John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hi John and all!

I have a few questions that you can hopefully help me with. I have a room in my basement that I want to use as a studio. Basically a 1 room combo for mixing and recording vocals. bass & acoustic guitars. The measurements are:

22 feet long
9 feet wide
9 feet high (The cieling is unfinished and has electrical wiring and plumbing exposed. But everything exposed is tight up against the floor joyce)

Also there is a window on the west wall 7 feet from the North wall.

There are no doors, just 4 walls. (I enter between 2 wall studs)

I want to get the best I can for as little as possible. And I want to keep it as a 1 room setup.

1) Should I make the soffits and desk on the North wall or south wall?

2) Can I just hang acoustic panels on the cement walls? or should I put up a framed wall against the cement?

3)Should I leave the floor cement or lay down a floor or rug?

4) Where can I get a plan that would be good for this room?

5) Should I apply mass to the east and south wall?


Soundproofing is not really an issue because I live in a quiet area and nobody complains because I keep a respectful daytime schedule, but if mass will help even out things (seeing that there is cement walls on the oposite sides of the wood framed walls) I would beef them up.

Here is the sketchup file


Here is a pic of what I am dealing with.

_________________
If they can't hear you, SING LOUDER!

Anyone else that has experience is welcom to comment as well. I realize there are many of you who are pros also. Any advice is welcome...

_________________
If they can't hear you, SING LOUDER!

Hi Ronnie, and welcome!

That's a problem! You should avoid having two dimensions the same, since that means that the modal behavior of the room will have steep peaks and nulls, as the modes for those two dimensions will line up exactly. So you should adjust the height or width, or both. The length is also very close to three times the height/width... That's also a very long, narrow room: you might want to look into room ratios, do some research on that, and see if you can work on those dimensions to get you a better ratio.

It doesn't really matter, but you might have a slight advantage by setting up facing the north wall, as that would allow you to use the gaps between the studs on the south wall for some absorption, without losing space.


It depends on what you are trying to do! Both of those are options.

Leave it as cement. Rugs and carpets are bad, acoustically, as they are selective absorption, and do the exact opposite of what you need in a small room: They don't deal with the frequencies that you need them to, and they do absorb frequencies that you don't want them to. It's a myth that carpet is good for floors in studios: take a look at photos of world-class studios: See any carpet on those floors?

All rooms are different and specific, so a plan for some else's room might or might not be any use for yours. Unless you have identical needs, identical dimensions and identical situations, most likely plans for some other room will not be any use for your room, without modification. Building a studio is not like building a house, where you can just go out and buy a set of plans that fits your lot. Acoustics makes things a bit more complex than that. So you have two choices: you can learn enough about acoustics and construction to design your own plans for your room, or you can pay someone to do the design for you.

That's what this forum is all about! It's for folks who have the time and interest to learn how to do it themselves. You'll find a MOUNTAIN of solid, science-based acoustic information right here on the forum: it's a gold mine. You'll find more than enough to get you on the right road to understanding the basics of acoustics. Feel free to ask questions, and post your designs and plans for comment and suggestion by others. It takes a while, as the learning curve is pretty steep to start with, and so much of what we think we know about sound and acoustics actually turns out to be wrong, so you'll most likely first have to un-learn what you already "know", then re-learn how it actually works: There's just so much myth, magic, snake-oil and plain old garbage about acoustics circulating on the internet and in "common knowledge", that it's hard to get past that at first, and learn the real science of acoustics. Carpets and egg crates are two common examples. Both are useless, acoustically, but everyone "knows" you are supposed to use them in studios!

So it takes some time to learn, but there are good books you can read on the subject (we can suggest some, if you want), and there's plenty of info right here on the forum, so you can learn it all in a few months, then design your place. Or if you don't have the time or inclination for that, then you can pay someone to design it for you. It's up to you which path you prefer.

Probably, but once again, it all depends on what you are trying to do.

You say that right now there is no door, just a framed wall with some drywall on it and a big hole for the door: that isn't a wall at all, acoustically. It's just a reflective and also somewhat resonant surface.

So there's no sounds in your house or neighborhood, such as cars going past, rain, wind, aircraft flying overhead, phones ringing, TV, radio, people talking, dogs barking, toilets flushing, vacuum cleaner, microwave oven, washing machine, dish washer, furnace or anything else that makes a sound? Nothing that might interfere with your recording/mixing sessions? It would be hard to record an acoustic guitar with a furnace roaring right nest to you, a phone ringing above, and the neighbor mowing his lawn...

