Garage Studio Build

[VictorM]

Hey everyone, I'm a longtime Gearslutz reader and never got the chance to write until now. I've started building my own studio in my small garage and I thought it would be nice to state the progress and get some input from you guys. The location is just outside Bucharest, in Romania. Work has started about a week ago and it's going pretty smooth until now. I've attached the plan (sorry for my awful drawing skills ). The house is quite far from the main street or any neighbours so I didn't consider necessary for any fancy soundproofing (altough first I wanted to use the room in room technique, after consulting with some friends I let it go). The floor is made of long wooden girders, in between filled with polysterene, on top 15mm thick OSB. They've just finished the floor but now I'm wondering what's the best way to go: I've read people are very happy with the sound they get from parquet, other say a kind of fluffy absorbing material is best. Knowing my smallish space I think I should go with the absorbing material but I would like your thoughts on that. The walls and the ceilling are simply made with an alluminium frame, 10cm thick rockwoll and one layer of plasterboard. The ceilling is also inclined towards the former exit of the garage which I believe is in my favor as the sound will eventually be driven to the back of the room where I'll mount some diffusers. As you can see in the amatoresque drawing I made, there's a second small room which I plan on using as a booth for vocals and guitars. Should the materials for that room be any different? In the wall that will be built to split the room I also want a window so I can relate to the artist and I was thinking that 100 x 60 cm should be enough, what do you think? I'm also worried about the door that connects the rooms, I don't know where to start looking for one for my needs or if I should get whatever and just try and patch around it so sound doesn't leak, any ideas? Thanks a lot guys and sorry for the long introduction..

[VictorM]

Hey guys, I've finally found some time to update my post. Since my last post all the actual construction build has been finished, not without problems though..Two weeks ago there's been heavy snow around here and then a sudden warming and water started to leak down the roof of the garage and into the middle of my mix room. There was a small opening on the side of the roof which was easily fixed but getting half a meter high snow off the garage was almost a day of work. Right now I've got part of the lighting system and the power sockets installed, I didn't get a AC yet, I'm trying to find a small 9000 BTU one but I've only ran into bigger and very expensive ones . During the weekend I've made two (kind of) bass traps and I'm going to mount them tomorrow. Because of the construction of the mix room I can't fill the corners top to bottom so I'm going to have to compromise and hopefully it won't sound that bad.. I'm keeping in mind that I also need to keep it symmetrical. Take a look at the pictures so you'll understand better. During the next days I'll mount my homemade bass trap and absorbers, also some foam absorbers for the recording room which sounds really bathroomy, get a nice absorbing carpet for both rooms and a thick curtain for the window as it is in the critical spot which really needs to absorb the first reflection from the speakers.

[VictorM]

Small update, I mounted more bass traps, door and window edges, foam panels in the recording room, made an absorber out of some panels I received as a gift, cut wood for one of the two qrd skyline diffusors. Tomorrow my custom designed table will arrive, i'm very excited about that, I should be ready to move in any day now

[fossaree]

Hey Victor !

I wish you good luck and congratulations ;-)

It's very promissing !

And I know by myself it's not an easy task to build something ...

[VictorM]

Thanks a lot fossaree! Indeed it's not easy, but I bet it will be really satisfying when all is done and i'll be working or waiting for inspiration in my custom designed and hand built studio . Here's a pic of the table and my keystation 88 which fits in like a glove!

[VictorM]

It's been some time since my last post, things got busy very fast since March. Here's some new pics of the studio. It's basicly finished. I haven't permanently mounted some of the acoustic panels, I'm not too fond of the idea of making new holes in my walls and being diy manufactured, they've started to act a bit wobbly. I will however mount a screen in the booth for ADR. I also have to get a talkback system, I'm getting tired of shouting at the artists :D. So.. what do you think guys?

