is altering the walls of the control room (I.e. by slanting them inwards like a trapezoid) really worth the effort? Hopefully getting a new place this year and I'm just curious if the effort involved in modelling the control room like this will make that much of a genuine difference to how good the room is to work in.
Building a studio... slanting walls, etc.
- Thread starter shred101
- Start date
Wisheraser
Member
Something like that you would have to make 100% sure you got it right the first time. Unless you're a professional acoustician, it's a MUCH better idea to simply make treatment (diffusors, absorbers, etc) for the rooms specific issues. If there is a problem, it's much easier to move a couple panels than it is to rebuild walls.
darthjujuu
Member
i too am relocating soon and this exact thought passed through my troubled little head. my mix room for the past two years sounds so laughably horrible that despite investing in ADAMs i can still hear a better picture in my stock 2000 civic.
i wish i was kidding.
i wish i was kidding.
Keep it rectilinear structurally. Modal behaviour is easier to predict and you have more space for treatment.
You can still have angles if you want them and use the space behind for trapping.
That is unless you have a professional design it.
Best room Ive ever been in is a George Augsperger designed room that is all 90 degree angles incidently (obviously treated appropriately).
bryan_kilco
Member
I was wondering about a similar thing here. Basically, you don't want a square room, correct? Like 45 degree corners instead of 90? Would something as shitty as, say, a shed/practice space that's insulated, benefit from rounding off the corners of the room?
OneDaySky
Clint
ok so you reckon dont bother and just get a decent amount of treatment into a bog-standard rectangle type room then?
darthjujuu
Member
how big is it? how highs the ceiling?
http://www.primacoustic.com/london.htm
these are usually pretty solid if you have a ridiculous standard room.
http://www.primacoustic.com/london.htm
these are usually pretty solid if you have a ridiculous standard room.
we dont know yet, we're still looking at places but obviously if we were going to remodel walls and stuff then I would have to factor that into the setup budget and stuff hence im basically asking if its worth doing or not.
Couple of things quickly....If you are doing this yourself, on a budget, you need to do some research NOW. Not after you've got the joint, or after you've knocked up the control room. You'll get the best outcome for the dollars spent if you do it now. By research I mean getting among some basic theory.
Or hire a consultant for a few hours.
http://forum.studiotips.com/index.php
is a great website for nerding up. As is the John Sayers website.
The ceiling height can oftentimes dictate the overall build as it is often fixed.
Research modes and room ratios. If you get this part right you minimise the amount of treatment (and thus $$) you spend throwing at the problems you could have reduced at the build stage.
Also look at a thing called m.s.m. resonances (sometimes called m.a.m.) and the concept of mass in acoustics in general. Can save dollars and gain performance.
So basically, take your desired (or fixed) height value, use a ratio that works acoustically for length and width that fits the space and budget. Square, or even worse cubic, is bad.
And don't forget to budget for treatment. I've seen many people fail to budget for treatment adequately in their enthusiasm for knocking the walls up and hitting record. I did it the first time I built a room.
Gotta run, that's a quick overview of some important bits. There are many more.
Or hire a consultant for a few hours.
http://forum.studiotips.com/index.php
is a great website for nerding up. As is the John Sayers website.
The ceiling height can oftentimes dictate the overall build as it is often fixed.
Research modes and room ratios. If you get this part right you minimise the amount of treatment (and thus $$) you spend throwing at the problems you could have reduced at the build stage.
Also look at a thing called m.s.m. resonances (sometimes called m.a.m.) and the concept of mass in acoustics in general. Can save dollars and gain performance.
So basically, take your desired (or fixed) height value, use a ratio that works acoustically for length and width that fits the space and budget. Square, or even worse cubic, is bad.
And don't forget to budget for treatment. I've seen many people fail to budget for treatment adequately in their enthusiasm for knocking the walls up and hitting record. I did it the first time I built a room.
Gotta run, that's a quick overview of some important bits. There are many more.
arv_foh
Brian K
This is a quote from that studio tips site posted up (thanks for that btw, gonna be building here soon)
"Important! Building funny shaped rooms with canted walls and ceilings will not obviate the negative potentials of bad modal spacing - this practice only makes it impossible for non-experts to predict what the resulting modal structure will be [in fact such predictions are non-trivial even for experts]. Also, building funny shaped rooms usually ends up reducing the room volume from what it would be if a rectilinear room where built instead - and this makes all the problems of recording in a small room worse - because you made your small room even smaller! In short, there is no problem in small room acoustics that cannot be lessened by the simple expedient of building a larger room... making your room smaller so it can be funny shaped is a bad idea because you are making the fundamental problems increase in severity, and unpreditable in scope."
"Important! Building funny shaped rooms with canted walls and ceilings will not obviate the negative potentials of bad modal spacing - this practice only makes it impossible for non-experts to predict what the resulting modal structure will be [in fact such predictions are non-trivial even for experts]. Also, building funny shaped rooms usually ends up reducing the room volume from what it would be if a rectilinear room where built instead - and this makes all the problems of recording in a small room worse - because you made your small room even smaller! In short, there is no problem in small room acoustics that cannot be lessened by the simple expedient of building a larger room... making your room smaller so it can be funny shaped is a bad idea because you are making the fundamental problems increase in severity, and unpreditable in scope."
No worries mate. There are some extremely knowledgable people on that site. You can take pretty much anything on there as the absolute truth. Anything less gets howled down and disproven with facts from some study somewhere.
It's where the modern implimentation of corner superchunks originated from too.
