Complicated basement studio in Germany

[timkroeger]

Hey,

at least I think it's going to be kind of difficult to do because of the building's constraints. Some background first: In two years I am going to move into a house. My brother (drums) already lives on the ground floor. I (guitar, recording) will occupy the upper/2nd floor + attic. The house hase a complete basement with concrete floor and concrete ceiling. Walls are plastered brickwall (those large bright bricks with one hole in the middle, don't know what they're called). Most walls are 240mm thick (9 1/2 in), outer walls are 365mm (a good 1'2'').

I am planning to have a tracking/rehearsal room and a control room in the basement. Most of the time I'll deal with my own rock band. My recording ambitions (and building the rooms) are to do this as a hobby in my sparetime but to do it as professional as I can all by myself. I have no budget/limit at all as I will invest in what needs to be bought but I'll be trying to minimize cost whenever possible. Not going to do some esoteric stuff... It's not going to be a business and the only timeline I can provide is I'm going to move in in 2 years. So basically I have 2 years to get my design / planning right. Even with all the reading and learning I will have to do, these 2 years should be more than sufficient I think for a small - but ambitious - hobby studio

The control and tracking room should be adjacent. I am also planning to build a sauna and shower/relax room into the basement so there are some constraints because of drains and water access. Please look at the basement sketchup below for reference. The room at the top of the picture (green floor) and the adjacent outer room to the left (blue floor) both have tap and drain, so one of those needs to have the shower built into it.

With control- and tracking room needing to be adjacent, too (and preferrably large), that leaves me with the leftmost room (red floor) and the adjacent room to the top (one of those with a drain, blue floor). Green is going to be the shower/relax room and the small room to the right (aqua floor) could be the sauna. Other rooms are not suitable due to their limit in size or installed central heating system and stuff...

Room height is 2130mm (about 6'12'') but there is a steel beam in the blue room that supports the upper floor crossing the whole room. The height is 1930mm (about 6'4'') there. Both rooms should be visually connected but I am unsure about what room to use for what purpose and what layout to choose. I am trying to lay out the constraints for the control and tracking room from what I have learned so far and what I think would suit me. Please feel free to add and comment as you see fit.

Control room:

• accoustic treatment for good monitoring
• needn't be soundproof but should block some street noise from outside (very low traffic).
• no box shape
• console facing small wall?
• need space for outboard and tape machine
• maybe elevate floor a little to route outboard cabling
• window to tracking room

Tracking/rehearsal room:

• as big as can be, should also double as rehearsal room for rock band
• should be dampened a lot but needn't be sound proof
• accoustic treatment to get good sounding recordings

I thought about using the red one for control and the blue one for tracking/rehearsal. That would mean the console is facing the back wall and I'd have to crane my neck to the right to see the band. The monitors would be placed at the small end of the room. Is there another way to put the console (e.g. facing a wide wall)? Some accoustic treatment for the control room would be nice or maybe a completely different room setup. I have seen some nice studio plans at John Sayers' but at the moment I am still missing the information and practice to deduct a suitable design for myself.

I have not yet an idea of the transmission loss required to not upset the neighbours (about 15 feet from the topleft wall) regarding the tracking/rehearsal room. The other side is not so important but it might make sense to do every wall/cealing "right" just to avoid a weak link. The beam in the cealing is a thorn in my eye because dampen the ceiling will lower the height there even more and I'll need to duck to go through the room. It's not show stopper but it will be annoying.

I just wanted to post this here and see if someone has some nice ideas out of the blue. I will update this thread with the progress I am making in designing and hopefully someday building. Maybe there is an expert around who can point me into the right directions regarding console/monitor placement and room setup or weigh in with some general advice like "I'd do it the other way 'round" so I don't set up an Auralex Design just to be told it doesn't work for me I have read so many threads and seen so many examples as well as read John's construction and design pages, I am simply overwhelmed about the approximately 1000 "ways to skin a cat".

Oh, the console with it's attached patchbay is about 1900mm x 1200mm (6'3'' x 3'12'') and I'm using Yamaha HS80M active monitors at the moment which have a bass reflex tube (do you call it that way?) at their back so I'm not sure about fitting them into an inner wall or something.

You can download the sketchup file here, if you are interested. Feel free to use it for anything you want.

Thanks for reading

Cheers
Tim

 

[timkroeger]

Sketched up a control room draft based on one of John Sayers small studio examples. There is no window to the rehearsal room yet. Ideas anyone?

The sketchup file.

