Building a studio -> ROOM measurements (Looking for help)

[kmano]

Hey guys, I decided to build a home studio at my place, so now I am looking for a proper room to choose. This one is one of my basement rooms and here you have little description of it:

Lenght - 6,40 MWidth - 4 MHeight - 2,16 M

So my first question is, is height not too small? I am afraid 2,16 is not enough height for the sound waves to travel properly, so I think I will end up with not proper sound coming out of the monitors, am I right? Or maybe the height will not be a problem? I don't know too much about acoustics so I would like to ask for Your help FP users!

Here is a quick paint made pic for You to see how the room looks like

 

[bandcoach]

Yeah, 7'1" seems a little low, but I've seen worse proposed right here at fp.

Comparing your Rooms dimension ratios with the three Sepmeyer/Winer Ratios for optimum small room size, we see that

	Height R	Width R	Length R		Height	Width	Length	Volume
Your Room	1.00	1.85	3.01		2.16	4.00	6.50	56.16
S/W 1	1.00	1.14	1.39		2.16	2.46	3.02	16.05
S/W 2	1.00	1.28	1.54		2.16	2.77	3.33	19.92
S/W 3	1.00	1.66	2.33		2.16	3.59	5.03	39.01

Your room is on the large size compared to the optimum for the given height in terms of each of the three ratios. This gives you wiggle room in creating an optimised treatment for the room, that would be hard to get otherwise. I'd personally go qwith S/W 3 as the room dimensions to work towards

Given this, length and width seem ok

Here is a table of the first 10 harmonics of the axial resonance frequencies (H/W/L) The sequence numbers, and the numbers below the dimensions, refer to the harmonic of the base resonant freq for that dimension, e.g. 0 0 1 means the first or base axial resonant freq for length:

H	W	L	Seq		F (Hz)	Type	Diff (Hz)
0	0	1	0 0 1		26.49	Axial Length	26.49
0	1	0	0 1 0		43.06	Axial Width	16.58
0	0	2	0 0 2		52.98	Axial Length	9.91
0	0	3	0 0 3		79.47	Axial Length	26.49
1	0	0	1 0 0		79.69	Axial Height	0.22
0	2	0	0 2 0		86.13	Axial Width	6.44
0	0	4	0 0 4		105.95	Axial Length	19.83
0	3	0	0 3 0		129.19	Axial Width	23.24
0	0	5	0 0 5		132.44	Axial Length	3.25
0	0	6	0 0 6		158.93	Axial Length	26.49
2	0	0	2 0 0		159.38	Axial Height	0.45
0	4	0	0 4 0		172.26	Axial Width	12.88
0	0	7	0 0 7		185.42	Axial Length	13.16
0	0	8	0 0 8		211.91	Axial Length	26.49
0	5	0	0 5 0		215.32	Axial Width	3.41
0	0	9	0 0 9		238.40	Axial Length	23.08
3	0	0	3 0 0		239.07	Axial Height	0.67
0	6	0	0 6 0		258.38	Axial Width	19.32
0	0	10	0 0 10		264.89	Axial Length	6.50
0	7	0	0 7 0		301.45	Axial Width	36.56
4	0	0	4 0 0		318.76	Axial Height	17.31
0	8	0	0 8 0		344.51	Axial Width	25.75
0	9	0	0 9 0		387.58	Axial Width	43.06
5	0	0	5 0 0		398.45	Axial Height	10.87
0	10	0	0 10 0		430.64	Axial Width	32.19
6	0	0	6 0 0		478.14	Axial Height	47.50
7	0	0	7 0 0		557.83	Axial Height	79.69
8	0	0	8 0 0		637.52	Axial Height	79.69
9	0	0	9 0 0		717.21	Axial Height	79.69
10	0	0	10 0 0		796.90	Axial Height	79.69

The image shows the first 10 axial resonances for each dimension arranged to match the above table:

these would be a starting point for treatment

see John L Sayers Recording and Acoustics manual for more details on how to design and build appropriate room treatments....

 

[kmano]

BUMP! No one knows? Im sure a lot of You have that knowledge..

Bandcoach, I know You are the one to save me.

 

[GIK Acoustics]

That room has a good amount of space and would definitely be workable. Yes, the height being low could make some matters worse but if you place some panels on the ceiling you should be able to get rid of comb filtering effects from those reflections.