You might want to rethink your "no isolation needed" plan....

Anyway, overall it looks like you have a reasonable space, which it should be possible to turn into a good studio. There don't seem to be any major obstacles, and you started out in the right place: Right here, in the forum! You also started out with the right questions, BEFORE you started building, so there's not much (if any) that needs to be changed on the existing structure. Looks like you have a good possibility of succeeding!



- Stuart -

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

Thank you so much for the reply! You have my respect!

Great points about other noises! I will definately soundproof.

And leaving the floor cement is gonna save me a bundle. Maybe once I'm ahead I'll lay down a hardwood floor. I'm in canada and its cold here especially on cement floors lol.

I understand most of what I read but anything mathamatical escapes my uneducated mind lol, I sold my school for Rock'n Roll like 25 years ago
Too bad there aren't any simple answers like "A room 21x7x9 is a great ratio" lol. The science of acoustics and sound is something to reckon with. I just hope I can find answers fast enough so I can get this build underway. I only have a small window and its closing rapidly

by the way, I hope you are not offended but I posted at gearslutz. I put up some pics of some ideas that maybe you can check out and see if any red flags come up. I can even post that whole thing here if you'd like. I know that the folks at gearslutz really respect John Sayers so I thought that if I posted there I would get a variety of responses.
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/7505193-post7.html

I will post this post here by the end of the day.

Again I thank you!

Respect,

Ron

_________________
If they can't hear you, SING LOUDER!

(This was my post on Gearslutz)


Hello gang!,

I have a few questions that you can hopefully help me with. I have a room in my basement that I want to use as a studio. Basically a 1 room combo for mixing and recording vocals. bass & acoustic guitars. The measurements are:

22 feet long
9 feet wide
9 feet high (The cieling is unfinished and has electrical wiring and plumbing exposed. But everything exposed is tight up against the floor joyce)

Also there is a window on the west wall 7 feet from the North wall.

There are no doors, just 4 walls. (I enter between 2 wall studs)

I want to get the best I can for as little $$$ as possible. And I want to keep it as a 1 room setup.

1) Should I make the soffits on the North wall or south wall?

2) Can I just hang acoustic panels on the cement walls? or should I put up a framed wall against the cement?

3) Should I leave the floor cement or lay down a floor or rug?


4) Should I apply mass to the east and south wall?


Soundproofing is not really an issue because I live in a quiet area and nobody complains because I keep a respectful daytime schedule, but if mass will help even out things (seeing that there is cement walls on the oposite sides of the wood framed walls) I would beef them up.



Also if I can build on the north wall would this treatment suffice? (I realize I need to test the room but I thought this layout could be a starting point)



Notice there is a 2 foot space at the front of the studio, this will act as an access room/computer room to reduce computer noise and to access the outputs etc from my equipment.


This is a "no desk" concept. The computer screens and gear will be flush with the walls.


By the way this is a John Sayers design...


Thanks in advance, I really hope someone can help me

_________________
If they can't hear you, SING LOUDER!

I know! I was in Ottawa and Montreal a few weeks back.... Don't know how you guys can live there! You must all be secret masochists, or something...

Anyway, a good low-cost option for studio floors is ordinary laminate flooring. Some of that stuff looks darn good, and its easy to install and maintain. It's also great, acoustically. You normally lay it over a thick pad of "something spongy" (depends on the manufacturer), so that helps with the CCFF ("Canadian Cold Floor Factor"). Just make sure that whatever the underlay is, does not have air entrapped in it.

Fortunately, most of the math for home-studio acoustics is simple high-school stuff, and there are lots of spreadsheets and calculators around the internet (many of them here on the forum), where you can just plug in numbers and it spits out answers.

Oh, but there are! There are all the Louden ratios, Sepmeyer ratios, Bolt ratios, and their variations... But you don't need to go nuts about that: some folks think that trying to find the perfect golden/platinum/diamond/whatever ratio for their room, accurate to the last thousandth of an inch, is going to make it sound incredible: There's no such thing. The only perfect room ratio is for the room that has no walls at all! So set up your stuff in the middle of a large empty field, and you have the perfect room ratio. And living in Canada, I'm sure you really want to do that!

