2 questions about control room/practice area

[levitron]

Hi-

I have read the posts about control room size and the smallest I saw was 12x8. What are your thoughts on 6.5x8?

I am contemplating building a control room inside of my bands practice area (which is roughly 15 x 25 - give or take). What I am wondering is would it just be better to acoustically "treat" the whole practice area other than attempting to build a room as small as 6.5x8?

I'm pretty lucky, in that, the room off of the "band room" is a great sounding tracking room. The walls are paneled in a thick wood, there is a brick fireplace mantle and a huge window on the opposite side of the fireplace - covered with those big heavy curtains from the 70's (they sure are ugly but they came with the house). We have full size futon and two comfy chairs, plus a bookcase. Whatever the combination, it sounds really good.

My only concern with this room is that the door that leads to the garage has a rattling window...any suggestions on how to fix that? Would reglazing it work? Caulk?

I'm attaching the layout image of our space...

 

[JC Lives]

Hey lev,

I am by no means an expert at this sort of thing, but why can't you use your tracking room more for practicing. This would give you more room to expand the conrtol room.

Peace
Joe

 

[levitron]

Well, the only problem with that is that this isn't my house and my roommate has generously given the band the one area of the finished basement to do with as we wish. I don't think she'd appreciate us spilling over permanently to the other room. There are no problems with us setting up my drumkit for tracking purposes, but it just isn't allowed to live there.

That's why I was thinking if we treated the band room, it could have dual uses...

 

[OldGrover]

A studio here in town has a control room that is about that, I think. Maybe a bit bigger. You'd have to REALLY deaden the back walls at all freqs so that sound bouncing back won't reach the wrong ear, as I understand it....

 

[frederic]

Hello,

i've seen some strangely shaped studios in very odd places during my life, and I can say a fairly small console room of that size will probably give you a headache unless you mix at very low volume levels - the reflections against the back wall will be very quick. Of course, if its a true room rather than just a "space" you will need to have enough sound level to avoid hearing the unmixed music coming directly from the band.

Mixing with headphones is typically a no-no because of the perceived bass response difference compared to the actual recording, but sometimes we have to do these things.

It also depends on the size mixer you are using. A small rackmount mixer, or something about that size might be okay if you sit facing the length of the room (means your shoulders go across the narrower part of the room). You will need some serious sound treatment however.

Good luck!

 

[OldGrover]

Assuming you've got decent sound insulation from the band room and good absorbtion behind you, wouldn't that work?

You could keep the monitors (I'm assuming nearfields here) at a reasonable volume (since you are close to them), avoid hearing most of the band noise (because of decent sound insulation) and most of the monitor sound ought to get absorbed behind you, so it doesn't bounce back to the wrong ear.

Does that not make sense?

 

[frederic]

Originally posted by OldGrover
Assuming you've got decent sound insulation from the band room and good absorbtion behind you, wouldn't that work?

Yes, that would work. The key is decent sound absorption material, rather than sound diffusing material. Even three or four thick, heavy comforters are better than nothing (my old vocal booth was made of sheet rock'd 2x4's lined with comforters)

You could keep the monitors (I'm assuming nearfields here) at a reasonable volume (since you are close to them), avoid hearing most of the band noise (because of decent sound insulation) and most of the monitor sound ought to get absorbed behind you, so it doesn't bounce back to the wrong ear.

Your theory is absolutely sound. However, the problem is not the room when it comes to mixing, its the speakers. Even high quality nearfield monitors need some "ooompth" to make the bass balance the highs, which is why most/all pro studios mix at 80-85db in volume, measured with a test instrument (Radio Shack sells these for about 30-40 bucks, a worthwhile investment).

At lower sound pressure levels (less db, less volume) the woofers don't generate anywhere near as much bass as they could, because bass response directly correlates to power applied. Tweeters, being smaller and more efficient, generally are strong and clear at lower volume levels all the way through higher power levels. So, bass to highs are imbalanced at lower listening levels.

Hope I didn't jump around too much and confuse anyone.

 

[OldGrover]

Right. And cuz of that bass at reasonable levels, you need seriously thick (cuz of low freq) absorbing stuff behind you. Ok, cool. I may be in that situation - in order to get a reasonable size live room, I may have to really make a tinyish control room. I wanna make sure that it is possible for me to make it work (even if it is difficult - I'm not afraid of difficult, just impossible

Thanks very much for confirming what I thought I understood.

 

[frederic]

Sure, no problem. I've built several home studios and been through this many times. Larger console rooms are easy to "fix" acoustic problems. The smaller ones (and I've had small!) typically give me a headache.

Difficult to mix at 85db in a 6'x6' room

The new studio will be two levels. I'm going to hang my "very thick" comforter collection around the peremeter of the 2-car garage, on removable hooks, so I can use the garage as a garage when not recording. Soundproof the ceiling of course, all the normal stuff.

The console room will be immediately above the garage, which is the same size as the garage, minus nasty slanted ceilings on the front, but thats okay, a 18'x22' console room is kinda nice Going to put in two 4x3' vocal booths upstairs in the console room.

Wiring is going to stink

Right. And cuz of that bass at reasonable levels, you need seriously thick (cuz of low freq) absorbing stuff behind you. Ok, cool. I may be in that situation - in order to get a reasonable size live room, I may have to really make a tinyish control room. I wanna make sure that it is possible for me to make it work (even if it is difficult - I'm not afraid of difficult, just impossible

Thanks very much for confirming what I thought I understood.

 

[James HE]

why think square?

even if it is small you should consider not having any 90 degree angles. This will be much easier to treat, and can give you a little more space to work with. If it wasent for that huge window, or that door immediatly across from it, you could cut a diagonal in the space and have a good size control room. Could you do without the door?


-jhe

 

[John Sayers]

Levitron - I'd treat the practice room as a Control Room/Practice room.

Why not setup your gear there and you can record your rehearsals then when you are allowed into the tracking room (WOMEN!) excuse me..... you have a decent tracking room and a cool control room. ??

cheers
john

 

[frederic]

Re: why think square?

even if it is small you should consider not having any 90 degree angles. This will be much easier to treat, and can give you a little more space to work with. If it wasent for that huge window, or that door immediatly across from it, you could cut a diagonal in the space and have a good size control room. Could you do without the door?


-jhe

You're right. Square is bad for audio. Most pro studios do not have square console, vocal, or kit rooms. Of course, its difficult to make octagon sized rooms 4'x4'

That aside, even simply making one wall slightly slanted about 10 degrees goes a long way in a vocal booth. Console rooms could be trapaziods. There are tons of resources on the web for building your own studio with designs. I don't have them bookmarked on my laptop here at work, but I searched www.google.com for "home studio design pictures" minus the quotes and viola, after an hour of weeding through dopey URLs I found quite a few pictures. Nothing wrong with taking what the pros do and scaling it down.

Regarding the door, different companies make sound blocking/absorbsion panels with little feet. More or less like an office cubical partition wall with acoustic treatment. You can make these yourself out of 2x4's, and sheetrock one side for reflecting sound, and use the old comforter as internal dampening material as well as coating the other side. This way one side dampens audio, and one side adds reflections, depending on your mood at the time.