How do you become a music studio designer?

[PRODIJ]

Hello guys so my passion is music. I am starting arquitecture undergrad after summer.. and was just wandering how you got to design studios??

what does it take? Are the physics in studio design to complex to learn on my own?

[Gdupproductions]

Originally Posted by PRODIJ

Hello guys so my passion is music. I am starting arquitecture undergrad after summer.. and was just wandering how you got to design studios??

what does it take? Are the physics in studio design to complex to learn on my own?

Room structure, creativity, vision,technicall aspect (belongs to room structure). Knowing basic off acoustic treatment. That's bout it .

[Rod Gervais]

Originally Posted by Gdupproductions

Room structure, creativity, vision,technicall aspect (belongs to room structure). Knowing basic off acoustic treatment. That's bout it .

Not even near the mark........ you need to have a very strong background in acoustics...... understanding both how a room "works" as well as how you have to design the room treatments to achieve the goals you and your client establish for the project.

When it comes to creating rooms that work - you will also need a strong understanding of psycho-acoustics......

You will never create anything worthwhile for a client if you only have the basics.

In addition you need to have a very strong understanding on how isolating assemblies work, and how to design systems that will satisfy the NC levels the client desires (or needs as the case might be - quite often the client doesn't have a clue) in order to effectively meet those goals as well.

Next would be a good sense of interior design - as your product will be the end result when it comes to finishes - an interior designer is not going to get the job done when it comes to what you see in the room.

Acoustics is a very complex engineering discipline..... it is not anywhere near what I would describe as "intuitive"......

Now - as far as whether you can get there on your own or not - that is totally dependent on you....... if you have strong math skills I would not view it as a problem - there are tons of good books on the subject of acoustics - you would do well to begin buying some and perusing them.

Rod

[PRODIJ]

Originally Posted by Rod Gervais

Not even near the mark........ you need to have a very strong background in acoustics...... understanding both how a room "works" as well as how you have to design the room treatments to achieve the goals you and your client establish for the project.

When it comes to creating rooms that work - you will also need a strong understanding of psycho-acoustics......

You will never create anything worthwhile for a client if you only have the basics.

In addition you need to have a very strong understanding on how isolating assemblies work, and how to design systems that will satisfy the NC levels the client desires (or needs as the case might be - quite often the client doesn't have a clue) in order to effectively meet those goals as well.

Next would be a good sense of interior design - as your product will be the end result when it comes to finishes - an interior designer is not going to get the job done when it comes to what you see in the room.

Acoustics is a very complex engineering discipline..... it is not anywhere near what I would describe as "intuitive"......

Now - as far as whether you can get there on your own or not - that is totally dependent on you....... if you have strong math skills I would not view it as a problem - there are tons of good books on the subject of acoustics - you would do well to begin buying some and perusing them.

Rod

thank you for your input..

yeah I can imagine all the knowledge needed to build a studio... I am not bad neither at maths or physics its just things like this are not something you can learn at the local universities.. I imagine if there is something like this "acoustic engineering" it will be very dated and not what studios do use. Thats why I ask if this can be learn on your own.. which I guess will be extremely difficult.

How do you get involved??

[StewartFang]

Oh and of course everyone loves to leave out the most important part of studio design....

extensive recording experience especially in studio facilities...knowing what works and what doesn't isn;t something that you can learn on paper...you have to hear it first and foremost...and then you can chase it

[Rod Gervais]

Originally Posted by StewartFang

Oh and of course everyone loves to leave out the most important part of studio design....

extensive recording experience especially in studio facilities...knowing what works and what doesn't isn;t something that you can learn on paper...you have to hear it first and foremost...and then you can chase it

Sorry,

This isn't true either.........

I am actually a relatively successful studio designer - and I have never worked (and will never work) in the recording industry........

I do have a strong background in architecture - as well as multiple engineering disciplines, and while I will admit that being a musician doesn't hurt - I would certainly not consider it a prerequisite.

