Control Room renovation

[judah]

After having my little studio for close to ten years I decided it was time to take the control room acustic up a notch. I'm close to move out from here (probably within 1 year and a half) but wanted to have a better place to work in and there are some major problems in the low end area that I've always wanted to cure one way or the other. Right now the studio is no longer commercial, just a private room for my band and a few friends I like to record now and then, so the downtime won't kill me.

Anyway, there used to be (untill last night) a flawed acustic treatment in some spot (a couple corner trap, an absorbent front wall and a cloud over mixer) but the sound was nowhere near to satisfaction. The biggest problem are the two windows on both sides of the mixer (one facing into the tracking room, the other looking outside). I decided to create some sort of RFZ (Reflection Free Zone) by building two side wall panels with slots as per John Sayer's drawings. There will be a new front wall (from floor to ceiling this time instead of topping at 8'/240cm) and I have yet to decide if I'll flush mount the speakers (JBL LSR28p) or not, a couple corner traps (bigger than the old one and again from floor to ceiling) and new clouds (with recessed lights) all over the ceiling. I plan to keep the hardwood floor bare instead of having carpets around.

The room is 16'/482cm long, with splayed walls, 12' 5"/ 373cm front wall, 14'/420cm back wall and 9'/270cm ceiling. All walls (and ceiling) are made of concrete (very reflective) and the empty room sounds like ass.

So, here are a few pictures to start the thread off. This is one of the side panel (already put both in place). The rear corner traps structure is done, just need to fill it with wool and finish them with cloth. The front wall will go up this afternoon (or at least I hope so). You can still see the old front wall in one of the picture.

Any comments is more than welcome.

[judah]

Here are a couple drawing to better explain the situation. The first one is the empty room (you can see the windows and door), the second is the proposed plan for upgrade.

edit: the window on the left side is the one looking to the tracking room, the side wall panel is removable and will be put in the place for mixing duties only...

[judah]

One post more just to list parts of the equipment and needs.

The studio is a very basic setup for 4-on-the-floor recordings. The desk is a D&R Triton 24 channels, 16 bus, completely modular. We got 8 spare channels for parts. Recording medium is digital with a MOTU setup (1x2408MKII, 2x1224) on a Mac G5. We got a few microphones (AKG, AT, Beyer, Oktava, Shure) and very few outboards so far (RNCs, RNLA, ART ProVLA).
Monitoring is made with JBL LSR28p (which I like a lot), passive Tannoy Reveals powered with a Studer A68 and Sony MDR7506 phones (cues from the desk, we'd like to buy some cues distribution amp in the near future, something like HearTech or Furman)

The tracking room is around 480sq ft/45sqm with hardwood floor and some acustic treatment on walls and ceiling. We're gonna wire the entry hall to have amps and cabs there if we need to get better isolation.

[judah]

A few more pictures.

1. Corner Trap structure on rear wall
2. Front wall
3. Bits and pieces we took off to start from scratch

[judah]

Hi all,
the front wall went up with no problems.
We started filling up the rear trap with the fluffy stuff but unfortunately we ran out of wool pretty soon. My bad. I thought 4 packs might be enough but that wasn't the case at all. I think it will takes at least 9 or 10 packs to fill up one corner, so I'm gonna take a ride today to get more of the fluffy wool and finish off the corner trap. In the meantime we're upgrading the only cloud we had with recessed lights and building a few more clouds to fill out the ceiling.

Will post more pictures later.

[judah]

I finally finished the front wall and am ready to fill all the panels with batt insulation and rigid panels in front. There will be 1x2"/60mm + 1x1,5"/40mm rigid panels in front of batt, for a total 4"/100mm rockwool. Unfortunately the wood I bought is sub-par to say the last. Most of the stud are warped and makes life no easier but I'm satisfied so far.

I have to say that it's not easy (at least for me) to build this kind of stuff, especially if you are alone. A friend came by last night to help me out a bit but we ran out of batt pretty soon and had to stop. I'm leaving in a few minutes to get more of it. On top of this I'm having a hard time to get the materials needed for the project, especially the batt insulation. Italy might be a great place for wine and food but....

Pics:

1. Front wall ready to be stuffed
2. Rear wall corner trap detail, you can see batt insulation and rigid rockwool

[judah]

Last night we cleaned up a bit the mess we created in the past days. Lots of dust and debris. More batt insulation will get here tomorrow. In the meantime we finished the clouds layout (see pic) and willl begin assembling in the weekend.

[judah]

If anyone is keeping an eye out on this thread....well, we got stuck a bit here. Yesterday I finally found a product that might be the ticket to fill the traps. It is some sort of batt insulation and should be perfect. Will post picture later.

PS: Would like to thanks Glenn Stanton (Gullfo) for his help. He's truly a gentleman.

[judah]

Wow. I filled up the front wall and am ready to close it. Too tired and hitchy to take pictures. Will do later.

[MJGreene Audio]

Looking very nice so far. Please keep us updated.

[judah]

Originally Posted by MJGreene Audio

Looking very nice so far. Please keep us updated.

Wow! Someone's looking! :-)
I left the camere at the studio. Tonight I'll have my electrician fixing up a couple issue and then I'll put fabric all over the front wall. Will post picture later.

Thanks for your comment.

