building a new studio in belgium

[arjan]

hi folks,


i am in the process of building a new studio.
thats the good news ;)
but i am running into some problems for which i hope you guys have some answers...

first some info:

the building is not mine. i rent it for 10 years (or more) so all investments will be made with that in mind...
the building is some kind of shed located in my garden.
the closest neighbour is at 5 metres away.
there is one building attached to the shed but it is a storage place/workshop of a plumber,
so i don't think this will cause any trouble.
the walls are made of brick, the roof is a thin cement/asbest panel.

the plan:

the plan is to make a 4 room studio.
a control room, a live room, one booth and a storage place that can be used as an amp booth if necessairy.
the bathroom you can see on the floorplan was already there. it is built in ytong brick.
i want to make some loud music, so soundproofing is extremely important... ;)

what we already did:

because the roof was a very weak spot we inforced it with 2 layers of plasterboard between the joists. (pic1)
because the original floor was very uneven we have put a cement/sand slab on it. (pic3)
we divided the slab into sections for the different rooms (pic2) with wood so when we pull out the wood
the slabs for the rooms have no contact with each other or with the outer walls.
all electricals and pipes for the multis are laid in the slab, so they dont have to penetrete the walls.
the edges of the slabs are rather fragile (pic4) so i'm thinking of putting some pu-foam inbetween the slabs
to stop them from breaking when we put the walls up.
i also think (hope) that the foam will not make hard contact between the slabs.

the problem:

the building has a slanted roof, which goes from 2 metres to 3,75 metres.
i thought that was good so there is no paralel between floor and ceiling.
BUT... the control room ceilings slant is in the wrong direction...
i had no clue of that fact when we were putting the slabs in but after reading lots of stuff about studio design
i realised that if a control room has a slanted ceiling it should go from speaker position/lowest part to back of the room/heighest part...

now the big question...
what can i do about that?
can i correct the control room with the proper use of absorbtion/trapping?
because of the different slabs with all wires already in place i think its very difficult to reorganise the floorplan?
or am i just bullshitting myself with this divided slabs thing?
i know its not a floating floor or something but i can realy feel the difference in vibration if i ask a friend to jump on the slab i'm standing on or if he jumps on the slab right next to it.


what are your general thoughts of my situation?

any help would be highly appreciated!

[andrebrito]

I truly think your design is too complicated, I prefer a simple solution. The control room has a weird backwall shape. Make things simpler. If needed hire someone to make the acoustical project.

[arjan]

i based my design on the one found on the cover of rod's book "build it like the pro's"
the corner in the back can be used as a bass trap.
is it such a weird design?

[Weasel9992]

I agree with Andre. That back wall could cause some trouble...any way to flatten that corner a bit? You would still add bass trapping there, but it would be less problematic I think.

Frank

[arjan]

with "flatting the corner" do you mean make it less sharp?
that would make my room smaller.
is it worth it?

and what do you guys think of my control room ceiling that will go from 2 meters (back of the room) to 2,5 metres (speaker position)

thanks,

arjan

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by arjan

with "flatting the corner" do you mean make it less sharp?
that would make my room smaller.
is it worth it?

I think so, yes. From a volume standpoint you won't lose much, and the volume you will lose would be acoustically negative anyhow.

Originally Posted by arjan

...and what do you guys think of my control room ceiling that will go from 2 meters (back of the room) to 2,5 metres (speaker position)

It would be better if your ceiling sloped in the other direction. You don't want to fire into a ceiling sloping down behind you if you can avoid it.

[andrebrito]

you need to redesign that place... ex: your control room is not that big and you have a bathrom occupying 6 m2 and two huge vocal booths... get my point ?

[bing81]

I'd get in touch with someone like Stef Geens ...

IDeal Audio

They know what they're doing. Or else, try JP Gerrard, he has helped put together the acoustics on a couple of great "low end" places - NoHype studio Belgium

There are other people as well, though they're the two that come to mind.

B

[arjan]

andre,

the bathroom was already there when i rented the place.
so i cannot move it...



weasel,

as i said in a previous post, the slabs are already in place...
i cannot change the ceiling slope...

HELP....
am i in big trouble if i build it like the plan?
(with the exception of the back wall of the CR which i will flatten)

thanks,

arjan

[andrebrito]

You cannot change it but can divide it in two and use the space for something else ? To store something, I dont know...

[arjan]

i found this on the john sayers forum.
that control room is not so much different from my design isnt it?
or am i missing something?

[Darius van H]

You need pro advice:

Thomas Jouanjean of NORTHWARD Acoustics in Brussels

[andrebrito]

That's one of the 100 possible designs. Each acoustical engineer uses what he/she likes and knows, there's no "magical" design for a room since there are different philosophies involved. In fact some of the world's best studios are indeed rectangular by the way. Others are not.

By the way, the same happens with concert halls.

Nothing wrong with it, you can use in your room. But I personally don't like the idea to have that huge bass trap at the rear wall. My fight regarding control rooms is always the size of the room.

[arjan]

unfortunaly there's no budget for professional design...
there's budget for soundproofing, the building materials, electrics, hvac and acoustics,
and then i'm broke. really broke...

i thought about my first floorplan and tried to reorganise it.

the only downside is that i will not be able to take advantage of the divided slabs, and that all the installed wiring and tubes for the multis will become useless.
i will have to work through the walls then or use the wires that arrive accidentely in the right places.

what do you think of this floorplan?

i based the control room size on the M.M.Louden ratio of 1 : 1.40 : 1.90
so thats more or less H 2,7m W 3,8m L 5,2m

maybe i can take advantage of the fact that i can make my cr-ceiling higher in the back of the room? or am i messing too much with the right ratios then?

[bing81]

Originally Posted by arjan

unfortunaly there's no budget for professional design...

That depends .. doing it without professonial input could cost you more in the long run. I'd at least get in touch with some of the people mentioned here and see if they'll look at your plans for/with you.

IMHO.

B

[Darius van H]

Originally Posted by arjan

unfortunaly there's no budget for professional design...
there's budget for soundproofing, the building materials, electrics, hvac and acoustics,
and then i'm broke. really broke...

This is insanity..............some pro advice could be a tiny fraction of the over-all budget and could save you thousands as well as prevent you from building a lemon.

I mean, this is no bedroom studio, this is quite an ambitious plan.............to do it without some pro input is daft.

If some pros or other knowledgable people are happy to give you some free advice via a forum, that's great, but that can't possibly take the place of someone coming on site to assess the situation and get involved hands on (in whatever manner your budget will allow)

[andrebrito]

I totally agree with Darius on this one... these acoustical forums are quite nice to have some guidelines and for typical home studio situations.

But when you go to the next level, and have lets say a large tracking room, you need some professional look at it. You may enter into the world of computer modeling which is sometimes used for this kind of projects (technology that is indeed moving into smaller rooms with BEM features).

This kind of consultancy can be done online or at your place (second more expensive of course).