Hi forum community and audio lovers!

Sorry to barge in here like this, but I have to share something! We're currently building a small recording studio in my new house, in order to produce the desired high quality content I requery for my media jobs. When finished, the studio will have a control / creative room of about 17m2, along with a vocalbooth of about 2m2. Both spaces are completely seperated from another, and both have 18cm rockwool in the walls.

Right now we're about half way the building process, and I have captured the entire process as a time lapse video, with one frame every five seconds, on my gopro. At 30fps, this means that every minute in the video is about two and a half hours of work.

I have added all the timelapse videos to our Youtube channel's timelapse playlist, so the entire process can be watched up untill its current state. Since I feel things are coming along pretty nice, I wanted to share this video here in order to get feedback and any remarks you guys might have, as well as to make your heart pump just a little faster for a moment Enjoy!



PS: Since I don't seem able to embed playlists, here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ASu...L_fgZMk95nreOU

nice work! I look forward to seeing how the build progresses and the treatment/setup strategies you employ.

Regarding the treatment I was thinking rockwool basstraps in all four corners, of about 40x40x69cm triangles. Also I'm going to put up panels made of 10cm rockwool in wooden frames on the ceiling and on the walls a bit in front of the listening position.

Since I have windows on both sides (which is a bit numb, but I had to have some light and a direct view on the person I'm recording), this might be a bit of a tricky thing to manage. I have attached a schematic drawing and a sketch to clarify that last part. Any suggestions are more than welcome!

Excellent, I think you have the right idea. For the window, I'd probably make some sort of removable panel or a freestanding panel that can be moved when eye contact is more important than sound quality.

Also be careful of not making the room too dead, you want a well-balanced room.

This is really on the conservative side, particularly in a room of concrete boundaries. Anything less than 60x60cm corner traps would be a waste.

Noted and will be included. Thanks!

And yes, too bad about the removable panels, that's what I was afraid of. I guess there's really no way around them. But since I'm still well inside my budget, all options are on the table!

Ok, we're wll underway now. This weekend I put the first door in, quite exciting actually

Regarding the triangles in the corners: I was watching this german video about room acoustics, and this guy is trying to tell the viewers that the triangles in the corners need to be facing outward (so the 90° angle is pointing towards the center of the room instead of the corners) and that it is a common mistake to think they need to be pointing towards the corners (as I have seen in almost any studio I've ever been in).

Just to make sure I'm not a complete moron: This is wrong, right?

Here's a link to the german vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wqTTUL1IrA

What do you think:
Which one is "the best" bass trap?
(If you use soft absorption and have the space/ money...)

Cheers

I would guess A, because this enables you to place the speakers "between" the bass traps, hence also taking care of the bass frequencies that are moving towards the sides and the back of the speakers...

But maybe this is just because I've grown used to seeing it set up in this manner. Is there any consensus on this?

Sorry...My sketch was meant as a principle only.
Let's concentrate on the corner absorbers.

I am convinced that C is a better basstrap compared to A. (Double amount of abs material)
But...
It’s quite possible that the Inverted Chunk (B) will outperform the traditional one! (A). (Absorbing material spaced away from corner).

Best

Thanks for that! I'm now seriously considering taking squares instead of triangles. Would this mean I could make the squares smaller than the 60x60cm? Or would this still be considered minimum?

Sorry for all the dumb questions, but at this point my head is seriously saturated with the whole project, so professional advice is very much appriciated Here's another one:

Regarding the vocalbooth: My current plan is to cover all the walls with rockwool panels, with 2 walls @ 5cm and the other twho and the ceiling with 10cm, covered in cloth. Would there be any reason to NOT cover the entire vocalbooth?

Most likely D would be best, followed by C, followed by B, followed by A. Bass trapping results are all about surface area (total of all traps in the room) and thickness. D wins on both counts.

No ****! Wow, eventhough I thought I grasped the concept, I wasn't really applying it...

Ok, so about D:
I currently have a 18cm rockwool wall directly behind the speakers. Eventhough it is covered with a 2.5cm pressed wood layer, as well as an 1.5cm dry wall layer, my presumption is that, due to the great length of the bass frequencies, it should still perform (atleast) in part as a basstrap. So let's say I create another 18cm rockwool layer, covered in cloth, on top of this dry wall (maybe leaving a little space between), would this have the same effect as D?

Or in other words, if applicable, how thick would you personally prefer the second layer to be?

Also, any thoughts you might have on the vocalbooth are also very welcome!

one thing you don't seem to have noticed in your replies is that they are talking about back wall absorbers and you seem to be talking about front wall.

Your time laps video shows concrete bock walls and soft ceiling?
Are you saying there is an inner shell with wood/ drywall on studs? Hard dry wall ceiling? An inner shell (panel trap) will affect the low frequencies a bit, yes.
EDIT: may be not the lowest which still "feels" the concrete shell.

