Trafficarte's garage studio

[trafficarte]

Hi all,
in the past few years I’ve done a lot of DIY into my garage.
It’s a 25 square meters room, 3,30 meters high. All wall are made of air bricks ( in Italy are called “foratini” ), Two of the walls are against earth, one is shared with an empty room, one is to outside.
I’ve done a concrete pavement on the existing one, with asphalted foil between them, to avoid humidity.

On the wall I glued panels of plasterboard joined to Rockwool, 1cm of plasterboard and 4 of Rockwool.
On the ceiling, leaving a gap of 30cm, I mounted 1cm thick plasterboard, with a double layer of Roockwool.
In the end I lost 1 square meter of space, and putted 9 cubic meters of Rockwool into my garage...
On the pavement I installed a fake wood parquet, by Ikea, like most of the furniture.
I haven’t big trouble about isolation for what I need, above me there are other garages and above them nothing at all.

What I'm looking for is a more balanced sound inside the studio...
I use Genelec 1030A as main monitors, and I don’t have the money to upgrade them.

Working in the studio I found a lot of Mid-High resonances, so I made a few “pseudo” mid-high traps, using panels of rigid Rockwool with a surface covered by a tiny layer of plaster and the other one vitrified. I done a simple frame of wood to make them more rigid.
Following Ethan’s instructions I mounted them angled around the ceiling.

After a while I’ve noticed other problems, on the Mid-Low range this time.
So I bought this material, Vital, from a Finland producer, now out of business ‘cause their plant is burned down made of recycled paper, with very high absorption coefficient, and done a pair of “pseudo” bass traps with very cheap Ikea bookshelves as frame, and another pair of mobile traps with a plastic frame.
( here the post about them)
I’ve also done a pair of mini BassTraps into the legs of my DIY workstation.

Now I done a complete rendering with Google SketchUp of my studio, and here are some pictures of it.
Soon I’ll upload the complete Sketch of the studio...
I’m studying the recommended softwares right now, but I’ve found Rew 5 not really stable on Mac, so I’ll install it on my wife's Pc to make some measurement.

And yes, I know: build after sketching would be better than how I’ve done, but I’m a muddler...:-)

hints and criticism are welcome!

[Syncamorea]

Cool! I like the bulletproof glass...

[trafficarte]

I choose to use a bullet proof glass because was less expensive and better performing than a normal insulating glass plus some kind of barrier.
It's almost non resonant or at least not where it bother...

[robegian]

Originally Posted by trafficarte

I’m studying the recommended softwares right now, but I’ve found Rew 5 not really stable on Mac, so I’ll install it on my wife's Pc to make some measurement.

I had some issues whit REW 5 when I tried on a MacBook Pro (2.5GHz Model 4,1) with OS X 10.6, but no issues when used on a MacBook (first version) with OS X 10.5. Maybe it's OS X 10.6 related (or JAVA related — although I don't know which version of JAVA was running on the Macbook).

P.S. Great work on the studio.

[trafficarte]

Originally Posted by robegian

I had some issues whit REW 5 when I tried on a MacBook Pro (2.5GHz Model 4,1) with OS X 10.6, but no issues when used on a MacBook (first version) with OS X 10.5. Maybe it's OS X 10.6 related (or JAVA related — although I don't know which version of JAVA was running on the Macbook).

P.S. Great work on the studio.

I downloaded this software to find an alternative. I read somewhere that is a Firewire card issue
( OT: hope to find the time to make a post on your forum, Rob... )

[trafficarte]

I've done a little video with a virtual tour inside my studio, her the link:

YouTube - ‪trafficarte 3d studio tour‬‏

[AnthonyRochester]

Have you tried Fuzzmeasure on the Mac? Its a good program..

[trafficarte]

Originally Posted by AnthonyRochester

Have you tried Fuzzmeasure on the Mac? Its a good program..

I know, but I think I'll do these measurements once and no more, it's not my job, so I prefer to avoid to spend money also on measurement software.
I seen it has a trial period, so I'll make a test with it.

Tanx

[chrissyb]

I wonder if you'd get any benefit from trying different monitor stands, (solid and decoupled) rather than the shelf units?

Even if monitors seem to be on solid enough surfaces, I've always found putting them on something suited for the purpose really tightens things up right across the audio spectrum. It always surprises me how well this much touted step actually works.

I'm no acoustic expert though, it is just my subjective experience over the years.

[Syncamorea]

Originally Posted by chrissyb

It always surprises me how well this much touted step actually works. I'm no acoustic expert though, it is just my subjective experience over the years.

I concur. I've been building my own monitor stands for a couple of decades and have tried to mimic a range of commercial designs as well as designing a few myself. As long as the stands are easy enough to position precisely and allow for tweaking of the height and angle of the tweeter, I've seen benefits to a variety of designs. My personal preference is for a stand with huge mass and 3 points of contact with the floor. I've tried stone, gravel, concrete, lead shot, lead plate, steel shot in epoxy, wood/sorbothane, etc., and like having at least two dissimilar materials involved in that "huge mass" equation.

[trafficarte]

At the moment I am studying a better position for the workstation in relation with front and side walls. I'm also studying the REW 5 manual, really a climb for me.
I've downloaded and installed FuzzMeasure, but haven't really digged in it.
This is really hard for me, I'm not so smart on numbers, but after all these years is time to find a way to make my studio more balanced.
I'll post updated pictures of the 3D render, but only when I've found the best disposition of all the furnitures.

About the monitor stands: I'm studying a way to make them more rigid and heavy, maybe filling the legs with sand or something else...

[UPDATE]

I've chosen to use some wood panels left over from a previous work to make more stable stands.
Here a render of one of them, it will be 1 meter high, 30x30 cm wide, with a triple layer of wood+acoustic rubber+wood on the upper and lower side to decouple it from the monitor and from the floor.

[trafficarte]

Hi all,
after some measurement I began to make some changes in my studio.
First of all I built a pair of solid wood stative, filled of sand, for my monitors ( Genelec 1030A).
Going ahead with measurements I found that the best place for my 1030A is stuck on the front wall: less bass resonances, more control on SBIR.
As mentioned early I’ve done some wannabe-bass traps hacking a couple of Ikea’s bookshelves, filling them with acoustic panels made by Vital, now in trouble for a fire in theri plant and momentary out of business.
In the years I’ve also made some mid-hi traps, distribuited along the wall and ceiling's intersection.
They made my studio less ringing, but it still sounds boomy.
Now I made twelve bass traps, 120 x 60 x 12 cm ( 4’ x 2’ x 4,72”) using two Rockwool panels ( 30kg/m³) and one polyester panel ( also 30kg/m³), each one 4 cm thick ( 1,57”).
I made a wooden frame ( 1 cm thick, 0,4”), I used a reinforced tape to make it stronger and covered all with synthetic non woven to protect against Rockwool fibers spills, and finished them with cotton fabric, using a hot glue gun to fix it.
Now I have to empty the studio to make a step y step measurement, beginning from totally empty and adding traps after each measurement.
My “old” mid-hi traps will become an acoustic cloud, suspended over the easy spot and behind it, reinforced on the bass frequency side with some Vital acoustic panel I still have around.
Here some pictures of the traps...

[Syncamorea]

Nice work!

[trafficarte]

Thanks!
I just ended to dress all the traps, here are some pictures...