovations, John Sayers, frederic, fitZ2, Michael Jones, and others - I say: THANK YOU!

My main philosophical goal here was to go through the entire process from beginning to end, and learn as much as I could. Although I've been in the Electrical Construction Industry for 30 years, I've never tackled anything like this before. And even if I move out of my present home, I'd gladly do it all over again, (now that I know what I'm doing). My biggest challenge here (since the room was so small), was to create as much useable space as possible without of course any direct connection to the surrounding structures. The result: Even with a full drum kit in the studio, there is only a faint sound next door, (lower in DB than that of a small boom box!)

My recording projects so far have included various voice overs that I'll be using in a WWII documentary that I've been working on. And after that project is completed, I look forward to having my band rehearse in a room where we can finally actually hear what we're playing.

I took hundreds of photos of the construction process, but I'll post a just a few here for you to see:

These shots were taken BEFORE:
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-1.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-2.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-3.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-4.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-5.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-6.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-7.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-8.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-9.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-10.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-11.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/progress-12.jpg

These shots were taken AFTER:
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-24.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-2.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/3-room-tagged.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/4-room-tagged.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/14-room-tagged.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/25-room-tagged.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/26-room-tagged.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-7.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-9.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-10.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-15.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-19.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-20.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-22.jpg
http://www.locationstudio.net/room-23.jpg

Thanx again
Best Regards
Michael Fraticelli
Click to expand...
That's great man, it's good to see something from start to finish. Only problem i see with it is that your mixing position is closer to the right wall than the left.
 
Thanx pandamonk
(yeah I'm still tweaking everything)
;)

Sure hope Rod, Rick and the other guys see these photos that I put up for them .....
:)

Mike
 
ENIGMACODE said:
Thanx pandamonk
(yeah I'm still tweaking everything)
;)

Sure hope Rod, Rick and the other guys see these photos that I put up for them .....
:)

Mike
Click to expand...
Sure Rick will see them. He's still lurks in these forums a lot. Frederic, Knightfly, and Innovations can be seen occasionally. But I've not seen Rod, and John Sayers in here for a while :( .
 
i like the guitars :)

a Rickenbacker is the first on my list if i could ever afford to buy an instrument i didn't feel i had to actually use all the time :D.

but yes, great looking setup.

Andy.
 
Thank you all for the compliments and suggestions!

Hi andydeedpoll - thank you :)

I told myself sometime ago that I'd get a well-rounded instrument collection:
American Les Paul Standard (1990)
Martin D28 (1995)
American Start (1986)
American Jazz Bass (2000)
Rickenbacker 360 12 string (1989)

What more would you want?

Unlike the darned digital world, everytime you sneeze, your equipment is suddenly obsolete. Ya know it's crime how Tascam quickly abandoned the TMD8000, (even when 16 bit was still current).

Hey rpe!
"NM - Land of Excrement" - when I saw that, I laughed my A.. OFF! :D
GREAT Label! Is NM really like that?

Hope to see Rod Gervais here soon?

Ya know the last time I checked here (when I was still deep in construction), I noticed a post where this dude absolutely RIPPED into Rod, and the site in general. It was just awful. I do understand that the written word doesn't always convey the original intent of the message, hence the person's thoughts, but I always appreciated any suggestions anyone provided for me.

Ok - thanx again!
Mike
:o
 
Mike, good job; only hearing drums faintly without using about 3 feet of space per wall is an accomplishment indeed. I'm sure your attention to detail in not having any hard connections between framing is most of that.

Only suggestions I might add would be to try your speakers vertically - you might have to tilt them a bit (Auralex MoPads'll work) but you'll probably find that your "sweet spot" widens noticeably with speakers vertical, especially with a small triangle setup.

IF you're hearing any "boxiness" at all, might wanna double up the thickness of the foam at first reflection points and maybe space it off the wall by a couple inches - you can also "nest" that type foam, there's no audible gain using the sculpted side out so you can put two pieces together with peaks facing each other, this (and the air gap behind) helps absorption reach to lower frequencies.

May wanna stock up on tape for the analog deck, I heard that Quantegy's Opelika plant may be coming to an end (yet again)

Congrats man, good to see another studio off and running... Steve
 
Hey knightfly! (knew I'd see you again)

Hey Steve how ya doin?
(Steve right?)

Say ya know you nailed it when you asked me if I was getting any "boxiness"
Well I eliminated some of this when I added a few more lenrds to the equation (as you can see from the photos).

But limme understand you further:
You mentioned that I should put Mopeds (as a cushion under the Events?)
http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_mopad/sound_isolation_mopad.asp

And you said something about the first point of reflection? In regard to sweet spot where it is now, and in reference to the arrangement of the monitors as they appear in the photos.

