Will this design work?

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pdlstl

pdlstl

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My recording room is 14'x16'x9' tall.

I record only acoustic instruments and vocals. Up to this point, we've only tracked in this room. But I'm thinking I want to try recording more than one thing at a time. I might want a bit of isolation and have come up with a drawing of my ideas.

I could stick one person in each of the booths and an additional person could be placed out in the open area behind (north of) the mix position. The three walls of the booth sections would be constructed of 1"x8" framework. A piece of 1/4" Masonite (hardboard) would be fastened to a inside frame of 1"x2" material. This would split the frame into 2 4" deep sections on front and back. These areas would then be filled with 703 or rockwool and faced with fabric.

The center divider between the 2 booths would be constructed just like the panels mentioned above.

The booths will not have doors.

My questions are:

1. Would get a decent amount of isolation in the 2 booths?

2. How will this layout of the booth panels be as far as helping/hurting the mix position?

The first pic is the overall design of the room and the second is a detail of the the panels as viewed from above.


Thanks for your ideas and critiques.

Earl

studio001.jpg


studio002.jpg
 
I couldn't tell from the drawing, but are you going to have doors to each of the booths or is it going to be open?
 
Your panel height gives me the impression these are just goboes, and no doors are involved - the good news is that it won't hurt your mix position soundfield and will actually help it (since both sides are absorbed)

As to isolation, the higher the frequency the more direct sound travels - so the answer here is, lows - almost nothing blocked. mids - a few dB, not too much. Highs - a bit more, maybe around 12-15 dB (this is a "SWAG", which stands for Scientific, Wild-Ass Guess")

If you need REAL isolation, hermetically sealed (and properly designed) construction is the only thing that will get you there... Steve
 
Thanks Steve.

I'm not hoping to achieve total isolation. Just figure that this will be better than nothing.

BTW, when tracking, it will all be done via headphones, me included.

So, are youe saying that 8" total (4" on both sides of the panel) won't help a lot with the low frequencies?

Thanks again.

Earl
 
Low frequencies are going to act kind of like water, they'll find a way to leak through any opening. If you took your partitions all the way to the ceiling and provided a means to close the "doorway" your panels should do what you want for the most part. As Steve said, the only way to get complete isolation is to build a sealed room, but just finding a way to close the gaps will give 10 times better results than leaving that 2.5' opening at the top and the openings for the doorways.

That being said, if the majority of your acoustic instruments are mid-range voiced (acoustic guitar, viloin, for example) the results you will get with what you have laid out will certainly be better than what you're getting right now. Electric bass or drums, on the other hand, will bleed through big time.

So, it becomes a matter of "how much is acceptable vs. how much will do a REALLY good job". As a minimum for suggested changes I'd say go to the ceiling at least for now and see how well it does.


Hope this is clearer than mud.

Darryl.....
 
Darryl,

Thanks. The instrumentation will everything from upright bass to banjo.

Let me pose a couple of questions.

Would the enclosures allow me to have a little more control over the tracking? Better say, than my current method of just having them sit in the room with me?

Or...would putting them (one a time) in the enclosure tend to take the "life" out of the performance?

Perhaps I should build just one in order to give me two different tracking environments.

Would you mind giving a quick listen to a couple of quick snippits recorded using my current method and giving me your opinion regarding the current setup. And if perhaps having a small "booth" would benefit me.

http://ancienttone.com/mp3.htm

Thanks again,

Earl
 
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