Seriously, ratios are just about modes. All rooms have modes, no matter how good the ratio is. A mode is just a specific frequency where exactly one wavelength fits between a pair of walls: When that happens, the room "resonates" naturally at that frequency, thus greatly enhancing it, since the wave can bounce back and forth perfectly, reinforcing itself. So modes are directly related to dimensions, and a good ratio is just one where the modes are spread around evenly, not all bunched up in groups with large gaps. Not hard to understand. So the idea is to look for a ratio that is close to your room, and adjust a dimension here and there to get closer, and to stay away form the bad ones. The worst case is a cube, where all three dimensions are the same. so if you room were 9 x 9 x 9, that would be BAD. The same applies to multiples, so a 9 x 9 x 18 would be bad (since two waves 9 feet long fit in there). Another bad case would be 9 x 9 x 21 (3 nine foot waves fit in)... That's kind of close to 9 x 9 x 22! ...

There's LOTS of answers on the forum! And the answers you get here are pretty solid, sound (excuse the pun!), and well based on science, not snake oil. No hype. Nobody is here trying sell you anything, or convince you that they have the absolute best magical acoustic snake-oil ever invented... Folks here are all in the same boat: learning, designing and building because they want to, and helping out because someone else helped them out in the past. That's what it's all about.

Why would we be offended? Those guys are pretty good too, especially when it comes to equipment. We are more focused on acoustics and building the room, while they are more focused on the gear that goes inside afterwards.


Your basic layout and treatment look fine to me. Clearly, based on something John did!

But the superchunks in your rear corners might be a bit overkill! I mean, I LIKE lots of bass trapping, and small rooms NEED lots of bass trapping, but man, that's SERIOUS bass trapping there! I think I'd re-do that back wall with hangers, to save you from having to buy out the entire yearly production of Owens Corning, just to fill in those back corners.

Also, I'd stagger the absorption on the side walls, so that each panel is opposite bare wall on the other side, and each patch of bare wall is opposite a panel of absorption. Helps a bit with flutter echo. Or you could "checkerboard" smaller panels on both walls (also staggered) for both aesthetics and acoustics.

I'm curious about this: Not sure I understand: It looks like a deep closet? Is that the intention? Something like a mini-machine room? I don't see that working, for several reasons. Firstly, isolation. If you need a machine room (which is a good idea!) then build a machine room, but cable it and isolate it properly.

Not sure how that would work out, either. So you plan to sort of crouch down a bit, six feet back from the wall, to get your head in the sweet spot, then run forward to wall, tweak something in the mix, run back to the sweet spot and crouch down again? Ummm....

You might want to re-think that design. Not sure about how you mix, but I need to be sitting down for hours on end, and that also tends to keep my head in the sweet spot, without having to move around, bobbing up and down, to find it all the time.

But apart from that, the concept looks good. It should work.

So, I'd suggest that you should first figure out how much isolation you need (probably not too much, it would seem), then figure out a ratio, and maybe put in that machine room somewhere to cut down your room length a bit, and make it more manageable, and re-think the rear wall with hangers. If you did that, then maybe consider moving the door to the side wall, instead of in the middle of the rear wall.

- Stuart -

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

Wow man you made some awesome points!

About the super chunks, Last year I was building a huge studio but we got an incredable offer on our house and so we sold the farm lol! Not a real farm just playin. Anyhow just before we sold it I purchased sooo much OC705/703 that it took up the whole garage! The garage was 30' x 36' x 10' so you can imagine how much I had. No joke I could become a supplier with the amount I have. I purchased so much because I was going to use some for my studio but the rest was to build and sell hand made acoustic panels to local studios and home theater owners. But After I made the first "room set", I fell in love with them. And decided to keep them. But the time I put into these babies was insane! So I decided to hold off on the business plan untill i could afford proper tools to make them. I did it all by hand and I promise you, I will never put myself through that again. Heres the thread I posted to show them off http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14611

Sorry for ranting lol, anyhow I have enough to make a super chunk the size of a 1 story house! But the hanger idea is a great idea! Is there a thread that shows how to make them?

Should they be in the corners or just along the whole back wall?

The door off to the side is do-able also. Maybe just after the hangers on the east wall?

Regarding the desk, I have a 55" lcd/led monitor with a wireless mouse/keyboard so when I do mixes I will roll in a small desk and mix from the sweet spot. I really hate desks because I was injured years ago and sitting for more than 20 minutes is not an option for me. So while tracking I usually stand. (My sessions are limited to about 4 hours at a time because of this)


One other question is, Can I lay the speakers in the soffits on thier sides rather than the trendy way? I own KrK RPG2 Rockit 8 (Powered) speakers, they have the bass ports in the front though so they may not even be good for soffit...

