All Red Recording -- Studio Build Thread

[EricF]

Cool! As a fellow garage-dweller, I'm excited to see your progress.

[agershon]

Originally Posted by EricF

Cool! As a fellow garage-dweller, I'm excited to see your progress.

Thanks man! I work in Old Town. Beautiful country

[EricF]

I guess we're stomping some of the same dirt. My company just picked up a contract to build a new swimming pool at Notre Dame HS.

[LSP]

Originally Posted by agershon

Moved into this house in 2007, and for the past five years the converted garage ("bonus room") has been severely underutilized. Until now .... Time to use this wonderful space and build a respectable recording and mixing studio AND generally awesome man cave.

It's painted a wild shade of red, and rather than repaint I'm going to name this place "All Red Recording" and go with it.

Hope you folks enjoy periodic updates and plenty of pictures of the planning, organization, and building of this studio!

Gear list:

MacBook Pro Core i7
Avid Thunderbolt HD Native with Pro Tools 10
HD Omni interface
Avid Artist Mix
Avalon 737sp
Black Lion Audio B12A
Behringer Truth B2031
Studio Projects C1 (currently being modded by JJ Audio Mics)
Various other cheap mics

Phase 1: Measure Twice, Cut Once

Here is the red room as it currently stands:






The planning stages are well underway. A friend of mine is an interior designer and she hooked me up with some CAD drawings. With her help, and that of Glenn from GIK Acoustics right here on GS, I chose this as the proper setup.

There are large glass paneled double doors on the walls top and left. The opening on the bottom right leads to a small 1/2 bath:



Acoustic Treatment

As per Glenn's instructions, I'm starting with bass traps in all the corners. I've chosen to go DIY with the help of this awesome guide from Ready Acoustics: http://www.readyacoustics.com/DIY-BA...-MADE-EASY.pdf

I chose Roxul Safe n Sound because I found it to be a decent compromise of price and availability to the performance of Rockwool 60 and the like. Pack of 8 3" panels is $50 at Lowe's.

Four traps will be double thick (6") and 2'x4'. Cost is around $150. I built the frames last night:

Laid out:


Pre-drilling. Lasers are awesome:


Corner braces:


Finished frames:


Fabric and insulation should arrive next week. Will post up once I can get these babies wrapped up!

Interested to see how you traps look after completion. I used the same pdf to make mine a couple of years ago.

I used 2 pieces of OC703 2" per trap. The look OK except when pulling the fabric tight, the corners collapsed, causing more of a "rounded" look on the corners where the fiberglass isn't supported by any wood,.. which I don't like.

The corners were already a little less "stiff" right out of the shipping boxes, which is why I'm sure the gave way under the pressure of the tightened fabric.

Marc

[agershon]

Originally Posted by LSP

Interested to see how you traps look after completion. I used the same pdf to make mine a couple of years ago.

I used 2 pieces of OC703 2" per trap. The look OK except when pulling the fabric tight, the corners collapsed, causing more of a "rounded" look on the corners where the fiberglass isn't supported by any wood,.. which I don't like.

Yes I'm anticipating a more rounded look because of the frame design and because I'm using safe and sound which is less rigid than rockwool or OC.

I will def be posting up pics.

[agershon]

Progress has been made.

Besides general clean-up and rearrangement, I completed the first set of acoustic panels. I started with bass traps using two panels for 6" thickness. Here's the Safe n Sound:



I highly recommend getting your hands on an air staple gun. I probably did 100 staples per panel and a normal staple gun would kill your hand. Here's putting the muslin ticking on to seal the insulation fibers in the back:



And here is a finished trap covered in grey speaker cloth from Parts Express:



Not too shabby. They are a bit lumpy, especially at the edges. And I'm a little concerned about sagging. We'll see. Still trying to figure out the best way to mount these babies.

[KwestRec.]

I have a question what is better Stonewool or Fiberglass panels?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[agershon]

Originally Posted by KwestRec.

I have a question what is better Stonewool or Fiberglass panels?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

I'm not qualified to answer, but this is a very helpful resource: http://bobgolds.com/AbsorptionCoefficients.htm

703/705 may be better overall but it's expensive and harder to source. Not to mention fiberglass is nasty to work with.

[agershon]

Couple of improvements, including a redesign of my workstation. Gotta love the Ikea Jerker for customization. I got the speakers off the side "wings" and tightened up my listening triangle:



Got the bass traps hung in all four corners:





Next step is broadband panels behind the desk and above my chair, plus a couple spread around the room.

I got REW up and running and took the first couple of measurements. I'll wait until the rest of my panels are up before posting a measurements thread, but here are the first two:

First SPL graph:


First waterfall (I must be doing something wrong here):

[EricF]

I think you need a lot more broadband absorption.

[Syncamorea]

Did you measure while driving one monitor or two?

[agershon]

Originally Posted by EricF

I think you need a lot more broadband absorption.

That's the plan. I've got materials for eight 3" panels on order right now. I'll probably need more after that.

Originally Posted by Syncamorea

Did you measure while driving one monitor or two?

Two monitors. I need to do it one at a time, I gather.

[DirkB]

Originally Posted by agershon

That's the plan. I've got materials for eight 3" panels on order right now. I'll probably need more after that.

Honestly, to get some serious basstrapping going, we're talking about a lot more absorption. Think of at 10-20cm thick and more than 50% of walls and ceiling. Then you might get a serious difference...

Best of luck,
Dirk

[agershon]

New panels hung, including a "cloud" panel, and new monitors (Equator D5). Really digging the Equators. Still need to mount a panel, dead center in front of and above the mix desk, on that angle surface b/w the wall and ceiling.

[EricF]

Looking good!

[agershon]

Took another REW measurement today, and there is definite improvement. Got a long way to go though. I took this measurement with only one monitor.

Before:

After:


There is dampening of the low and mid freq's. Still a big null around 85hz.

Currently have a total of 12 panels hung (4x6" thick, 8x3" thick), planning to do 6 more soon (2x6" thick, 4x3" thick) plus two large area rugs.

[muziekschuur]

If you lower the ceiling trapping and put the wall trapping a coca cola bottle thickness off the wall? I bet that will make a difference... Then take a carpet and put that on the floor.

And then take a nice fluffy couch and put that behind you. Then go and diffuse....

[agershon]

Originally Posted by muziekschuur

If you lower the ceiling trapping and put the wall trapping a coca cola bottle thickness off the wall? I bet that will make a difference... Then take a carpet and put that on the floor.

And then take a nice fluffy couch and put that behind you. Then go and diffuse....

Rugs are next. I'll look into spacing the panels off the wall. Thanks for the input!

[EricF]

I'm surprised that you're still getting such long decay times in the high end with the amount of panels you have in the room. I would expect that more high end absorption would be evident.

[agershon]

Originally Posted by EricF

I'm surprised that you're still getting such long decay times in the high end with the amount of panels you have in the room. I would expect that more high end absorption would be evident.

It's a big room and the floor is cement. I need to get some large area rugs and, truly, I need more panels. But I'm sick of building them right now ....

Was thinking more about muziekschuur's comment about spacing them off the wall, and I realized that the design of my panels puts 1 1/2" of space between the wall and the absorbant material. Is that the same as a coke bottle??

[Syncamorea]

I'll mirror Eric's comment on the highs. Seems odd. You could consider adding more cloudlettes to the ceiling.