[MJGreene Audio]

Originally Posted by judah

Wow! Someone's looking! :-)
I left the camere at the studio. Tonight I'll have my electrician fixing up a couple issue and then I'll put fabric all over the front wall. Will post picture later.

Thanks for your comment.

Oh yes. People are watching. I love control room renovations. I have done many in the last 20 years and I always find them interesting. It will be interesting to see how much things improve when you get it finished.

I have great respect for people who decide that even though their rooms work they want to push the envelope and make it better even if it is just their own envelope. When you get things fixed or make them better it makes everything in your day better. You get sounds faster, and you trust your judgment more. It actually takes a lot of subliminal stress off your life.

Even if these things we do only make the client feel more comfortable in your room that is still a big win situation.

Keep us updated. Its moving along nicely.

Michael Greene

[judah]

Here's the front wall covered up. I got flu right now and will have to stop the job for the weekend. Still ned to put trims all around it.

[judah]

I put trim all around the front wall. It looks pretty. Today I'll start with the two front clouds. Unfortunately my rockwool supplier toold me I'll have to wait a few more days to get it, so the two rear corners are on standby at the moment. Still have to cut a hole in the wall to pass cables in the entry for amps.

Pictures later.

[judah]

Got the two front clouds done. This afternoon I'll try and get the rear ones too. The recessed lights arrived few minutes ago. Have to figure out how to put them in. Pictures will come.....

[judah]

One of the recessed light point. Nice brushed aluminium finish. 8 of'em to fill up the clouds.

[MJGreene Audio]

Originally Posted by judah

One of the recessed light point. Nice brushed aluminium finish. 8 of'em to fill up the clouds.

Those are going to look really great. Nice work on the fabric.

[judah]

Here are the two front clouds in place. You can see the bare structure without rockwool or fabric. I'm working on the big cloud right now, it will be directly behind those and will have two spot light.

Last night, right after I finished the job I moved the mixer in place just to look at it. I went to bed with a big smile.

I hope I'll get all the clouds done today (at least including the rockwool). Knock on wood.

[judah]

Wow! Almost killed myself while putting up the big cloud! I need two more hands.... Mail me yours guys!

[judah]

BTW, here's the new clouds layout. Don't know why I changed it (well, I know but don't feel brave enough to post it without any knowledge to back up my assumptions....).

[judah]

Ok. I hear you're begging me to explain why I changed the layout so here's the reason.
I plan to put the usual nearfield monitors on equilateral triangle, but would love to have also a mono speaker right in the middle of the mixer and I feared that having the clouds forming some sort of a tunnel along the middle line of the room there could be some reflections from the ceiling while listening in mono.
That's why I put the big cloud right in the middle, to avoid having reflection from floor to ceiling along the middle line.
Hope I didn't make a fool of myself because of this wannabe acoustic engineer thinking.

Gotta go. Needs to speed up a bit and shut the hell up.

[judah]

Here are the latest pictures. Rear main cloud is up. After lunch will head to the wood shop and put the two small one together. Then it's time to fill them up with rockwool and put some fabric to make them look finished and professional.

[judah]

...

[pieca]

Really great work!!!!

I'm considering doing the same in my control room this summer…

I will follow this post with attention!


Thanks for sharing your works

[judah]

Hi Pieca,
thanks for your kind words.

I'm having a great time with this renovation even if it is very time consuming (I'm alone and that means lots of workarouds to be found). I always wanted to redo the control room, never been satisfied with my mixes and always had to second guess or double and triple check my mixes in car systems, at home, on boomboxes. Very annoying.

I hope this time I'll make a jump forward and be able to mix and be 99% happy with my sounds without having to test'em on different systems. I know it's not an easy task and most of all it will be close to impossible to have a flat and true sounding control room with a low budget like mine, but there's no doubt it will sounds better than before. I had to read thru hundres of pages on acustic forums, pissing off lots of knowledgeable people (Gullfo on top of it, super nice guy, always willing to help out) and brainstorming around with what little grey stuff I got left in my skull, but I hope it will pay out in the end.

BTW, I already lost three paying clients having the studio down, nothing heart-bracking, but a bum nontheless. Will make that up in the future, or at least I hope so.

Last, but definetely not the least, it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg to put this whole together. Much less than a good compressor or a nice brand new mic.

[judah]

Here's the last update for the day. Put the two small back clouds together and hanged them just to snap a pictures for you all.

I also started to fill up the two front clouds. Again picture for GS lurkers.

I hope tomorrow this "cloudy" mess will be over and then I'll start with the back wall. The latter is already there, at least the wood, I just need to fill it up with batt insulation, put the rigid rockwool on the front, strap the fabric, put trims, drill a hole in one of the two corners, put some sort of pipe to house the all the wiring that will go to the hallway behind the control room and then I'm done!

Sounds easy. Sort of.

[judah]

Got all the clouds almost finished. Need to figure out how to close them off. Don't know if I want to see the trim or hide them behind the fabric. Rockwool is in place. Lights are ready to be installed. One of the rear corner is almost done too. And I forgot the camera at the studio. :-)

[judah]

Had to stop for a couple days. Here are the clouds hangin in place, 4 out of 5 with rockwool. A couple hours worth of job and I'll be done with'em.
Next week it's time to finish the corners too and them I'll start wiring anc checking the mixer out (a few channels need soem manteinance).

Have a great weekend you all.

[judah]

...