John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hi, I'm new to this forum so I will take the time to introduced myself before asking anything . I'm 21, studying civil engineering. Would like to have a degree in Acoustical Engineering also or something related to acoustical treatement but I don't know ehat to study or where to go for the moment. Been doing recording for around 2 years. Still have a lot to learn but I trying to learn everyday.

My situation :
Friends of mine ask me to help them setting up a control room and a vocal
booth. Initially they wanted to do a closet vocal booth but I explain to them in my capabilities why it's not good so now they are up to build a vocal booth the way it should be done.

The space is a garage already convert to a room. A wall been construct against the garage door. The floor is tile with ceramic. I don't know if they put new wall against the garage's wall. Still have to asks the owner of the space.

The space is 9'6" x 15' x 12' H.

My purpose:
The priority at the moment is the vocal booth. Would mainly record hiphop and r&b. The best would be to have a basic booth that could be upgrade later when ours skills and budget would permit it.

Budget : around 500-600$ Canadian. A couple of my friend own construction compagny, so the cost of material could be less.

Plan at the moment:
Since the place is really small. I don't know if it's possible to build a vocal booth and a control room. I was thinking to build a booth 9x6 and having a control room 9x9.
For the moment, the control room will have has many basstraps the budget will allows.
I know that parallel wall is not good but I didn't find post about how to choose the angle for wall. Which wall should be angled which not.

I was looking at a plan that Massive Mastering was suggesting. Two angles wall with an internal angle around 110 degrees which are filled with r-19 rockwool. Ceiling fill with Owens 702 2". Angled walls and Ceiling are only cover but 1x2 framed cloth. But his design is for a 9x8x7H space. Since mine don't have the same shape (9x6x12H) and a greater volume I don't know if this design will work.

I apologize for my english, I know it's not very good but I hope it's still understandeable.

Thank you

Hey mate,

I'm gonna let the pro's talk about the specific stuff, I'm just here to state the obvious.

Any chance you could sketch up a model of that room and your initial thoughts on how to divide it into control room / booth? Make sure to add the dimensions you mentioned in your previous post. Then again, seeing as you are an engineer (nearly there anyway ), you probably know what to do.

http://www.sketchup.com/


Cheers,
Sigert

I made a rough sketch of the layout I was thinking in AutoCad. I tried to use SketchUp but didn't find option to enter measurement and stuff.

Units are in feet.

sketchup does have a dimension tool and you can get some scripts to add angle information...

its a tight fit and a 9x9 would be a bad choice since it would be reinforcing modes along 2 axis. you could consider spliting the room into 2 spaces. with a 12' ceiling i'd add a sloped false ceiling and lots of trapping overhead. depending on how large a booth you actually need - turning the CR to face the booth might make sense for a smaller vox booth.

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Glenn

Hi,

Thanks for youe help Gulfo. I just revised my plan with your advise. The BackWall(3 angled walls) will be slot resonator. The 2 front corners are normal basstraps. The ceiling will have 2 2x4 and 1 1x4 clouds. I only need a vocal booth for 1 person. I don't want a dead booth nor a reverb booth or something like that. Will this layout will gove me good result ? Or I made some major errors.

Thank you.

it will be a good start. if you find the booth is still too lively, you can hang some absorbers on the slats or alter the slat design to treat the high end. i tend to err on the side of lively and then add some absorption later (if needed) to avoid the too dead syndrome.

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Glenn

Thanks for your help, but due to some misunderstanding and different point of view, we cannot use this place anymore. We found another place a lot smaller. For the vocal booth is will be a little storage piece of 4'6" X 5'6" x 7'6". It's really small but it's the only place we going to have for a couple of years. Will it be possible to do something with this piece ??

I got a layout drawn and I don't know if I will have enough or too much braodband absorbant that will dead too much the room. The door will be a normal door. The floor is concrete. Here's the layout. Tell me what you think of this please.

Thank you

maybe this helps?

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Glenn

Thank you Gulfo.

I will follow your design and then if it to lively remove some slats. Is that right ? All walls are 90 degrees and all wall are slot resonator ??

EDIT I think that what I call Slot resonator is corner absorber with slat. And how much depth do you suggest in your plan ?? And also when I built them. I was looking at some desing with mineral wool + rigid fiberglass board + black cloth + slat. Is this a good design for my uses ? And should I buy 4" 4 lb/ft2 or 2" 8 lb/ft2.

I know it a lot of question. I appreciate the time you put to answer them.

the inside of the booth is roughly 4' x 5' with the slat absorber. the angles on the slats cut down on echo as well as treating the interior. you could remove them and gain a bit more space but you'll just be replacing it with other treatments - like corner based absorbers... if its too live for a given task - you could hang some 1" absorbers over the slats to "dry it up" a bit.

3lb/sqft 2" should work behind the slats and if you can afford 4" 4lb/sqft to line the walls great, if not r11/r13 paperless insulation on the walls.

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Glenn