New recording room with pictures, help me position things!

S

Shakuan

New member
(I posted this on John sayers prods too, not everyone check both forums so.. if you do, sorry for that. )

Ok here's the deal. (by the way, excuse my english it's my second language)

I started building a recording room and now it's almost finished. I put 24 pictures and a plan on my webspace so you can easily understand the situation and see the room. Have a look at it now and then I got some questions for you

www.nrcrew.com/mr.r1/studio.html

1st: where would you put 2 speakers and 1 subwoofer in this room so that the best sound happens where the guy sits in front of the LCD screen?

2nd: considering that speakers position, where would you put absorbers and defflectors to have the best sound possible in the room? What kind of absorbers and deffectors would you use?

Thank you! Any comment or suggestion about anything is welcome!!

btw, I need to have place for a bass amp and a guit amp too! + the rack. If you can position that too it would be nice
 
Hmmm... no vapour barrier over the insulation on the concrete walls???
(Unless you live in an area where the temperature doesn't vary much year-round -- here in Canada, that would be a big no-no!)

You don't have any sound dampening in the room - all surfaces are pretty reflective so you'll likely have to absorbers and bass traps. If you hadn't walled-in everything with drywall, you could have used the sound insulation underneath in key areas for sound absorption..........

If I were you, I'd move the piano to the opposite wall (between the entrance and closets??) and put your control room desk in the corner (where your piano currently is)....

I wouldn't suggest a sub in such a small space.
 
I'd put the desk on the "top" wall in your plan view.
Move the piano.
And use that little alcove as equipment rack.

I'd build some gobo's to place in front of the drum set while mixing, and look into some acoustic treatments for the room.

You did a great job. The transformation is nothing short of incredible!
 
I'd move the piano to where the lighted floor lamp is. I'd move your recording station to the wall between the electical box and the door. I'd put bass traps in the corners around he drum kit and absorbers on that back wall. Throw rugs would be nice to help with the reflections from the tile.

Biggest thing:

Replace those two pieces of wood that are holding the electrical utility door closed with drum sticks. Decor is cool.
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
Hmmm... no vapour barrier over the insulation on the concrete walls???
(Unless you live in an area where the temperature doesn't vary much year-round -- here in Canada, that would be a big no-no!)

You don't have any sound dampening in the room - all surfaces are pretty reflective so you'll likely have to absorbers and bass traps. If you hadn't walled-in everything with drywall, you could have used the sound insulation underneath in key areas for sound absorption..........

If I were you, I'd move the piano to the opposite wall (between the entrance and closets??) and put your control room desk in the corner (where your piano currently is)....

I wouldn't suggest a sub in such a small space.
Click to expand...

Yee no problem I thought about the vapor barrier, its there for the external wall. The other walls are internal walls so no problem!

I know that right now there's nothing in the room lol. Basically, the instruments are there for the summer cause we're taking a break before finishing everything.

About the piano location, I tried it there at first (on the right wall on the plan I guess your saying), and it gives the impression that the room is smaller and less rectangular. Also, when you sit at the piano, u have the face in the wall which is not cool. And the sound coming out of the back of the piano is toned down because it's stuck to the wall.

The actual piano location (shown on the plan) as many advantages. The sound coming out of the back of the piano isnt blocked by a wall. The player faces everyone else in the room, and it gives the room a more rectangular shape which is better in my conditions. Also, the piano is just short enough to fit under the electric panel, that saves some place without disturbing the player. It feels very comfortable sitting at the piano.

Anyways.. so that's why the actual piano position is kinda cool.

About the "control room desk", it's just an LCD screen attached on the wall with a small flat under it to support a cordless keyboard and mouse. The actual PC is just outside of the room so that there's really no sound in the recording room. We installed a pipe in the concrete floor to pass wires from recording room to the PC. The exit of the pipe is in the corner where the drum is.

From what I read here, it might be a good idea to fill the ceiling with black absorber panels. I was thinking about making modified tubetraps that will be used as chairs and absorb bass at the same time. Probably a corner basstrap just about the drum too.
 
Michael Jones said:
I'd put the desk on the "top" wall in your plan view.
Move the piano.
And use that little alcove as equipment rack.

I'd build some gobo's to place in front of the drum set while mixing, and look into some acoustic treatments for the room.

You did a great job. The transformation is nothing short of incredible!
Click to expand...

There's no desk really as I just explained in the reply to Blue Bear Sound. :) (sorry if I sound mean I'm trying not to but my english is so poor I don't know how to formulate lol)

I thought about putting the rack there (the alcove) but the piano sits too nicely there :\

Thanx alot!
 
BlindCowboy said:
I'd move the piano to where the lighted floor lamp is. I'd move your recording station to the wall between the electical box and the door. I'd put bass traps in the corners around he drum kit and absorbers on that back wall. Throw rugs would be nice to help with the reflections from the tile.

Biggest thing:

Replace those two pieces of wood that are holding the electrical utility door closed with drum sticks. Decor is cool.
Click to expand...

Everyone seems to think the piano doesnt belong there lol. I guess you'd have to actually "be" in the room to feel it and see why it rocks there =)

About the drum corner, that looks like a good idea. Bass traps in corners, absorber on the back wall, should i put defflectors on the side walls? I was thinking about rug on every door too.