If you do use the room in that picture..... You will definitely need some bass trapping in the room. I would start with first reflection points, and as much corner area as you can cover. The rear wall is typically quite boomy in most rooms as well, so trapping is usually effective back there. The position you have laid out for the desk and monitors is right where I would put them too - you should be fine there.

gikacoustics.com/education.html - You can check this out to get the basic ideas behind acoustics in your studio room - and why, where, what kind, and how treatment is important.

 

[kmano]

Thanks to BC and to GIK Acoustics! I will now study a bit more about it and try to make the best out of it. Thank You guys very much again!

 

[rhythmgj]

Bandcoach & GIK Acoustics have given you a truckload of info to work with there. Yes, a higher ceiling is better for tracking, but many control rooms have pretty low ceilings, and as mentioned, there have been many places with worse dimensions. The big deals are proper room treatment (including bass trapping, but also catching echoes and high-end cheese), and trying to avoid parallel walls, so if you can do any actual construction in the room, you may want to look at changing angles with some drywall, or treating the room with "movable walls" like wall-hangings/blankets, etc. Also, the more irregular patterns that you can introduce to diffuse sounds bouncing around, the better, so bookshelves and furniture can help. The problem is that your room is pretty small already, so planning your layout to have maximum use of the space will be critical. Also, in general for tracking rooms, a "hard floor, soft ceiling" is considered best, but in less than perfect rooms (and all of us are working in less than perfect rooms, unless your place was purpose-built by professional as a studio), adding carpet and area rugs can help a lot too.

GJ

 

[mwandishi]

Just a little co-signing to what everybody else said. My room has a low ceiling, so I have clouds in specific points, as well as traps and absorbers in the main reflection points. Its a little bass heavy when u stand, but sitting in the main listening spot is pretty flat. I went the DIY route and got most of my material from here Acoustic Panels by ATS Acoustics (no offense GIK). I used diff grades of rockwool (cheaper than owens), and just built the frames and put burlap to cover them(summer project). Here's another site with good info: RealTraps - Home. Also, GS has a gang of info sound treatment. my 2 cents

 

[GIK Acoustics]

Also, the more irregular patterns that you can introduce to diffuse sounds bouncing around, the better, so bookshelves and furniture can help.

Just wanted to add that while bookshelves and furniture can break up flutter echo, it won't really diffuse. Diffusion isn't just random, it is calculated to give even returns throughout the frequency spectrum. And though putting things in the room to break up some echoes can help, I wouldn't suggest putting things in the room you don't need in there. Broadband absorption would be more effective.

 

[rhythmgj]

Disagree. Diffusion is diffusion, whether it is perfect or not. It is the same as Simon Phillips putting a paint can in each bass drum to make them easier to mike. It does not give the bass drum perfect frequncy response, but it helps...

That being said, I'm not advocating stuffing extra furniture in the control room or adding anything that's not needed, or especially using those things in lieu of proper treatment; just that they can help and be part of the solution, and functional as well.

GJ

 

[GIK Acoustics]

Disagree. Diffusion is diffusion, whether it is perfect or not. It is the same as Simon Phillips putting a paint can in each bass drum to make them easier to mike.

Sorry, but no, that is not true. You aren't disagreeing with me mind you, you are disagreeing with the meaning of the word. You are thinking of the term "scattering" which is not nearly "diffusion" at all. Scattering just suggests changing the path of an audio signal - which an object in the way (like furniture, or a paint can) could provide. Diffusion is evenly scattering the sound in time, phase, and intensity of sound waves for a certain frequency band. You can check out our article we have on diffusion here: gikacoustics.com/education_diffusion.html

Here's a quote from the page that better summarizes what I'm trying to say:

There are a great many myths about ‘home brew’ ways to provide diffusion. Most do not work at all and many work poorly or only over a very narrow range of frequencies. Let’s take a look at one – a bookcase with books set at randomly varying depths.
First of all books, if anything, will be more absorptive than reflective at any but the highest frequencies. Second, random depths do not generate random reflections over a predictable and controllable area. The width, height, spacing, and pattern of the wells of a diffusor are carefully calculated to make sure they generate a smooth and even scattering of the waves over a 180 degree angle. Third, without this carefully calculated spacing, we can cause frequency related aberrations due to constructive and destructive wave interactions from various reflections. We’re in effect getting very little of the benefit of a diffusor while creating more issues in the frequency response.