Heres a few more sketchup pics.

The checkered panels are made just right to stop flutter/echo I think?


Is this what you meant for the machine room? Do I leave a space between the studio and the machine room walls? is this a dumb question? lol!


Thanks again my friend! Gonna go read some more! lol

Peace!

Ron

_________________
If they can't hear you, SING LOUDER!

Hope I'm not over-posting! lol

A few questions that maybe you can answer so that I might start my build one step at a time.

On the pic below I sketched the wall I plan to build asap.

This is the west wall

1. Can I put 1" thick foam insulation board clued to the cement wall?
2. Then can I put up a framed wall with R-19 insulation?
3. Should there be a gap between the foam insulation and the framed wall?
4. Can I put 5/8 particle board over that or would drywall be better?
5. And finally do I have to build another wall over the wall I build covering the cement wall or can I just put my acoustic panels & other treatment right on the particle board surface


This is the east wall that has no cement.
The existing wall has obstacles in front of it (virtical support beams).

1. Do I insulate and cover the east wall with drywall/particle board or can I just insulate it and build another wall over it leaving a gap?

2. On the exsisting wall should I leave an air gap or apply mass that works around the support beams?



I will start this as soon as I get a thumbs up.


Oh yeah, with what should I seal the cement wall with before I apply the steps above? Good paint or a sealent of some sort?


Peace!

Ron

_________________
If they can't hear you, SING LOUDER!

Yes you can, but what are you hoping to generate with this practice? rigid foam insulation used as a thermal break on the exterior performs, like it should, so if you are expecting it to be part of a thermal break on the interior side, then you will be disappointed.


If you are attempting a complete containment area, then yes this will be a good thing. But if all you are doing is installing walls, then you waste time and money since you essentially develop a funnel that sound will be pushed upstairs by...so the ceiling has to be part of this design...it is not an either or, it is all inclusive.



In order to break the path that vibrations travel on you must break the path so yes there should be no hard connection between the exterior and the interior framed assemblies.


It would be better if you included a vertical installation of particle board...but OSB or some type of grade material designed for a sub floor is always better to help deter the potential for deterioration. This will also help to add the shear strength that the wall assemblies require to stand freely. It also gives you a place to attache treatments, since you have a solid backer in the walls.



You want an exterior wall and an interior wall to produce mass/air/mass assemblies. Again, these assemblies will not perform if it is not a complete containment to include a floor/walls/ceiling of as close as possible the same materials, spacing, etc.



You should use a concrete sealer if that is what you have existing, or a block sealer if that is what it is existing.

Painting would be extra and will not give the benefits that a sealer would give.

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

Thank you for the input! I really wish I had your guy's knowledge!

I want to make sure that I have a vapor barrier & keep out the cold. And also want to use this room for recording acoustic instruments & vocals. So If I can still do this and keep out the cold/humidity I just need to be sure I am on the right track.

1. So should I put a vapor barrier and then insulation like R19 or OC703 instead of the foam insulation, leave an air gap then build the interior wall of the studio?

2. Would help to make a thermal break? And by thermal break do you mean to help me from freezing my butt off?

Please excuse my lack of knowlrdge. I am trying to comprehend your responses without sounding like an idiot lol.

I do plan to have containment. These drawings are just to point out the build & treatment I plan to add to the interior/exterior walls. I plan to do a cieling as well as a floor but only through steps. Just trying to focus on one thing at a time.

3. If I understand you correctly The floor/walls/cieling all need to be the same material?

4. So can I put a 3" or 4" gap between my exsisting North, south, east & west walls?

5. Should each wall have 2 leafs? (M.A.M)

Regarding the cieling,

6. Would a drop cieling with 4" inch OC703 as the tiles
compliment the containment goal?
If so,

7. Above the drop cieling is a space of 9", Should I leave the air space or fill it with loose insulation on top of the 4" OC703?

Heres a pic. I have cement exterior walls on both the North & West, and Normal framed walls on the East & South. Can I build my walls like in the pic below? (I realire I have to caulk etc to everything also). Oh and the pic doesn't show it but there will be R19 insulation in all framed walls.


Sorry if I am confusing you guys and if I am being repetative in this post...

Thank you in advance!

_________________
If they can't hear you, SING LOUDER!

You are confusing two different components of the structure Ronnie. The thermal break is typically on the exterior side, and when I say exterior I mean it is the first line of defense from air/moisture penetration. Usually comes with an R rating of .5 to 1.5 depending on what it is, etc. the goal of this material is two fold.