And don't worry those 2 pieces of wood are just temporary :) I wanted to play some drums so I had to close them good for the neighbours. Drum sticks arent bad ideas tho! hehe

I'll post some pictures when it's completly finished so you can all see the result.
 
Sure, you're welcome.

The spaghetti.... the wiring you buried :-D

I used to be an electrical contractor many moons ago... I get hives when I see wiring like that. Not that there is anything wrong with it - there isn't. Just reminds of me many jobs I did for customers that kinda sucked heh-heh.

Thats all, nothing was meant by it.
 
frederic said:
Sure, you're welcome.

The spaghetti.... the wiring you buried :-D

I used to be an electrical contractor many moons ago... I get hives when I see wiring like that. Not that there is anything wrong with it - there isn't. Just reminds of me many jobs I did for customers that kinda sucked heh-heh.

Thats all, nothing was meant by it.
Click to expand...

Ohh ok lol! I didn't realize you were talking about the wires =)

Yeah this is a very old duplex we bought 2 years ago so.. the construction is solid but things like wires and concrete walls arent really well done hehe. When we bought it, the basement was just that. Old stuff everywhere, very nasty and unorganized. Now it looks kinda neat. I would have to show you pictures of the construction of my apartment (which is on the other half of the basement). The guy that lived here before wouldnt recognize the place at all.
 
I hear ya.

The wiring in this place was extremely sad... missing grounds, BX wiring that doesn't reach the box (the casing of the BX provides ground to the switch and outlet boxes) so most of the house wasn't grounded.

Was a huge pita to fix.

and God forbid they added more breakers to the box... lets just splice 20 things into each breaker. When I moved in three years ago, the box had 10-12 breakers out of a possible 20.

Turn on the microwave, the entire first floor goes out.

*sigh*
 
frederic said:
Wiring by an anal retentive:
Click to expand...

lol yeah... I studied in electrical engineering so I had to do alot of "perfect wiring" stuff =) Not house stuff but more printed circuit stuff.

^^ and lol about that microwave.
 
I was noticing the wiring too. That pic you showed wasn't anal at all. Just a damned good job of wiring.

As for anal: My current home, I rewired the breaker box, Brady labeled each lead, split, and end point. The home owner's association somehow got wind that I was doing my own electrical work and requested an inspection report. After much yelling, I had a buddy (who's certified) come out and write up a report. He took one look at it and told me that if I had that much time on my hands, I seriously need to get a better hobby.

Neatness with electrical runs is a pet peeve of mine.
 
frederic, you wire like I do.:D It is an amasing transformation. My house is almost 100 years old too so I've probably fought many of the battles that you are (like old sub standard wiring, low cielings, not enough room in general). So far so good.:cool:
 
Wow, that's old? My house was built in the mid-1500s - I guess that's older than your country!!

The wiring in here is seriously bad though, in my room there is just ONE socket off which I'm running 14 extensions for all my stuff. Crazy. It's not tripped once but I guess that may just be that the trip switches don't work ;)
 
Track Rat said:
frederic, you wire like I do.:D It is an amasing transformation. My house is almost 100 years old too so I've probably fought many of the battles that you are (like old sub standard wiring, low cielings, not enough room in general). So far so good.:cool:
Click to expand...

Thats one of the reasons why in the late 80's, early 90's, when I was an electrical contractor, I resisted home repair type work as much as possible. To do things right, i.e. undo a lot of garbage one finds, requires more than time than just doing it right the first time, so after fighting with people who think the bill was unreasonable, "Oh, this guy down the road would have done it for $50!" (even though they got an estimate) I just decided at some point to do commercial work (or new home construction) as much as possible.

Commercial stuff gets inspected regularly as part of the annual or bi-annual fire expection, at least in the area I was doing electrical work, so all the hokey wiring stuff had to be removed. Homeowners, you get inspected when you buy/sell your house, or the place burns down and the insurance company wants to know why.

Recently I finally broke down, got the permits, and redid my service. The power company came to upgrade the line and threw a hissy fit, as I ran wiring from the new feed into my house all the way out to the pole, including the lashed in high tension steel support wire. All they had to do was attach 3 connections, and leave. But no, they didn't like my oversized wire run, so they cut it, and ran new wiring all the way to the new meter, now on the outside of the house. See, I ran wire suitable for 400A, and they wanted to replace it with wire suitable for 200A. Nimrods.

The insector came back after the work was done, before I flipped the mains back on, and started annoying me about the excessive use of steel conduit. He wasn't going to ding me on it, but couldn't understand why I used it. Lets see, it prevents fires, I had lots of it lying around, and it adds to the safety factor?

THough the insector did give me tremendous grief about where I located the meter. Zoning says it has to be on the front of the house, which of course is ugly. I have a row of shrubs about 6' away from the house, across the width of the house, so I put the meter 36" off the ground so you can still read it when you stand near it, but from the street and the driveway, the ugly gray meter box doesn't show against he white house.

No, the meter has to be at eye level, the inspector says.

"Hire midgets to read the meter then".

Sorry, I have no patience for stupidity.
 
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