John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hi everybody,

Tomorrow I'll start the changes in my control room. This is the layout of my studio:



The hole front and rear wall are ABSORVENT. It's made of soft metal frame with rockwool 8 cm thick, and a red cloth covering.

The hole ceiling are ABSORVENT too. And the side walls are REFLECTANT.

Here you have some pictures:





I'd been doing measurements a few months ago and here you have the results:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/posting.php?mode=edit&f=3&t=16311&p=115022

But I want to a big improvement. I want to soffit the monitors and put some shelves in the rear wall. And maybe a closet to store guitars.

But I have a question. Does I need to do something with the side walls. One of them is dificult to change because the viewer is in it.

What is your opinion or advices?

Here a sketchup shot:



And a lot of pictures:

The front of your room is not symmetric: the side walls are at different angles with respect to the front wall. I would suggest you build a slightly angled wall across the front, tight up against the left front corner and just far enough back at the right front that it fixes that symmetry problem.


- Stuart -

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

Oh, perhaps the layout is not exactly real. The above layout was made by John a few years ago (6 years!!):

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3166

But then I had to change the measurements to fit the doors and the window. I can post the exactly measures of the room at night, but I'm sure the side walls are symetrical.

Many pictures to remember:

Feb 2005:

Hugo - Stuart is right - your front wall should be solid to create the symmetrical shape. The idea is you leave a port of 300m (1ft) from the floor and fill the area behind with absorption, hangers if you can, then the side walls become symmetrical with the front.

_________________
John Sayers Productions
The Recording Manual
Studios Under Construction

I think I don't undertand quite well what are you saying...

What are the side walls you are talking about? the "brown" ones in the plan and red cloth covered in the pictures?? Or the one where the window is in and its opposite wall??

Are you advicing me to do something like the red area in the pic to make symetrical the side walls?

The old metal frame is out.











Will the side walls be symmetrical if I made a straight wall behind the metal frame in the floor lining the blue stripe?

I think I understand now the problem. You're talking about the angles A and B in the draw below, aren't you?

Not really: We are talking about the front wall not being at right angles to the center line of the studio.

- Stuart -

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

Thank you so much Stuart!

In substitution of that solid wall, Can I build two diferent corner boxes for monitors following the line you have mentioned and let the middle space asymmetrical for a slat resonator?

In spite of your explanation, I cannot understand why the front wall must be 90º + 90º angled (perpendicular) if all the corner structure will be filled with rockwool or hangers. All the waves from the monitor which go thought the corner should be absorved before touching the wall behind and reflecting to the center again, isn't it?

If I understand correctly what you are saying, then yes! Absolutely! Each speaker MUST have its own "box" with no direct air path to the other "box". The principle of a flush mounted or ("soffit" mounted) speaker is basically that you are just making a bigger box for it. That box should therefore be sealed from everything else, just like your current small speaker box is sealed.

Now, for the gap in between: a slot wall there is fine, but I would not make it asymmetrical: If you did, then you would mess up your stereo imaging and balance, skewing the EQ towards one side of the room. The reason is simple: if you put a slot wall at an angle, then the deeper end will have a lower resonant frequency than the shallower end. So for example in your case, the right hand end would be deeper than the left hand end, and therefore the right hand end would be absorbing lower frequencies, while the left hand end would be absorbing higher frequencies. So you would have a skewed response across your front wall: the right side would lack bass and have good mids, while the left side would have too much bass and lack mids (comparatively). Your entire response would be skewed, and you could never do a good mix in that room that would translate well.

So you do want to keep your front wall symmetrical with the room. That's the reason for building a new wall across the front, at right angles to the room axis. Now, like John said, you could leave a gap across the bottom and put hangers behind it if you want, as a nice big bass trap: that won't skew the image, since bass isn't directional anyway, and it will be down by your feet, under the desk as well, instead of right in front of you. Might as well make good use of the space!

But just to make sure we are talking about the same thing, maybe you could draw that in SketchUp and post it here? I think I understand what you meant, but I want to make sure: this is a critical par of your room, so you do need to get it right!


- Stuart -

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

exactly Stuart.

_________________
John Sayers Productions
The Recording Manual
Studios Under Construction

Now I understand quite well the subject. Thanks so much.

On the other hand, are you talking about closing the box below the monitors and let the asymetrical front wall as it is now to put there hanger, absorver, etc? something like that:

Is the maximum height of the bottom big bass trap about 30 cm (1 ft) ? Can I leave 1 meter?

And what about the top of the flush? If the box is not extended until the ceiling, can I leave another gap over there? The flush will have a gap at the bottom and another one over the box.

Is 19 mm particle board so enough for the new "solid" wall?

Here you have the sketchup draw.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1537287/LANAUESTUDI%202011.skp