Hi there,
I would like to share with you the pictures of the build process of my new control room (including booth and machine room). I have the studio since 2005 and was working from a very small control room (3 x 3,5 meter) with all its ascociated problems.

In 2009 I decided to build a new control room. I wanted to make sure to get it right as I did not want to spend a lot of money and time and effort to find after completion there are still problems in monitoring accuracy. I wanted to do the build myself but get a professional to make the design. I was impressed by the mastering room of Darius (see his build thread about Amsterdam Mastering) so I contacted Thomas Jouanjean of http://www.northwardacoustics.com/. I visited his demo studio in Belgium and that convinced me of his Front To Back concept and his abilities.

The design was finished early 2010. The studio build took place between april 2010 and december 2010. Although the build is finalized a photo diary may still be of interest for you! I will keep on posting photo's and comments over the coming weeks.

Here is a picture of the final result:

Here is the design that Thomas came up with. The total build surface is 10 x 7 meters.

There is a machine room for noisy equipment such as PC and power supplies. I also use it as mic locker and office.

The booth doubles as sound lock to the live room. The control room is 100% symetrical.

The studio is built in a former stable for cattle. In the pictures you look at the wall where the live room is. First we took out the old hay loft:


Then removed some of the old floor to gain sufficient height:


In this part of the Netherlands the ground is so soft that we have to build on piles of about 12 meters to the second sand layer. The piles of the foundation of the stable were not sufficient to cary the extra load of the control room. So additional 7 piles were placed (steel pipes filled with concrete):


Then the concrete floor was made:

Next step was to move the steel HE beams that support the roof to a higher postition to make space for the new control room:



Also in order to make the breakthrough to the live room for the control room window and the booth, steel support beams were placed in the wall:

Next step was building the main structure; the walls made by Silca blocks and the main wooden beams for the roof:






Once the main structure was don the floor was covered with 6 cm chape. In this cement chape we would later cut the ducts for cabling.

Up to now the studio was still operational. After the breakthrough was made the focus was totally on completing the buidling proces.

Continued with the roof construction:
hall:


machine room:


control room:


booth:


Closing the top from outside:


Control room:


Machine room:

We closed the roof on both sides with double layers of chipboard. The middle section was left open as that would be easier for AC ducting etc. later. Naturally the roof was stuffed with Rockwool.

Next step was adding gypsum tp tyhe inside of the roof:








Hall:

Once the roof was covered with Gypsum we started with the inner side walls. Before doing that we cut out a small part of the chape for the cable duct to the machine room:


The we started with the side wall frames. Behind the first angled part Homatherm was glued to the wall:


Fill it up with rockwool:


Then gypsum, roofing and again gypsym:










Then glueing Homatherm to it:

In front of the above side walls we build the final walls out of homatherm in a wooden frame:




And the result:

Time to start with the front wall! Fiirst a layer of Rockwool, then chipboard and then gypsum. Amazing amounts of chipboard and gypsum have gone into the room!

Hey, I see the angles of the front wall there!n And we are building the the frame for the control room window:












In the picture below you can see the pvc duct above the control room window for the mains speaker wiring:

Since finalizing the main structure we have started working a month full time with 2 persons.

We started working on the rear wall. The rear wall consists out of bass trap after trap after trap. We made the wooding frames and put in a massive amount of Homatherm:






Also finalised the rear part of the side wall:


Here you can see the frame for the big rear wall diffusor and bass traps in the corner:

nice quality build

This is a fully private facility and I must say that Michel did a very impressive job. High-end DIY! A perfect example of what can be achieved when well organized and precise.

Ceilings are always pretty difficult (and so are some aspects of the traps) due to all the various layers and membranes, diffusors etc. Michel also built the decoupling system for his main speakers himself and it was good from trial one - a small victory in itself when DIY. Easy project to follow for us

If some are interested, I can post some room data if Michel allows.

Thanks chsm and Thomas! Yeah you can post room response data....

Time to work a little on the booth; sound proofing and acoustics:

First a layer of rookwool, then gypsum layers on foam strips. Then a big cavity filled with rockwool and homatherm. Yes the booth is getting smaller and smaller!

We are working almost 2 months now. Time to get the front wall into shape!


I have chosen Genelec 1038 as mains. I built the casing and suspension system as per specs of Northward. Very heavy! Now it was handy we did not close the roof so we could fix the tension cables easily on top of the studio. Thomas came by to tension the system. Decoupling was working excellent! Also nice to hear the speakers in their position. Still a strange reflection form the untreated ceiling though.



Time to get the Merford doors in. We put wheels under them to get them in the studio.



Here the first door is placed, you can also see we started the ceiling of the booth:


First layer of gypsum. I made protection plates for the speakers!

More heavy stuff, roofing on the the gypsum:


Now it is starting to get more complex; the first start of the ceiling. The ceiling is full of sloping surfaces that intersect with other sloping surfaces. First part was relative easy:



Wen you think youre done you need to do roofing and then again gypsum:

I really, really dig your build man !
Keep the information and pics coming

Great place !

I'm interested!

ETC at sweet spot.

In FTB rooms, since the psychoacoustic cues are managed via self-noises in the room that interact with surfaces that we make sure are as transparent to the speakers as possible (and so not via interaction of the speakers with the room) there is little to no interaction between the room and the speakers, a lot like in a NE room.

So, to be clear: this is not at all representative of the perception the engineer has of the actual room - which Michel can describe best as he uses it everyday. This is a representation of the perception of the "speaker to room" interaction as seen from the sweet spot.

Thanks for the great photodocumentation of your build. Beautiful!

I've never seen an ETC-measurement like this (all reflections down at least ~25dB, decay down by 60dB within 100ms). Is there a resource/literature on FTB you can recommend?

All FTB measure basically like this, speaker to room. I've attached a couple more, if that helps, from other studios of different sizes. A very small CR (Rémi) that my colleague Silvia just finished with an outer shell of only 20m², and TBWA Brussels (the glass front wall studio you can see on our FB page) which has an outer shell of about 32m². Michel's shell is much bigger than these two.

There is no public literature about FTB since it's our own system, and I must admit being a bit careful on the internet and on forums in particular. Silvia is working every now and then on assembling all the data & know-how in a unique file, but I don't see us making it public in the near future. It's more for clients really. Though, we're always happy to have people visit us, have a listen and discuss things around a coffee. You're also most welcomed to call or mail.

A great build. I am living in Badhoevedorp now. Do you take visitors?

Looks really, really good. Nice work! I built something similar myself, although my room is practically standing on its own, and the old farming house is really a just an outer shell.

Hi Alex, give me a call so we can make an appointment Check my website for contact info.

Yeah, same here, it even has its own foundation,; a 20 cm concrete floor on piles! Lucky you do not need that in Finland!

Moving on with the ceiling:
First the side, rising up to the middle of the control room with angle according to drawing. Also time to make the holes for the AC / heater ducts.




Ooohh is that me working?


The middle section is a stepped ceiling. We also had to make the provision to fit the large diffusors later (the green chipboard):


All cavaties stuffed with leftovers of Homatherm:


There are the ducts, large diameter for slow airspeed and thus little noise. TIt has worked excellent, you can not hear it working:


Evereything covered with double layers of gypsum, and middle section also wth roofing. Time to start the frame for the homatherm:

Some further work on the booth:

Here is the Merford MD56L door installed, very heavy!


Seen form the live room side:


Put in the frame for the Homatherm:




View towards the control room:

Looking great, keep it up!