John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hello,
I'm Filippo, I write from Sardinia. I really hope you can land me a hand with my studio. As you'll see in the attached file, it's a little home studio made up of just 2 rooms where I make multitrack recordings. I'd like to improve the sound in there without changing the walls. Do you have any suggests?

Hey is anybody out there who can give me some good advice?

Boss, you gotta read this page at this link : viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7572

...and then you have to submit as much information as you possible can in respect to this build.

As it is, you have a sketch up drawing, which is a start, but it really means nothing as to what one could expect from the room and what you expect from the room, how much you are willing to be involved in this build...a lot of information still yet to be included just so we know, what you know.

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Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

Hi xSpace, thanks a lot for your reply.
I apologize for haven't being precise enough. I did read the rules post but I think there's something I misunderstood - fault of my bad English.
Anyway, here are the further details you might need about my studio.

All walls and the ceiling are made of concrete painted and the floor is made of laminate wood. In the common wall between control and live room there’s a double window with laminated glass.

Both rooms are treated with acoustic sound absorption foam (including bass traps) but there still are some annoying standing waves around and under 100Hz which compromise the acoustic ambience.
The control room is currently placed in the room with parallel walls but I’m willing to set it in the other one if you think I can take advantage of that.

I mainly use the studio for one instrument at a time recordings of miscellaneous genres, made with a Pro Tools HDX system and a C24 console, plus several outboards such as Avalon 2022, Chandler Ltd1, Api 512c and Universal Audio 1176. Mixing is done on PMC TB2SA monitors.

I don’t have any close neighbours so loudness is not a problem.
I’d like to maximize the potential of my instruments by improving the acoustics of the studio. My budget is around €1.000.

I hope it was better this time Thanks in advance!

OK, thanks,

"Both rooms are treated with acoustic sound absorption foam (including bass traps) but there still are some annoying standing waves around and under 100Hz which compromise the acoustic ambience."

So you have built these rooms AND treated them already.

Can you give us more information on what treatments you have done...maybe some pictures would help of what you have and where you have placed your treatments?

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Brien Holcombe
_____________________________________________
Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

Also, an analysis of the room acoustics at present, using REW, to see what the problems are.


- Stuart -

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I want this studio to amaze people. "That'll do" doesn't amaze people.

Hi guys, I'm back with the pictures and the room analysis report. It's all in the attachments.
If there's something missing just let me know!

The most important part of the spectrum is the low end, between around 20 and 250 Hz. Also, on your waterfall plots, you are showing way too much range on the vertical scale: the only useful part is the drop from the peak level (which should be around 85 dB to 90 dB), until it drops to around 40 dB. Also, the test level looks too low on your graphs: you need to do the tests with an average level of around 85 dB, not at around 60, which is where it seems you did yours.

In other words, you need to zoom in on both the vertical and horizontal axes, to show a dB range of roughly 90 down to 40, and a frequency range of roughly 20 Hz to 300 Hz.

Also, you don't say which speaker you used for doing those graphs of the control room: Was that the left speaker, or the right speaker? In fact, it would be better to post both sets of graphs, in case there are differences in symmetry.


- Stuart -

_________________
I want this studio to amaze people. "That'll do" doesn't amaze people.

My thinking is that testing in the hands of the builder is just asking for more of what they may not be able to do.

_________________
Brien Holcombe
_____________________________________________
Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

I've attached the revised analysis file, as suggested.

@xSpace: I'm sorry but I didn't understand your last message! Can you explain it to me in other words?

Thank you all for your advices!

OK, we are getting there! Much better, but your time window is now too long, at 1500 ms! It was fine where it was at 300, but try something like 400 just in case. You also seem to have a lot of ambient noise in there, so you can increase the floor a little, to maybe 50 dB instead of 40.

But it's looking like you have some issues there.

- Stuart -

_________________
I want this studio to amaze people. "That'll do" doesn't amaze people.

Ok this should be the right time i hope so... thanks for the patience!!!

I got my threads mixed up, my bad You are in good hands..

_________________
Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

What about making an inclined ceiling and change the existing acoustic sound absorption foam with other panels like, for example, Helmholtz Resonator, Acoustic Hangers or Panel Absorbers both in the control and in the live room? Do you think it might be useful to solve these problems?

Is it me or is there a abnormal amount of ringing going on in the low end on those waterfall plots?