Need Advice on Builing a Studio room.

Stompa81 · Post by **Stompa81** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:02 am

A friend of mine and myself are Going to build a studio in the bottom half of his house. All we really need is a Room to Use scope in. and a room to record Vocals.

Im sure its not as simple as telling me how to do it so ill ask a few questions.

1. What should the Room Dimensions be for the SCOPE room??

2.. What Pair of Monitors should I get for the SCOPE room (im sure it depends on the room size)??

3. What type / Brand of Soundproofing Foam to use.

4 Will Pine be sufficient for the wall farmes?

5. will Plasterbord do to cover the outside of the wall?

6. What Dimensions for a room to record vocals.

7. What do you do with the roof and floor??

As you see we already annoy the neighbours everyweekend when the Turntables just keep spinin

Producion is obviously going to really annoy them, hearing the same thing over and over after each little knob is turned

So what im getting at is. it needs to be soundproof and be "Acousticly Balanced"(or whatever its called.. the thing whereall the Freq's are represented correctly)
Any and ALL suggestions , photos of other "similar setups" or any info that would help me along are more then welcome

Again , Many thanx in advance to you audiophiles out there !!

katano · Post by **katano** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:27 am

Hi stompa,

have a look at my favourite studio design and construction forum:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2

btw. john sayers is from australia, too

cheers
roman

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:30 am

if you want to do it properly - it will be expensive
if it's supposed to be aesthetically pleasing - it will cost you a fortune

but at least on the monitoring side, there are some strategies with clever eq usage that reduce expenses significantly... Wolf has an instruction with his 8-band eq...

anyway, that's a fairly complex item with lots of unpredictable factors.
Afaik a similiar question brought up some good links to sites about DIY

cheers, Tom
(added Roman's link to bookmarks, tnx)

Post by **hubird** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:21 am

and there was Har-bal...

Post by **garyb** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:21 pm

1. it's hard to have it too big, but it's easy for it to be too small. if you can, at least make the control room the size of a large living room. a bedroom will do, but it'll be pretty cramped.

2. i use blue sky system ones. (http://www.abluesky.com/asp/default.asp#) i think any good quality near feild will work well. regardless of the brand/model, you're going to have to learn your speaks' strengths/weaknesses. your budget is also your guide. typically, you get what you pay for here....

3. just use good old fiberglass insulation, lots of it. you can also use insulation covered with fabric in your bass traps.(do a google search on bass trap contruction) for the room's need for absorption and diffusion(acoustics), these sites are helpful: http://www.acousticsciences.com/ http://www.auralex.com/ (be sure to check this site which is from the auralex guys: http://www.acoustics101.com/)

4. yes. make your walls double, insulation/drywall/insulation/drywall. 90 degree angles and paralell walls aren't that great for an accurate lstening environments either.

5. see #3 and #4

6. the bigger the room, the less bad effects from the room on the mics. your space and budget are the limitations. it will not be optimum. you will need acoustic treatment if you want it to sound like a good studio.

also, if you can make the room sound decent without eq, then you're doing it the right way. accurate monitoring is not possible through a bunch of eq filters!

Stompa81 · Post by **Stompa81** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:40 pm

cool thanks for the tips. the main reason is for soundproofing i guess. I hear the main aim of the Vocal recording booth to stop sound reflecting all over the place. mabye we should just pay to use a professional recording studio for vocals?

Obviously its never going to be a pro setup, just a couple of weekend warriors having a bit of fun

So a room thats a shape of a cube isn't desirable, how about an octagonal shaped room ?? Any better or not worth the hassle for our little project??

katano · Post by **katano** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:52 pm

c'mon read a bit on the john sayers studio, all your question will be answered

and for a short and compact overview also have a look at the sae reference section:
http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

look at the acoustic section and the studio plans section! then you'll see that a cube shaped room isn't recommended. best design is the diamond, if you can afford it, go for it!

cheers
roman

Post by **garyb** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:58 pm

5 sided with unequal walls is probably best, but a cube will do, just make some bass traps and have some diffusion.

