A makeover for my not so new studio

[Sultan of Swing]

Hello everyone. I am the owner of GilderSound, a project studio in Forest Lake, MN, just north of Minneapolis/St. Paul. The studio is in the basement of our house, which we built in 1995, and the place opened for business in January 1996. It was my second studio, so I used what I had learned from the first, along with info from books and magazine articles. There was no budget to hire a designer, and much of the construction was done using the considerable skills of my father, a farmer by trade. We built a control room and live room, each roughly 11 feet wide x 18.5 long x 8 feet high. we also had some additional space which formed a hallway and storage areas.

The original design worked out pretty well. Clients enter through the garage and go straight downstairs to the studio. It's pretty easy to bring in gear and there is a bathroom right there so the rest of the house stays quite separate from the studio. There is good acoustic separation between control and live rooms and I often utilize the hallway to record amps and such. During tracking sessions I usually have the drums, bass, and keys or electric guitar in the live room and often a singer or acoustic guitar doing a scratch track in the control room. Over the years there have been many gear upgrades of course, and some changes to the physical space too. We added a hardwood floor to the live room, and built a soffit to make the control room more symmetrical. Foam acoustic material was mostly replaced by Real Traps a few years ago. All in all, it's been a successful studio and small business enterprise.

Many times I have wished for a bigger live space and additional iso room for tracking. We have considered selling this house and building anew, but the recession and falling home values made this less feasible. This past fall I began a series of major gear upgrades, notably a switch from a 2004 Mac G5 to a new Mac Pro Quad Core- I use Pro Tools HD3 Accel- and that helped me reach a decision to stay here and make the best of what I have. I decided to to cash in a small investment so I could hire a studio designer to help me figure it all out. Stay tuned, and I will tell you who I hired, what has been done so far, and where we are going.

[chrissyb]

Sounds exciting - any pictures of the current set up to wet our whistles?

[soulfield]

Pics, now that you have our attention.

[Syncamorea]

Originally Posted by Sultan of Swing

Stay tuned, and I will tell you who I hired, what has been done so far, and where we are going.

Looking forward to seeing this develop. Is anyone named Harry involved? Is he doing alright?

[Sultan of Swing]

Sorry to leave you hanging for a few days. I've been fighting off a cold, plus I had a 16 hour workday on Monday. I was recording and live sound tech at a school music festival. Anyway, I'm back with more of my adventures. As requested, I have a few photos of how things looked before I started this makeover. The first is a shot take from the back of my control room in August 2008. You can see the Real Traps Mondo trap across the corner. Until recently, the control room was treated with Mondo traps in each corner, 2 Micro traps on the sidewalls at the first reflection points, and a mini trap under the window at the front of the room. Of course, the reflections off of my head probably cause serious acoustical problems.

The second photo is a client in my live space taken June 2009. I get more comments about the beautiful floor than any of my gear! The third photo is a recent shot of the area outside of my control room. This is where the iso booth will be built. The photo collage on the wall was made from the long boxes that CD's came in back in the 1980's. The wooden panel below that is a hinged mini gobo that was made from leftover flooring. When I record amps in this area, I unfold it, place the amp on top and have a nice reflective wooden surface.

[Sultan of Swing]

Now that you've seen "the way we were", I can fill you in on how I chose a studio designer. I thought about contacting some of the guys whose names come up around this forum, especially Wes Lachot and John Sayers. I admire the work of these two fellows very much, but ultimately I decided they were too far away from me, especially since my budget wouldn't cover the cost of them making a trip here.

There is a guy here in Minnesota who has a good reputation as a studio designer and builder. Dave Ahl is his name (ahlincorporated.com). Dave started out as a drummer in some of the notable Twin Cities punk bands, turned to building studios in the mid 1980's, and has done work for big and small studios in our area including Flyte Tyme and Paisley Park. A few years ago I did some recording at The Terrarium, a beautiful studio in Minneapolis built by Dave and his team, and I was impressed at the look, sound, and feel of his work. I got in touch with him and he came out to have a look at my place and talk about the project in early November. I told him an iso booth was my priority, but I wanted to find out what he would suggest to improve the control room acoustics. We also talked about what it would take to move my computer and drives to the closet just outside the control room. He took a quick look at my live room, thrashed out some punk rock on my drums, and pronounced it "pretty good".

Moving on to the control room, he said his first impression was that more broad band panels were needed in the front and diffusors for the back wall. We made a second appointment for him to come out with his room testing equipment so Dave would have a more precise idea of what was going on acoustics wise. We looked at the area where the iso booth would go and Dave took measurements and photos. There is a reasonable amount of space, but the problem was ductwork and plumbing would limit the ceiling height to just over 7 feet in the iso.

In my next installment I'll show you a design sketch and tell you about the results of the room analysis. Thanks for looking in.

[Sultan of Swing]

One of the things Dave Ahl suggested on his first visit was an upgrade of the doors into the control and live rooms. My existing doors (the white ones seen in the photos in a previous post) were steel exterior units 1-3/4 inches thick, with a foam core. They worked ok but Dave suggested solid core wood doors for better isolation and acoustics in both rooms.