Just another acoustics myth.........

Rod

[RedTuxedo]

I would think that an understanding in the way acoustic instruments work might help a little as well.

Just a guess though.

[MoBeach]

Originally Posted by Rod Gervais

Sorry,

This isn't true either.........

I am actually a relatively successful studio designer - and I have never worked (and will never work) in the recording industry........

I do have a strong background in architecture - as well as multiple engineering disciplines, and while I will admit that being a musician doesn't hurt - I would certainly not consider it a prerequisite.

Just another acoustics myth.........

Rod

So it's learning the science of knowing how to diagnose and convert any given room? (providing the building wasn't originally designed as a studio) What do you use to analyze existing acoustic characteristics? Then I'm sure you'll have to know how the eqations work to make the characteristics favorable?

I've been land surveying for 26 years, I'm sure this form of engineering won't help, unless I wanted to lay out a perfect Octagon shaped room

[audiothings]

OP... you are interested in music and architecture... a great combination for an acoustician... Go for it!

There are also less glamourous, but shall we say, more important jobs for acousticians. Like noise control in factories, restaurants, stations, airports and public places. And wind tunnels. And aircraft. Like setting up conference rooms for optimal audio clarity. Like treating radio studios, shooting stages, newsrooms... Like building concert halls. And cinema theaters. And foley rooms. And...

Building studios is one small room within the mansion of acoustics (pun intended)... a space that is being increasingly populated by know-it-all amateurs like myself. Others might disagree, but it is my contention that studio design, like music itself, is going to the hands of amateurs... It is a trend that cannot be reversed, thanks to the way music production is "evolving", and due to free flow of information on the internet.

The low and mid end jobs will be done by flatlanders like me, for little or nothing, just because its fun... The real jobs will go to guys like Thomas Jouanjean and the bigger consultants like Pilchner-Schoustal and Munro Acoustics, who have a proven track record of creating some of the finest rooms in the world, over and over again. With hard, uncompromising science, and figures to back it up.

My suggestion is that you pursue architectural acoustics and structural engineering with the intention of mastering the science. And keep yourself updated with the music scene and progress and trends in small room acoustics. In addition to the textbooks you will read, also read stuff like 'Recording Studio Design' by Newell, to clue yourself into the real world of studio building. Spend a little time here perusing all the recommended reading and studio build threads, and you will be able to build studios for your friends with no serious budgets. Make your mistakes in the field before you announce yourself as a pro. Then go out there, armed with your scientific and real world knowledge and build the real studios of the future.

Of course, studio design is much more than acoustics. There is systems specification and integration, HVAC design, aesthetic considerations, a genuine understanding of the clients requirements, legal issues and clearances... You have to get into all this stuff... buy hey, you're young (presumably) and are in the best position to take this seriously.

[Hannes_F]

Originally Posted by PRODIJ

Hello guys so my passion is music. I am starting arquitecture undergrad after summer.. and was just wandering how you got to design studios??

what does it take? Are the physics in studio design to complex to learn on my own?

Perhaps interesting for you: Some architectural faculties offer room acoustics in their curriculum which might be a good foundation. And sometimes if they offer basic acoustics in their regular curriculum this means they have a chair or institute for acoustics which then might offer ways for even deeper knowledge and science.

[Dange]

Originally Posted by PRODIJ

I imagine if there is something like this "acoustic engineering" it will be very dated and not what studios do use

The fundamentals are universal that's why they are fundamentals....

I think also you might find the opposite on course content, for example the acoustic absorption concepts used in studios, especially ones found on here e.g. SSC traps, are quite basic. You don't find many active absorption systems, even passive resonant absorbers seem to be a rarity. However these are commonplace in industrial noise control (a car exhaust has passive tuned absorbers). Most, if not all, acoustic engineering courses will be relevant because of the fundamental concepts taught.