First, and foremost it is to stop air/moisture penetration from the hardest exterior plane and the harshest extremes of Nature of and to the structure. You may have seen it on new construction, (back when we had new construction ) as either blue, pink or silver in color. Back in the day, my day that is, it would have even come in a black type, that was a precursor to today's more modern available choices.

The second goal would be to develop a flat surface. simple enough. But it was always best to be air tight. Some people think that a building does not need to be airtight, but the build does not care about that, it only falters due to moisture penetration, and if air can get in (remember 2 parts hydrogen 1 part oxygen, so oxygen/air has water) moisture in the form of condensation can get in.

This is the goal of a thermal break, of which the insulation in a framed wall is part of.

A vapor barrier, or more correctly called a VDR (vapor diffuser retarder) has a different goal altogether.

While the thermal break is involved in combating the elements, cold/heat/air and moisture penetration the VDR is only concerned with one thing. And that one things is "am I where I am supposed to be"

A little demonstration if I may. In a cozy warm home a child goes to the refrigerator and takes out a chilled aluminum can drink to wet that whistle. Within seconds the child notices that there is something "wet on the outside of the can, and asks "Daddy, why is this can wet?"

To which the parent replies, how the heck do I know, your Mother bought that junk, go ask her!"

But what the child and the Daddy have witnessed is the effect of the commonly known "warm side to the cold side "cycling that happens when equilibrium is sought in the atmosphere.

The sweat did not come from the inside of the can, it came from the air around the can, that was warmer, even if only by a few degrees/centigrade.

So the goal of a Vapor barrier, of which aluminum is the only Class one rated type we know of, but Poly being a Class two has close to the same perm rating, close enough for our work.

So if "warm side to the cold side" (that is a much reduced explanation) is the path then the last place you want to install this "boundary" is in the middle of the wall assembly. And you do not want to place it on the last part of the assembly, so close to the cold side that it becomes not only ineffective but down right hazardous to the health of the structure...there is only one place left and that is on the interior side of the room, on the heated side for example, in an environment that has as many cold days as you would in your part of the country.



A lot of assumptions come with this soliloquy, like HVAC has to be a part of this environment, in order to extract moisture to reduce the build up.






That is not mass/air/mass, it is a coupled wall assembly, typical of residential and commercial buildings and structures.

Mass/air/mass is the goal of four things:

Mass:
Decoupling:
Air/Distance:
Insulation:

So a typical mass/air/mass type wall assembly, and remember your overhead ceiling is just a wall turned on it's side, wants to have Mass attached to a frame, that is not connected to the upper or outer frame(decoupled) that has air/distance between the two and insulation in the interior cavities to damp the panels.



No sir. Mass has density so you have to maintain that same, as much as possible, density to ensure a solid isolated environment. As it stands now, the ceiling is, as is always the case, the weakest link in the picture.



No confusion on my part, but let's see what you say now

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

Lol, I enjoyed that story bigtime!
Thank you for that man

Am I on the right track in this pic?




I am trying to wrap my head around the M.A.M discription though. I understand the meaning but I cannot fully visualize how decoupling is applied.

Is this assumption even close? -> The exterior walls cannot touch the studio walls. The studio walls must be decoupled from the cieling/floor also. Kind of a room within a room but the rooms have no contact with each other what so ever. And the mass must be consistant for both rooms.

I prey I'm right! Lol, I hate fail! ...

I know its probrably more complicated like the air gap distance huh? Is the gap size calculated by the length of the room?

I wish there was just a simple step by step design/plan that I could follow though. There has to be someone out there that built what I'm about to build. By the time I get this all figured out the D.I.Y option will be gone, and frankly I can't afford to hire pros and even if I wanted to there are none where I live. Too bad there isn't a "Build your studio" hotline huh? Lol.

None-the-less, you folks are a godsent! And I appreciate & respect your helping me.

I'm half french so my spelling is a victim, lol

PEACE!

_________________
If they can't hear you, SING LOUDER!

bump!

_________________
If they can't hear you, SING LOUDER!

Would using this guys procedure of building his walls work for my rectangular room? I don't mean his actual layout/design, just the way he built his walls and cieling. Inside out walls I believe...
http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6968

_________________
If they can't hear you, SING LOUDER!

Yup, that will work fine if you do it right. In fact, this forum is pretty much the home of the "inside-out wall".... As far as I know, it was John himself who invented the concept...


- Stuart -

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