... One Man's Quest Into Studio Design

[TexRoadkill]

For some reason, i seem to trust ethan's advice, moreso than john or anyone.

Not to take anything away from Ethan's viewpoint but he does sell acoustic treatment. Why wouldn't he prefer a design method that involves more of his products?

I've noticed guys who like to design rooms by plugging numbers into spreadsheets also prefer parallel because it's easy to figure out the problem frequencies. Here's a revelation to everyone trying to calculate the problem frequencies - Your room needs absorption at 70hz and 200hz. Does it really matter if you know it's exactly 68hz and 215hz?

I prefer more irregular shaped rooms with unparallel walls for tracking. You get better diffusion and less of the problems in the first place.

 

[pandamonk]

The walls are supposed to be splayed 1" per foot IIRC.

As far as Ethan vs. John, I don't think there is any disagreement. Most people are mixing in a room that was NOT designed to mix music in, so they have a much greater need to "fix" it. A rectangular room will have some pretty serious standing waves, and hence, some pretty serious nodes. Why not eliminate the standing wave rather than trying to "fix" it? I still have some heavy duty absorbers up, but my room is pretty damn flat, and translates super easily.

Pandamonk - go on John Sayers site and look at all the designs. No parallel walls. None.

I know, i know

 

[GCR]

Scheme II

Ok.. here is Scheme II
This is More a "All In One" approach.
As the space is more a rehearsal space w/ the added benefit of being able to record. There is a Vestibule to allow light into the space and control the escaping sound. I've allowed for a dedicated vocal booth & a room for Storage & any Mech. Equipment.

I have not modeled any of the acoustical treatment yet (Eg. Slot Resonators, Panel Absorbers, Diffusion, etc..)
Honestly, I'm hoping for advice as to what I need and where to put it as I'm not real sure (From a scientific perspective)

I would be happy to email the skp to anybody who wants it.

Thanks in Advance.

 

[pandamonk]

The mixing position should be centred along the shortest wall, firing down the longest, like shown below. It needs to be centred to have a good stereo image. Being closer to one wall, as you can imagine, will mean quicker and louder reflections on that side, which will certainly screw your stereo imaging.

 

[GCR]

New Rendition

New Renditions

 

[pandamonk]

Looks good, what about monitors and gear?

 

[GCR]

Looks good, what about monitors and gear?

My Next renderings will start to address those issues & acoustical treatments.
All the recording gear will fit on the desk shown (Thats a real desk, by the way, it came sold in the West Elm Catalog called the "cadman workstation""

Ill be going w/ an all digital set up (See my first post) so it won't be taking up a whole lot of room.

I'm going to try and mount the monitors to the wall in front, above the doors. We'll see though, they may have to be ceiling mounted.

 

[TexRoadkill]

That looks pretty cool. I'd hate to loose that much space for a vestibule though. You only need about a 6" air gap to help with sound transmission. Although it might make a good, extra iso booth.

 

[elementary]

Maybe its a stupid idea, but you could always run a wire to your house and have your control room in your current computer room? You could cover some absorbers in canvas with nice pictures on it and no one would be any the wiser

 

[pandamonk]

My Next renderings will start to address those issues & acoustical treatments.
All the recording gear will fit on the desk shown (Thats a real desk, by the way, it came sold in the West Elm Catalog called the "cadman workstation""

Ill be going w/ an all digital set up (See my first post) so it won't be taking up a whole lot of room.

I'm going to try and mount the monitors to the wall in front, above the doors. We'll see though, they may have to be ceiling mounted.

Hmm, not sure if this is a good idea. You generally want your monitors around ear height.

 

[pandamonk]

That looks pretty cool. I'd hate to loose that much space for a vestibule though. You only need about a 6" air gap to help with sound transmission. Although it might make a good, extra iso booth.

Me too...