On his second trip to my studio, Dave brought his room analysis equipment, which consisted a Macbook Pro, analysis software (I don't know what program), and a flat response mic which looked like one of the Earthworks models but I think he said it was made by Samson. I had just purchased a pair of used monitors, Focal Solo 6 Be's, 2 years old but in excellent condition. Those of you who are familiar with Focals know that they need 50-100 hours of break in before they sound their best so I was very fortunate to land these just nicely "broken in". I had been using Genelec 1030a's for the past 15 years but wanted to try something different. I also have a Genelec 1092A subwoofer which I am continuing to use. Dave plugged in, switched on the pink noise, and we took measurements with both pairs of monitors. We used the subwoofer both times and measured in 3 spots: the mix position, a couple of feet back from there ( which is where clients often listen from), and at the couch at the back of the room. Here are the results at the mix position, first the Genelecs, then the Focals.

That's all I have time for today, but I'll be back soon with more.

[Sultan of Swing]

Well, it wasn't that soon, but I am back with more on my studio remodel. After Dave Ahl took the audio measurements and we discussed the project a bit more, he sent me this design sketch:

[Sultan of Swing]

Let me try that again with something a bit easier to view. I have some things to learn about manipulating photos and drawings in computers! Ok, so the bottom part shows the basic layout of my control room on the left side, with the red rectangles marking placement of new 705 panels. The back wall has wood diffusors in the drawing. You can see them better in the upper sketch, which shows the back of the control room and a cross section of the booth. There is a double pane window from the booth into the control room. The booth will have some of the same panels as the control room and a couple of diffusors too. The narrow gray rectangle is the ductwork along my basement ceiling. The other area outside the control room with a door is the closet which is under the stairway.

That's all for today. More to follow.

[Sultan of Swing]

I've been busy with the studio build and many other things, but now I'm back with more on my makeover. As previously mentioned, we installed wooden solid core doors in the control room and live room. This is early January in a very snowy and long Minnesota winter. First, with my carpenter/musician friend Perry, we made careful measurements and I ordered the doors from a local millwork company, unfinished. When they came in I picked them up with my little Ford Focus station wagon. Big, heavy slab doors, covered in cardboard and weighing about 150 pounds each, I could barely wrestle them into the back of the wagon, and they stuck out about a foot, so the tailgate wouldn't close. It was a very cold drive 20 miles back to the studio.

Perry came over and we hauled them downstairs to the studio. We did a test fit, everything lined up well, and then we took them down and hauled them out again and over to the guy who did the finishing. He did a really nice job, and the new oak doors, once installed, look and work great. Here's a few photos of the job:

[Sultan of Swing]

Based on the acoustic measurements he took, Dave Ahl came up with a plan of acoustic treatments for the control room. My room had a fair bit of treatment already, consisting of Real Traps products: Mondo Traps in the corners, a Mini Trap under the window at the front of the room, and Micro Traps on the sidewall first reflection points. The Real Traps had made quite an improvement in the room, but it wasn't enough. There was a noticeable drop off in bass response about 2/3 of the way back in the room, things were a little boomy near the back wall, and the sweet spot at the mix position was too narrow.

This is not a criticism of Real Traps products; they work fine and we could have finished off the room with more of their traps and diffusors. But Dave and his team build their own acoustic panels and diffusors, so I went that way with great results. First, here is a picture or two before we install the new stuff:

[Sultan of Swing]

Dave Ahl's acoustic panels are fairly standard material, with a couple of differences. He almost always uses the denser Owens Corning 705 material over the more common 703, and his standard panels are 2 ft by 5 ft, rather than the more common 2 x 4. Like many, his panels are 2 inches thick and covered with Guilford of Maine fabric. I chose a deep burgundy color for mine. We put in 8 panels, covering the walls from the edge of the Mondo Traps in the corners out to past the first reflection area. For the back of the room, Dave spec'd six curved wood diffusors, made of birch, and like a cylinder cut in half.

On a Friday in late January, Brian and Hugo came out and installed the absorbers and diffusors. Really nice guys, they also build the treatments, so they knew what they were talking about when I asked questions. I loved their technique for attaching these things to the walls. They use metal strips that are used for hanging kitchen cabinets. You locate the studs, and screw a set of strips into the wall. The absorbers and diffusors have strips attached to them too, and if everything is measured properly, you just slide the treatment in place, easy on, easy off. Here are some photos of the treatments before they were hung. You can see the strips attached to the back of the 705 panels.

[Sultan of Swing]

The guys used a neat gizmo to make things level and lined up. Kind of a laser pointer on a tripod, it continuously scanned the room and placed a clear red line right where they needed it. Some more photos of the install:

[Sultan of Swing]

Brian told me these curved birch wood diffusors are something they have been developing for a while, but as of January they had done only a few sets of them for clients. The first ones they made were screwed to the wall, but with mine they used the same mounting system as with the absorber panels. The diffusors are 22" by 24" and are quite light weight. The back sides are covered with a thin composite wood material; I'm not sure if there is rockwool or anything inside, I don't think so. They are hung on the wall in a pattern taking advantage of their curved design to diffuse sound waves. Here they are:

[and you know]

I really like the look of the diffusors. Do they work?

[Sultan of Swing]

Yes, the diffusors seem to work quite well. In combination with the absorber panels, it has smoothed my control room out nicely.