Cheers
Tim

 

[timkroeger]

Ok,

I didn't like the first draft, so here is another draft. Now the console is facing the other wall and I added a nice large window for communication. I've put some gear into the room to get a feeling for the size and if it's going to feel crammed. Does anyone have an idea if I did something completely wrong with the design? I like this one better since the first one wouldn't have worked with a window. The window would have been too close to the outer wall. Regarding the floor, I think I'll just carpet the whole room. I don't know if I should raise the floor a little to make room for cabling to outboard and tape deck. The room height is only 2130mm something has to be done to the ceiling, too.

Again, any ideas / concerns?

And here the sketchup file.



Cheers
Tim

 

[jhbrandt]

Tim,

That last one looks pretty good but you are wasting a lot of space and materials that don't do anything or actually make the acoustics worse by adding and slanting that back wall with the door.

I post on John Slayers forum too.. but I find it a bit frustrating as he seems to have a 'cult' following. I hate cults... except for my cult.. hehe! just kidding.

I only use slanted walls for the ray region reflection control. Never for a back wall unless it is in a symmetrical V shape.. and only very slightly. - this is only for the higher frequencies. Never slant a wall for modal issues. It is well documented and also my experience that slanting the hard shell walls can cause multiple modal anomalies. So. IMHO, do not slant that back wall. In fact, you don't need it. That wall is concrete. Put two doors in it. One on each side. done.

Then you will have room for the Otari in the corner that was wasted before.

Is it 16 or 24 track? I love the 16 trk heads - used to use it to track drums and bass then OD and layer on the DAW. kewl!

I really don't understand the thinking behind. "no box shape"

I have been in this business for 38 years and some of the very best CRs and Live rooms are 'box shaped'. - Some of the worst are not. ~shrug~ Some live rooms are L shaped... etc etc.

Accuracy is the most important thing. Here is a proper list detailing the requirements for a control room with surround sound and it applies to only stereo too. (No cults - just documented hard data pointing to the facts)

I'm sorry, it's just frustrating for me to see so many people building all this stuff that they don't need as well as the detrimental effect it has on the room environment and available space.

Mind now, a slight canting of the interior shell walls to eliminate flutter echo is very helpful, but only a thin skin of 3 - 7mm plywood will do. Or use slats with absorption behind... very good.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
John

 

[timkroeger]

Hey John,

thanks for your advice! As you might have guessed I'm in the early stages of planning and I'm still collecting information and reading a lot about the theoretical background. I've been able to gather a lot of information from Sayers' forum & site and of course from your site and the GIK site. The sheer amount of information is overwhelming though, so it takes a lot of time for me to wade through all that and get a feeling for what's important to my situation and what's not.

The whole "no box shape" thinking came from comparing the designs I saw which are mostly non-rectangular. As I said, I'm still missing the skills to just plan the room from scratch so I'm like "monkey see, monkey do".

I updated my designs and removed the inner back wall. The side walls are all slats (or slots?) as you can see and I added some "tetris" art to the back wall Is that a diffusor? I've seen those a lot in control rooms or listening rooms. I suppose I need those bass traps I put in the corners where the back wall meets the side walls. I think I'll DIY them. I just used the Auralex models in SketchUp for convenience. I did not add a door yet since I'm not sure if I really need two of them. Maybe I'll just add one that opens to the outside and beef it up and add some dampening on the inside. The superchunk in front of the door would be movable (desk chair rolls) then, so I'll be able to get into the room. The couch is just there to get a feeling for room size. Maybe there'll be equipment there or the tapedeck, I don't know yet. Btw. I don't have an Otari I just took the model for convenience as didn't want to design the deck in SketchUp myself I have a Tascam ATR-60/16 and it is a 16 track 1". I acquired it a a few weeks ago and discussed it here, too.

I read the PDF you referenced and it's really good information. I'd seen some of it already in the Dolby PDFs for mixing 5.1 stuff but I think you did a good job of "destilling" the information. I guess I still have a few questions and will have a lot more in the ongoing process of the design, so please bear with me

Here are the new designs:

SketchUp File

Ceiling

The ceiling is very low (2130mm) and I think I should dampen the ceiling a little. I read somewhere (maybe on your or the GIK site?) that live walls and
dead cealing were preferred. Is there a good way to dampen the ceiling and not loose too much room height?

I read that sloping the ceiling just a little would also be a nice thing. I don't really need full room height above the console so I could just start sloping at my listening point (38%) and continue to slope until I reach the front wall. What do you think? It will be extra work but maybe its worth it. Again, I am not the expert, I am just monkey see, monkey do.