 

[rhythmgj]

I disagree again Alexander.

I'm not disagreeing with the definition; it looks like I'm disagreeing with your definition. While I'm sure your products are awesome (I mean that; I have no reason to believe otherwise), and as I've stated earlier (I thought plainly), furniture and books are no substitute for pro room treatment, but _can_ be helpful and are certainly better than nothing-- It should be remembered that I have nothing to sell in this situation; no particular horse in the race, as it were. I also do not claim to be an acoustics expert by any means, but I have made records for a long time in everything from huge pro studios to attics and basements using the most rudimentary tools (and often the attics and basements wound-up as the breeding ground for the largely successful/commercially viable products, rather than the huge commercial facilities), and I even helped build a nearly anechoic room in a garage of all places years ago. I maintain (as do many physicists and acousticians) that there is no such thing as a "perfectly diffuse field," and that would imply that there is no such thing as "perfect diffusion/even frequency response" in anything other than an ideal sense. About six definitions easily searchable on the web agree with me, and while you may be able to blow-off an on-line dictionary or Wikipedia (I dig), you probably wouldn't feel as comfortable doing the same with an acknowledged master like F. Alton Everest. There are _degrees_ of diffusion, and objects in the room help to create this diffusion, whether it is of the scientifically pure/Platonic Ideal kind or not (_not_ "scattering").

Pretty much everybody here, I'm guessing, is dealing with even less-than less-than ideal situations (even an actual studio owner such as myself, rather than a bedroom computer proprietor), because if you are not working in a purpose-built facility, you have to deal with what you have, and if you have less-than fully-funded commercial resources, well, you use the money you have as best you can.

That being said, diffusion is diffusion, and some treatment is better than none... Some treatment with furnishings is better than some treatment alone, and furnishings are better than bare floor and walls (unless you're planning to have your own echo chamber).

If you have the money, look at GIK Acoustic products, or compare with various competitors... OR, look at DIY solutions, or whatever combination you can afford. You are looking to deal with frequencies and reflections as best you can, to help you make the best recordings and music that you can; you are not trying to create a scientifically ideal space, because that's not going to happen in your house (not without lots and lots of time and money, anyway).

I have no doubt that ther will be a felt need to reply; it's all good, I've said my bit. Point being, there are lots of possible solutions, some better than others, but most better than nothing...

GJ

 

[GIK Acoustics]

GJ, I think we're more on the same page than we like to think. Our biggest difference is I was being more lazy in my posts than you were. Yes, random stuff in the room DOES diffuse, but only a very small amount - an amount I personally consider as useless. Just as if someone had an absorber that has an absorption coefficient of .20 at a random frequency, and .10 or less everywhere else, I wouldn't consider it a very useful absorber. If I had a diffuser that had a diffusion coefficient of .20 at say 4000 Hz and .10 or lower everywhere else, I wouldn't consider it a very useful diffuser.

furniture and books are no substitute for pro room treatment, but _can_ be helpful and are certainly better than nothing-
(...)
Point being, there are lots of possible solutions, some better than others, but most better than nothing...

I agree, and never said otherwise. I also originally stated "It won't really diffuse" - meaning, yes - it may give 20% diffusion at some random frequency, but not useful or calculate-able "diffusion" - which I think we can both agree on. And yes...a 100% diffuse soundfield would be impossible to create, and so would a perfect diffuser. However, a diffuser that has a diffusion coefficient of >0.5 over a 4 octave stretch is obviously much different than a bookshelf, or couch, which would likely have a diffusion coefficient of maybe .2 over 1/3 of an octave.

Its as simple as the argument people put forward with putting mattresses (or my new favorite one someone said on a different forum - haybales!) in rooms. Yes, it does something. The point is, the effect of what its doing could be detrimental, and since it isn't very possible to calculate what is happening, its not certain whether it is better or worse than prior.

I'm not trying to sell anyone a diffuser - I'm just simply stating - if you want diffusion, buy or build a diffuser. If you want furniture, buy or build furniture. Furniture can help fight flutter echo, and can also give useful absorption, though broadband panels would be more effective (and likely cheaper).

As you've stated, we've both said our bit...feel free to send me a PM and we could send some documents back and fourth so we can be more progressive in learning rather than arguing