the vocal booth thing is so that you can isolate the singer while the band plays live. otherwise a seperate booth isn't needed. if a booth is used, it's important to eliminate reflections from the walls are much as possible(foam). a dead space never sounds as good as a properly treated reflective, but diffused room. if you have the space for two rooms, great! if you can only have one big room, that'll work too, it just means that you'll be doing a lot of tracking with headphones on the engineer and the artist, instead of just on the artist...

by all means read the info on those websites, the acoustic treatments don't need to be super expensive if you get the principle.

katano · Post by **katano** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:02 pm

and here's another links with lots of pics and floor plans

http://www.johnlsayers.com/Studio/index.htm

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:03 pm

I agree with Katano 100%. You cant do much better than reading through a bunch of the threads on the John Sayers forum he linked you to. You quickly get a grasp of the basics over there, such as the fact that room acoustics & soundproofing a room are two completely different sciences.

As a very generalised rule of thumb, good room acoustics should be easier & cheaper to achieve than good soundproofing of a room, so its really down to your wallet. If money isnt a problem, work on both, if it is, then just take a look at improving your acoustics.

regards,
Shroomz

katano · Post by **katano** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:20 pm

Here are a few bits of information I’ve collected along the way that you may find interesting (for a control room):

• Monitors should NOT sit on the console but behind, placed on heavy decoupled stands - console placement causes early reflection problems in most cases, unless the console is slanted down in front a LOT.
• Distance to wall behind speakers will change response drastically - there is a wall bounce calculator on the Acoustics forum that's fun to play with (needs Excel)
• Moving either speakers or your head by as little as an inch or two can sometimes make drastic changes in response, due to modal peaks and dips.
• Left/right room symmetry (at least within a foot or two of ear height) is important for good stereo imaging.
• Roughly 38% of total room length from the front wall
• Equilateral triangle formed by left, right mix position
• Monitor angles 60 degrees
• Monitor height – woofer at ear level (avoid mid point of floor to ceiling measurement – either sit higher or lower if necessary)
• Angled side absorption panels – left/right of mix position

how to build a vocal booth:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=51632

Stompa81 · Post by **Stompa81** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 3:30 pm

katano wrote:c'mon read a bit on the john sayers studio, all your question will be answered

Heheh Sorry mate I was getting There , Was just looking for a few more quick tips before I went there. I will be sure to read those forums inside out .

This is all Very usefull to me so Thanks heaps peeps!!

katano · Post by **katano** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 3:43 pm

no prob mate,

when i started studying acoustics i was also looking for quick tips. but the more i read about it, the less quick tips remained. I'm shure you'll know what i'm talking about after you read a bit about acoustics and studio design

enjoy learning!

roman

Stompa81 · Post by **Stompa81** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:49 pm

Hhehehe Yes Im sure once we've got the Room soundproofed we will probably stop there and start destroying our eardrums

We will probably do little upgrades along the way If we decide to get more serious about it.

I wont be doing any band Recording Just Composing Dance Tunes and Occasionally record a Short Burst of Lyrics to Chop up and MAsh into hard dance tracks. So that will determine how far will will go with this.

Thanks Again All

Edit - Just read a bit a John Sayers , looks like I've got a loooong way to go before fully understanding acoustic theory , So lucky it has lots of examples I can probably put something together with all that info, Wont be the best but will be better than nothing for us weekend Warriors

Post by **garyb** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 7:22 pm

look, even if you don't do anything too special, that's ok, you can still get good results. just make sure you do some diffusion and some bass traps. this isn't hard or expensive and it'll make a big difference in how your finished works sound, and how much fun you can have.

katano · Post by **katano** » Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:54 am

Stompa81 wrote:Edit - Just read a bit a John Sayers , looks like I've got a loooong way to go before fully understanding acoustic theory

that's exactly what i meant

there's no real quick tip, it depends so on your needs and what kinda room you actually have to treat and work with. it always begins with; measures, including ceiling height, what kind of walls and floors are in there etc... then, one could give you some tips

cheers
Roman