[StewartFang]

Originally Posted by Rod Gervais

Sorry,

This isn't true either.........

I am actually a relatively successful studio designer - and I have never worked (and will never work) in the recording industry........

I do have a strong background in architecture - as well as multiple engineering disciplines, and while I will admit that being a musician doesn't hurt - I would certainly not consider it a prerequisite.

Just another acoustics myth.........

Rod

I would say that is the exception more than the rule...very unlikely to understand the necessities...perhaps you learned from someone who was very involved in recording and benefitted from his recording knowledge???

I think you'll see behind the most effective rooms in the world, the trail leads to recording experience.

[Rod Gervais]

Originally Posted by StewartFang

I would say that is the exception more than the rule...very unlikely to understand the necessities...perhaps you learned from someone who was very involved in recording and benefitted from his recording knowledge???

I think you'll see behind the most effective rooms in the world, the trail leads to recording experience.

This might well be - but that does not make it a prerequisite for successful design.......

My first studio was Power Station New England - and I was actually quite excited to have a chance to work with Tony on that project.

And although Tony certainly had a very strong background in the recording industry - I figured out how and why the rooms worked long before I ever had the chance to actually meet him..... which is why we got along as well as we did when I finally did have the opportunity........

Of course it does help if you can "see sound" in your mind's eye......

Rod

[StewartFang]

Tony Bongiovi is a record producer and recording engineer with expertise in Electrical & Acoustical Engineering. He helped to remodel an old building in Manhattan—once a power plant for Edison, and later a television studio—into the Power Station recording studio in 1977.
Bongiovi was born in the borough of Raritan, New Jersey located in Central Jersey. He attended Bridgewater-Raritan High School West and is a licensed HAM operator.[1]

Production and Engineering credits


1975: Never Can Say Goodbye - Gloria Gaynor
1975: Crash Landing - Jimi Hendrix
1975: Midnight Lightning - Jimi Hendrix
1975: Are You Ready For Freddy? - Freddy Fender
1975: Experience Gloria Gaynor - Gloria Gaynor
1976: I've Got You - Gloria Gaynor
1977: Leave Home - The Ramones
1977: Rocket to Russia - The Ramones
1977: Talking Heads '77 - Talking Heads
1977: Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk - Meco
1979: This Is My Life (La Vita) with Meco - Shirley Bassey
1980: Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album - Meco
????: "Close Encounters Theme" - Meco
1978: Ace Frehley - Ace Frehley
????: 1978-80: 1978-1980 Six Singles - Al Downing
????: I'll Be Loving You - Al Downing
????: Darlene - Al Downing
????: Love on the Line - Lydia Murdock
????: Superstar - Lydia Murdock
1980: The Empire Strikes Back - Meco
1981: Balance - Balance
1982: Big Al Downing - Al Downing
1982: Rock in a Hard Place - Aerosmith
1982: In for the Count - Balance
1983: Bark at the Moon - Ozzy Osbourne
1984: Bon Jovi - Bon Jovi
1984: Love At First Sting - Scorpions
1990: Back for Another Taste - Helix - co-producer
2005: As Above So Below - NoEnd

It's important.

[audiothings]

StewartFang,

Walter Storyk, Martin Pilchner, Andy Munro, George Augspurger... these guys are probably far more accomplished as acousticians than as engineers.

Wes Lachot, Philip Newell, Tom Hidley, Tony Bonjiovi... these guys have credits as producers/engineers...

Truth is a two sided coin.

[Rod Gervais]

Stewart,

Tony Bongiovi is close personal friend of mine - there is nothing about Tony that you can dig up off the internet that I do not already know - and plenty you'll never find that I am aware of.......

However you completely missed the rest of my post - apparently focusing on Tony for some strange reason.......

First off - I acknowledged that Tony had a strong background in the industry...... so why you felt the need to copy and past from some website in reply will remain a mystery to me.....

