Opinions on new multi-use room build

[dutchbard]

Hi there. I'm a newbie here, so please go easy on me. I'm trying to figure out desk placement (and thereby acoustic panel placement).

I'm mainly a pianist, but I dabble in recording (not a mixing engineer by any stretch of the imagination). My wife and I have transformed an existing shed on our property. It's fairly small, and I'm just trying to make the best use of the space.

Main functions of the room:

• playing/recording piano
• piano students
• songwriting sessions, etc

I've attached a PDF layout that I mocked up. The scale is 20.69, and the important dimensions are:

• Room = 134.5" x 201"
• Door = 42"
• Desk = 67" x 30”
• Bookshelf = 31.5" x 12”
• Baby Grand = 58" x 63” (Mason & Hamlin MHA 160G)
• Couch = 50.98" x 27.3”

I don't think I can do the 38/62 rule on the placement of my desk, because it makes my already small space that much more crowded. I will not be doing a ton of extra-precise mixing using my monitors. My space is mainly meant to be a place to capture audio. I usually send my stems off for someone else to mix.

So what do you guys think of this layout? I have tried to keep my room minimal, but pretty much everything that is in there at this point is needed. I know I may be asking a lot out of this space, but if anyone has any thoughts, please fire away. The centerpiece of the room will be the baby grand piano, as that's my main thing. Just trying to use the space effectively. Thank you!

 

[TalismanRich]

Some might disagree with me, but if you're sending tracks to others to do the mixing, then it's probably not as critical that you have everything set up "by the rules". Get the speakers to sound natural, not peaky. Use some very familiar tracks to get things sounding good.

Getting the recorded sound right will be much more important. That will take some experimenting with a grand in a smaller room You have actual low frequencies to deal with compared to something like a vocal, acoustic guitar, or maybe a trumpet, flute etc. The lowest fundamental wavelength of a piano is about 40ft.

 

[rob aylestone]

My concert pianist friend has terrible recording acoustics. He seems able to detect a hair laying on the strings, but the nasty reflection I hear he is immune to.
I detest rules and have never ever heard of a 38/62 rule. I have always been an experimenter. Try things and see. If disregarding a rule somebody dreamed up works, fine! One rule I learned in college was never describe with unnecessary precision. You draw plans with a scale of 20.69? One practical thing I learned with my studio build number 2 in 1996 was odd small things work. I built a studio, quite a large one in sections. It was a large industrial Victorian building with a smooth concrete floor. For ease of construction we built 8 x 8 panels on the floor with some others that were 12 x 8. The previous build had issues sealing the ceiling to the walls. So the roof for this one was a number of wide and thin ( 4ft) which we intended to put on top like a lid, when done as we could lower them with chain hoists from the building structure. We erected the panels and dropped the lid. Played some music inside and it was a bit boxy, so we pulled out the mid points a touch, maybe 3”? The sound changed drastically as parallel walls were suddenly not parallel. We spent two days tweaking. In the end the rectangular room became coffin shape. Not drastically so, but all walls were angled. Ceiling was parallel to the floor of course. Then we simply bolted to the floor from outside, attached the ceiling and added layers. Best sounding space I have ever had. We broke the ceiling area up with ‘petals’. MDF octagons hanging down at angles, to remove the parallelness. Sounded amazingly good and very nice to work in. Repeated it for the recording area. We ended up with a large mixing space and smaller recording space, big enough for drums and other kit.

I didn’t follow any rules, and I don’t think the sizes you have are crucial. The baby grand, for example. Its size doesn’t matter, but the space it sits in does? Popular mic positions go in the curve on the right, so that’s important.