1. Would you mind describing your walls and ceiling of the inner room.

2. What is your plan re control room design? RFZ, Frequency response: +/- dB
Decay time? Ambience?

3. If you have access to a monitor speaker and an omni mic now is the time to check the empty rooms modal reponse.
Spkr on the floor in a rigid corner. Mic at the ceiling in the diagonally opposite corner.

It might look a bit like this REW Room Sim (without absorption) original dimensions

Whoops. Ok, then I would like to focus the current discussion first on the front of the room. Since I need to get the gear up as fast as possible in order to be able to work normally again, without headphones that is, I would like to get the front traps done asap. As soon the desk is set up, I will start with the vocalbooth and finish off with the back of the room. Or so is my current plan, which of course I'm willing to change, if she doesn't make sence.

@ Abra ke:

1: You can see the innerworks of the room in the attachment (screenshot taken from timelapse 6 at about 00:49). Both the back wall and the ceiling are 18cm rockwool. The ceiling is covered with 1.5cm press wood and 1.5 cm dry wall, the back wall is covered with 2.5cm press wood and 1.5cm dry wall. Then there is about 10cm space between teh frame and the outer 2 stone (old and crummy) brick wall.

2: Not quite sure. The room should be suitable for mixing and mastering though in the end. My current plan was to get measurements with REW in the empty room, and work my way from there up to a "as linear as possible" frequency responce and acceptable decay times.

3: I though I'd start with the measurements as soon as the laminate is in there and the walls have been papered and painted.

Here's the current state of the project:

OK got it

Fine!
It's valuable to have an empty room (diagonal) REW meas. for reference.
Also a rough estimated spkr / listener set up.

Looks like the room have changed dimensions. Which are the new ones?
How do you deal with heating/ ventilation?

Best

This thread might give you some ideas re treatment

Interpreting REW results of a small controlroom

Thanks for the reply! The dimensions are still as pictured in the schematic. The GoPro tends to make objects it records appear larger than they actally are

Regarding ventilation I got 2 big parallel windows in the left wall wich can be opened if the smoke gets too dense. I hope this will suffice.

I checked out the post you posted, the treatment looks good, but unfortunetally due to previously mentioned window, and also the windows in the vocalbooth, such treatment won't be possible in my situation.

I have about 40cm from the front (listening position) wall untill I hit the vocalbooth window. I can kind of work around this (as mentioned above) by working around the window in order to achive corners of about 60x60 cm in case of triangles.

So, basically my options for the control room are:
1: triangles of 60x60cm maximum
2: squares of 40x40-80cm maximum
3: an extra wall of 40x300cm covering the entire front (listening postition) wall

Does any of these sound convincing?

You're welcome! If that's the inside drywall dimensions?

Suggestion: Make provision for supply and return ventilation. (Cut holes. Silencers. Add ducts.) Or at least prepare some space... Your booth is quite small...


Take it only as an hint of how much treatment is really needed to get a ”decent” Waterfall response.

Test that for a start and may be...

The difficulty lies in convincing oneself that fairly small chunks of soft absorption will not be enough below 100 Hz ...

But don’t take my word for it. You’ll find out when you start measuring...

Design Modular treatment:
If you make your traps modular you can add ”real basstraps” (like VPR's )
behind the soft absorbers at a later date if needed.

EDIT: Added link about VPR (Verbund Platten Resonatoren)
https://gearspace.com/board/12889354-post15.html
Best

Ah sorry, no, the dimensions in the wire frame are the outer dimensions. So basically it's these measurements minus 37cm.

Duly noted, I will get on that first thing.

Ok, cool. Thanks!

Hi Guys!

Ok, so we've made some progress with the studio, and I thought it would be cool to post an update video, since I've implemented atleast one of the changes suggested above Thanks again for that, akebrake!

After a lot of frustrating computer problems, which in the end turned out to be easily solveable by cleaning out my RAM slots, I've made some measurements with REW. I'll post them here, along with a detailed description, in the next couple of days.

In the mean time, big thanks to all of you helping me out with my questions!

Nice video! Hope you'll get some air and not too much outside noise

Best

Thanks! No, it's pretty damn quiet and well ventilated in the booth now!

So, we finally started witht the acoustic treatment of the studio! I decided to follow nms' advice, and go for the 60x60 triangles in the back. Also we installed a couple of absorber panels on the front and back wall, as well as the ceiling.

Still no REW files, but some cool measurements and results of which I'll post soon. Also, I thought another time-lapse update might be in place in order to illustrate my tale.

HI guys!

It's been five years since I've build the studio, and me and my buddies are now thoroughly enjoying the luxury of this adult playground. Just wanted to share with you one of the time lapse videos of me and my man Julian having fun



Happy 2024!