However, what you (apparently) missed was this statement:

"I figured out how and why the rooms worked long before I ever had the chance to actually meet him"

So no, it was not a case of my "learning" "from someone who was very involved in recording"

I will admit that Tony and I discussed some interesting concepts along the way (we still do)....... and would also point out that there is much MUCH more to Tony than meets the eye........

In my case it simply made sense......... the concepts were very intuitive - although the learning curve for acoustics was pretty steep - and still is in some cases (I am forever learning)............

I am still of the opinion that it is not a prerequisite...... and consider myself proof of that fact....... and it is a fact

Sincerely,

Rod

[SörenHjalmarsson]

There is no more a prerequisite for a studio designer to have delt in the recording industry, than it is a prerequisite for a music producer to understand about studio construction...

Just like there's no prerequisite for a composer to have delt in the art of mastering, or a prerequisite for the mastering engineer to be a talented vocalist....

There are so many different disciplines in the music business alone and none of them should be confused with the other. Never take for granted that, just because a bloke nows about one specific field of audio, he understands them all... Not saying that there aren't guys who have mastered several disciplines of course, but taking that for granted or failing to see the distinctions between the different professions, is a big mistake....

(i actually think that the post from Audiothings made this quite clear )

I never heard of guys such as Peter D'Antonio or Manfred Schroeder having any noteworthy 'recording experience', or that they delved into the recording industry at all.... Occupations having to do with 'making records', is but a small part of the world of Audio...

If you need a craftsman to fix your roof you shouldn't hire a plumber...

MVH
Sören

[Rod Gervais]

Originally Posted by audiothings

StewartFang,

Walter Storyk, Martin Pilchner, Andy Munro, George Augspurger... these guys are probably far more accomplished as acousticians than as engineers.

Wes Lachot, Philip Newell, Tom Hidley, Tony Bonjiovi... these guys have credits as producers/engineers...

Truth is a two sided coin.

+1

[Rod Gervais]

Originally Posted by SörenHjalmarsson

There is no more a prerequisite for a studio designer to have delt in the recording industry, than it is a prerequisite for a music producer to understand about studio construction...

Just like there's no prerequisite for a composer to have delt in the art of mastering, or a prerequisite for the mastering engineer to be a talented vocalist....

There are so many different disciplines in the music business alone and none of them should be confused with the other. Never take for granted that, just because a bloke nows about one specific field of audio, he understands them all... Not saying that there aren't guys who have mastered several disciplines of course, but taking that for granted or failing to see the distinctions between the different professions, is a big mistake....

(i actually think that the post from Audiothings made this quite clear )

I never heard of guys such as Peter D'Antonio or Manfred Schroeder having any noteworthy 'recording experience', or that they delved into the recording industry at all.... Occupations having to do with 'making records', is but a small part of the world of Audio...

If you need a craftsman to fix your roof you shouldn't hire a plumber...

MVH
Sören

+1

[StewartFang]

Gentlemen, stop being so sensitive.

I referenced Tony because he designed one of the most noted studios in recording...

I'm not sure how being a personal friend means anything...although that is nice!

Having a good solid foundation in recording is a must...how else would you know what an engineer/producer/engineer wants to "hear" in their various recording roles...it seems apparent which folks have designed the most noted rooms...and let's not fool ourselves...NONE of the great rooms were designed without an engineer's input involved...whether or not the designer was also an engineer...so it's a pretty important element and of you want a leg up on your peers, do a little homework on the practical side.

Edit: PS I don't think you have to be a noted engineer, just have some backround experience...you gotta have ears or it's pointless

[StewartFang]

Originally Posted by audiothings

StewartFang,

Walter Storyk, Martin Pilchner, Andy Munro, George Augspurger... these guys are probably far more accomplished as acousticians than as engineers.

Wes Lachot, Philip Newell, Tom Hidley, Tony Bonjiovi... these guys have credits as producers/engineers...

Truth is a two sided coin.