[Gdupproductions]

Realy nice garage ....deff' could enjoy making music over therre. thumbsup

[VictorM]

Thanks GDU, you're welcome to come and do that if you're around

[mamabuna]

I would suggest to start doing some modal measurements for your room, especially if your going to use the same location for tracking/mastering... I think the bass traps needs to be larger like 24" (600mm) and at least 120mm thick. You have a small space by today standards which means that you have to use as much as possible bass trapping. (like most of us) The acoustic panels takes more of the echo's room but not as much on the low and mid freq.
An other thing is the electrical power grid. You would need to have some electrical separation (galvanization) between your gear and the grid power. Stay away from spot light bulbs as they tend to induce electrostatic charge into your gear.
Keep going. I hope you will be happy when everything is done. Anyway please update us with more pictures once you get close to finish line.
bafta

[VictorM]

Hey, thanks for the reply! I have made some measurements, but with a pretty cheap Behringer "measurement" mic and using the IK Multimedia ARC system. I don't know how good it is, the frequency chart looked pretty well, I'll measure again sometime soon. It's pretty flat, kind of an high shelf increase from 8000 up and dipped down from 60 (since January I got a Sub 8 from Adam). I do have a pretty annoying boost at 100 and that pointed out to me that I do need thicker bass traps, I was just so busy and actually got used to it like this.. The lighting system is based on LED because I did not want any excess heat from that, but it's insufficient and it's honestly really bad if you're trying to read a book or anything on paper, but it's just perfect for staring at the monitor for a long time .

[DR Music]

Keep it up GS brother!!!
Nice!!!

[VictorM]

It's been a while so here's a little update. I got a Sub8 to complement my A7s and an Apogee Duet 2. Today I made proper measurements still with the Behringer and it turned out quite odd:



I'm guessing I should move some things around..?

[AnthonyRochester]

Can you explain what you did to get that graph? What are the two measurements?

[CowanSound]

That's some pretty horrendous comb filtering...

[VictorM]

The upper one is the frequency response and the other the phasing but I'm not sure what it represents.
I believe I have room mode problems but I'm not sure how I can fix them. I already have 8 panels of 5 inch rockwall absorbers and any more I think would totally deaden the room. The room dimensions are in the first post. Any ideas?

[CowanSound]

Originally Posted by VictorM

The upper one is the frequency response and the other the phasing but I'm not sure what it represents.
I believe I have room mode problems but I'm not sure how I can fix them. I already have 8 panels of 5 inch rockwall absorbers and any more I think would totally deaden the room. The room dimensions are in the first post. Any ideas?

Think of it less as "deadening the room," and more like "flattening the room." More absorption isn't necessarily your priority, just tuning the misbehaving frequencies.

Notice the correlation between your frequency response and your phase alignment? When the nulls start appearing in your frequency response, the phase gets crazy, right? That's called comb filtering.

Comb filtering occurs when two signals interact at a certain frequency and cause peaks and nulls, due to their relative level and phase. The peaks will be up to a full +6 dB, and the nulls down to as low as -inf dB.

Usually comb filtering happens because you have two sources with the same amplitude (two monitors, for instance) that have a small amount of time offset, causing phase issues. That, or there is a natural standing wave in your room causing the summation.


Before you spend any more money or do anything drastic, make sure your monitors are perfecting aligned. Let me know if that doesn't fix things, and we'll address how to deal with standing waves.

[VictorM]

In my excitement, when I bought the Sub8 I quickly plugged in the nearest XLRs I could find, saying to myself I'll get new identical ones soon. Their length is different. I've been so caught up that I simply forgot about them. I'm hoping this is is the problem and I'll make new tests tomorrow to figure it out.

[VictorM]

I've done new measurements today and things haven't improved much. Measured 4 times, averaged them, done a 1/3 smooth too.




40 Hz is definetly a room mode, as predicted by Room Mode Calcultor
The next ones don't follow the prediction exactly but I believe that is due to the inclined roof.
4 of my 5" rockwall panels are still not definetly placed on the walls yet. Would it help if I'd mount them at a distance of 4" from the wall? I've read in numerous posts around here about this. Or do you recommend a Helmholtz panel? Any input is appreciated!

[VictorM]

In the meantime, I increased the Tweeter Level on my A7s by +4 to compensate for the rolling high frequencies..

[Slikjmuzik]

Looks like you need as many 4in traps in the corners as possible.

[muziekschuur]

Try strange objects in the center of every wall. As diffusion. If that gives you improvement I suggest diffusers.