Room ideas?

[Velvet Elvis]

Hey gang...

I looked at a house last night that my wife and I are considering and found a possibly cool find in the basement of one.

For some reason, the previous owners (who had the house built) built one entire room (not a big room mind you) in the basement with cement walls. The doorway is a standard doorway, and the ceiling is rafter, but it is otherwise floor to ceiling 12 inch thick cement on all 4 walls.

However, the room is probably 12ft x 6ft with 8ft ceilings... is this useable?

Velvet Elvis

 

[Alex W]

I've seen people get by with less--it all depends on what you want to do with it. Sound isolation shouldn't be a problem so you just need to worry about ventillation and acoustic treatment. Drum tracking might be difficult with the width you've got but anything else should be achievable.

Alex

 

[Sonixx]

just about any room can be made usable... but the dimensions of this room are problematic at best...

you be fighting these issues:

Room Modes

Small Volume

Uneven Decay rates

you'll need to really concentrate on frequencies below 300Hz

if you're mixing in it, then early reflections and lack of room modes will be problematic

you'll definitely need to consider bass traps of some sort

the 12ft and 6ft dimensions will cause decay beating and stacking of modes... NOT GOOD

i don't have my room mode calculator available, but if i get a chance tomorrow, i'll post the axial modes if you like...

 

[John Sayers]

Happy 25th Elvis Yes it's a small room for sure. This is how I would approach a small room like this. You don't lose any floor space in this system and will sound as good as you can get a room of this size.

I've heard small rooms done like this, it's not too expensive, and it works.

cheers
John

 

[Velvet Elvis]

You guys are fantastic.... thanks John.

We are going to make a bid on the house... just looked at it again tonight and it seems like a good buy.

And... thanks for noticing my anniversary...

Ah-humma-humma-humma

Elvis has left the forum!

Velvet Elvis

 

[Velvet Elvis]

Ok... we went back over to the house and measured again... changed around how we might do things (if we even get our offer accepted)....

The control room would now be about a 12x14 room and the iso booth would be made out of the 12x6 room... maybe even two iso booths (like one 7x6 and one 5x6 etc)...

would a 12x14x8ft room work?

Velvet Elvis

 

[MikeA]

Hey John!!

"HAPPY" 25th Elvis??! Been a whole lotta sobbin goin on around town this week.

 

[Sonixx]

...The control room would now be about a 12x14 room and the iso booth would be made out of the 12x6 room... maybe even two iso booths (like one 7x6 and one 5x6 etc)...

would a 12x14x8ft room work?

is this area already sub-divided into 12x14 and 12x6?

if not, i'd recommend you consider keeping the space as large as possible, and achieve semi-iso-booth seperation using treatments. i wouldn't go smaller in any of these spaces except to fix acoustic problems...

if you've just got to divide it up, do so in a manner so that the Width and Length are not multiples. so if you're dividing the length with a width of 12ft, then go with a length of maybe 13'-8". stay away from dimensions being multiples or divisible by a common factor.

here's two proportions you may consider:

1 : 1.28 : 1.54
1 : 1.14 : 1.39