Floor

Again, room height is very low. I thought I'd just put some carpet in. What do you think?

Back wall

What can I do to cover up the concrete back wall and not cause any acoustic problems? I've used slats/slots (am I using this right?) on the side walls so maybe it will look like "too much" if I do this on the back wall, too?

Tracking room

I have no idea about the tracking room yet. Please have a look at the early images, where you can see the adjacent room and the large beam that crosses the room at the ceiling. The room height is only 1930mm there. As the control room is not isolated and I won't be mixing at ear splitting levels, at least the tracking room should be a little more sound proof. Neighbours are about 5 meters away from the outer wall and most of the length the tracking room is underground. I'll be tracking a rock band and my brother (the drummer) can be quite "heavy hitting". So I'd want to isolate the tracking room as good as possible without having to do concrete work (no new floor / ceiling stuff). As the ceiling is very low 2130mm in general but 1930mm where the beam crosses, I just don't know what can be done or what makes (no) sense at all. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Basically what I want to achieve is get the the volume down in the control room (so I don't have the live sound bleeding over my monitors) and for the rest of the house. In addition to that, I don't want to annoy the neighbours when playing at 1am so they don't annoy me the next day with authorities...

So a summary of the questions would be:

• Should I dampen the ceiling
• Should I slope the ceiling a little?
• Is just carpet for the floor enough floor treatment?
• Neutral back wall cosmetics?
• Tracking room isolation or just dampening? What's possible?

Cheers,
Tim

 

[BillyBo]

i'm just having fun looking at all your sketchups

 

[timkroeger]

Cool, I had fun doing them

 

[pure.fusion]

Wow.

Why don't my diagrams look like that?



FM

 

[jhbrandt]

Tim,

Sorry, I've been very busy this last week... In answer to your questions:

[*] Should I dampen the ceiling

I wouldn't recommend carpet on the floor, but cover the ceiling with at least 50mm absorption panels (150mm if you can afford the space). Cover it completely. It is too low to do anything else with, IMO.

[*] Should I slope the ceiling a little?

Not necessary is you are covering it with absorption. You don't have the room anyway.

[*] Is just carpet for the floor enough floor treatment?

Maybe a nice thick Persian rug at the mix position to take care of any floor bounce, but that's all you should need. Carpet's absorption curve is not too good to use much of it as it will suck out the upper mid-range and give you an unbalanced decay.

[*] Neutral back wall cosmetics?

You could build a membrane trap or panel trap that is either curved or slanted behind the diffusors.

[*] Tracking room isolation or just dampening? What's possible?

Isolation if at all possible. What is your budget and are you 'handy' (able to build things)?

Cheers,
John

 

[timkroeger]

John,

first of all thank you for all your suggestions.

Sorry, I've been very busy this last week...

Right now I am not in a hurry so I don't need to rush things. There's no need to apologize for not stopping by earlier anyway albeit I am always glad when you do

Maybe a nice thick Persian rug at the mix position to take care of any floor bounce, but that's all you should need. Carpet's absorption curve is not too good to use much of it as it will suck out the upper mid-range and give you an unbalanced decay.

So I'll go with a laminate floor and maybe a thick rug at the mix position. I guess I'll just see how the room sounds when all the other treatments are finished and then decide if I'll try a rug. I definitely want it to be comfy. I like the looks of a wooden floor even if it's not really wooden

You could build a membrane trap or panel trap that is either curved or slanted behind the diffusors.

I'll read up on that.

Isolation if at all possible. What is your budget and are you 'handy' (able to build things)?

Yes, I can build things. I have not decided on my budget yet but it will be in the moderate 4 figures. The less the better, but I am going to buy and build what needs to be done to get the tracking room isolated and good sounding as much as the structure permits. That being said, I will not do any modifications to the existing structure other than the communication window for which I'll need a wall breaktrough and maybe some changings to the doors and doorframes. I'll definitely have someone do the breakthrough after professional structural analysis as this is a load-bearing main wall.

The existing windows (under ground window wells) to the outside are still a big question mark for me. Another thing is the heating and water pipes. I know that some piping goes through the rooms along the ceiling and I can estimate where they go from the breakthroughs that are charted in the plans but I need to take some measurements and a few photos of the present situation first, before I begin to plan around that. The next time I'm at my brother's, I'll do that.

Cheers
Tim

 

[AshokanKid]

What an Inspiration~!

Tim., you are an inspiration to me! After MANY years of hiatus from recording, I am finally almost ready to get back into this old LOVE of mine. Thanks for the wonderful drawings and ideas. Will be avidly watching your progress.