Thanx knightfly - good to see you again!
Mike
 
Doin' OK for a dead man (damn colds 'r a lot nastier these days or something) - If you placed your side absorbers using the mirror trick, they're not in the wrong place; it's just that foam isn't as good an absorber as rigid fiberglass, but some people like the look better. So to avoid uneven room sound caused by less midrange absorption of thin foam, you can either use thicker stuff and space it off the wall to gain a bit more range in lower frequencies, or use thicker fiberglass or MW at those locations. Same with "clouds" - too thin and too close to the ceiling, and you pull out high mids/highs more than the mids, causing there to be too much midrange in the room relative to the highs - this is usually described as a "boxy" sound.

Mopads are built so they can be used to impart a slight downward tilt of a monitor, depending on how you use 'em - look at the pics, they aren't just flat high density foam.

The vertical monitor comment was meant to be part of the mopad recommendation - if you set your monitors vertically, they'll likely have the tweets higher than your ears; so you may need to tilt the monitors downward a bit, and the easiest way to do that is with something like the Mopads. They usually will also help a bit with decreasing structural flanking between the speakers and your desk - since sound travels several times as fast in most solids as it does in air, it's possible to have your desk radiating an "early reflection" of sorts that gets to your ears BEFORE the direct sound through the air - this would technically be called a "pre-echo", and can mess up imaging as much as early reflections can, so it should be avoided.

Reason for vertical speaker placement - Draw a sketch of your speaker/head location, using straight lines at 30 degree angles to represent your speaker baffles - include the locations for woof and tweet in each one. Next, draw a scaleen triangle with its points located at woof, tweet, and your head for EACH SIDE of the monitoring triangle.

Note that as you move your head from side to side, the distance between your ear and the tweeter, as compared to the distance between your ear and the woofer, CHANGES. The opposite effect happens on the OTHER side of your head - this causes phase shifting between woofer and tweeter - more on one side, less on the other. The only place where phasing is NOT occuring is in a very narrow spot dead center between the two speakers.

This means that if you want to avoid this phase-cancel/add effect, also known as comb filtering, you have to lock your head in a vise centered between the two speakers.

Since we tend to move our heads more from side to side than we do vertically, it's MUCH less of an effect if the woofer and tweeter are vertical - this way, side-to-side movement will change volume levels somewhat due to inverse-square law, but any one channel's woofer and tweeter won't be changing relative distance to your ear.

Things to watch out for when optimising speaker location - woofer NOT placed halfway between ceiling and floor - 6-8" offset is better.

Tweets preferably at ear height, but this isn't often practical in standard height rooms, since it may put the woofs dead center (in a null) - so if the speakers need to be higher, you need to tilt the box so tweets are aimed closer to ear height.

No hard contact between speaker box and desk, even through a floor - pre-echo isn't a good thing. This, having speakers bouncing sound off the desk and into your ears, is main reason for separate speaker stands BEHIND the desk.

Absorbent across the side of the desk toward speakers can help kill reflections from speaker to face of desk to front wall to your head.

Raising speakers more than absolutely necessary is not a good idea - our ears receive treble information differently at different altitudes (likely a holdover from flight-or-fight response) so high-mounted speakers don't tell us there's as much treble as there really is.

Speakers and your head need to be centered side-to-side, even though this will put your head in a first/third harmonic null and a second/fourth harmonic peak - being careful NOT to also do this in the vertical and length-wise position of your head is about the only defense against this.

I've found that placing speakers and mix position in a room is best done BEFORE any treatment - that way, any modal peaks/nulls will be as bad as they can get so 'way more noticeable - once you get things as neutral as possible with geometry, THEN doing corner traps and all the other "wisdom" will smooth things out further. Unless the room ratios are horrible, this is usually enough to get translatable mixes.

Hopefully that cleared up my earlier blatherings... Steve
 
You're welcome; and thanks for the get-well card - sat on my "other" face most of the day in front of the 'puter and a heater, suckin' down Dayquil and orange juice, think I raised expectations from "pat in face with shovel" up to "expect to be mobile early next month" - IOW, muy better so far :=))

Just got started doing a cost analysis between a (new) second-floor studio over a 36 x 44 garage vs. a concrete block & sand one on the other end of the house - think the cost of a solid enough floor frame to float concrete may decide things in favor of the separate building, but won't know til I do rough costs for each.

Both would have a nice, tranquil view of my wife's tender landscaping ministrations, so I win either way :=)

Hope your video editing projects are going well - I finally gave up on Magix and their arrogant attitude toward US customers, been using Vegas 7/DVDA for a few months now. Has yet to crash, almost as intuitive as MEP and BUCKETS more ability if you dig a bit. Ain't goin' back, nosirree bob... Steve
 
What a beautiful job man. I gotta agree that you should get rid of the foam and move to ridgid fiberglass. It made a world of difference to me. One name I didn't see on your list was Ethan. Check his site if you never did or just search his name. Hope you have years of enjoyment in your new studio.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top