So....would you like me to pick out who designed the better rooms?

[fitZ]

There is no more a prerequisite for a studio designer to have delt in the recording industry, than it is a prerequisite for a music producer to understand about studio construction...

Hmmm, If I'm not mistaken, I believe someone has a different opinion.

THE ACOUSTICAL DESIGN OF RECORDING STUDIOS


When one considers that the recording industry has been building and
using studios for about 70 years, it is remarkable that so little basic
theory has been published on the subject. To be sure, there are plenty
of "here's how we did it" articles in print as well as a number of
"here's how to do it" examples to be found in books and magazines,
but none of these provide enough of the underlying design principles
to enable a reader to duplicate the performance of such studios unless
he also duplicates the studio. For that reason, while such publications
are interesting and even entertaining, they are of little use to a
studio owner who wants to improve an existing room or build a new one
in a space different from the exemplars given.

The situation grows even more extraordinary in light of the massive
amount of experimentation and research devoted to control rooms over
the past few years.

Those efforts have resulted in enough published material to allow a
studio to select from at least two demonstrably excellent generic
control room designs, both of which spring from the same clearly
expressed theoretical underpinning. While the general case design
will need some cleanup and tuning to achieve optimum results, a
studio owner can use the published theory to modify a given plan,
adapt it to his particular situation, and come up with a fundamentally
decent room. In short, we know how to build good control rooms.

We sure as hell don't know how to build good studios. In fairness,
there are some designers who appear to know something of the subject,
but they don't give away their stock in trade, so a studio owner is
faced with the problem of separating the good designers from the good
talkers. With the near future of his business at stake, that's a
serious problem, made worse by the fact that even very good acousticians
have been known to make very bad mistakes when dealing with recording
rooms.

As an example, the two worst studios the writer has ever encountered
were designed from scratch by a Phd named Sabin. (There were three of
them.) The rooms were retreated within a couple of months, but we
turned out some pretty marginal work in the meantime. Since this
happened in the city's premier recording facility, marginal was a bad
case of egg on face.

Doc Sabin was not at fault in that mess. In fact, nobody was. The whole
thing was a terrible mistake.

The mistake was to confuse a recording studio with a normal acoustical
envronment.

Acousticians ordinarily think of large rooms in terms of theaters and
auditoriums, which have a definite sound source feeding a definite
audience. That applies equally to control rooms, theaters, auditoriums,
and almost everything else acoustical designers get into.

It does not apply to studios, which are completely different from most
other rooms. A studio has any number of sources in the persons of the
musicians, and an audience comprised of those same players. Multiple
scattered sources, ditto listeners. Peculiar room.

Keeping strictly to acoustical performance, the primary function of a
recording studio is to provide adequate isolation between microphones
while allowing the players to hear each other as well as possible.

Acoustical isolation is by far the most often discussed of these two
areas, but since the parameters involved are addressable by acoustical
mathematics, producing satisfactory isolation levels is a fairly
straightforward process. All that's needed is a knowledge of what
constitutes adequate isolation and several pages of mathematical
computations. Happily enough, there is a way round that last item.

Treating a room for multidirectional listenability is a good deal more
difficult, as it is not a direct function of the room's global
characteristics and therefore cannot be treated mathematically. General
solutions are available, and they work nicely, but they have more to do
with old fashioned intuitive acoustics than with the glitzy new computer
aided stuff.

Among other things, this means that the merits of a suggested treatment
cannot be readily confirmed by punching up one's handy dandy number
cruncher.

Getting on with it, the specific design parameters are:

1: What is a reasonable isolation level and how much treatment is needed
to get it?

2: What constitutes acceptable listenability and how is that managed?

3: What's the catch? (There's a bear in every woods.) ((Sometimes several
bears.))

Item one. Acoustical isolation between instruments is a function of the
degree to which the sound of one dies away before getting to the next.
When the die off is inadequate the sound of one instrument falls through
the mike of the next and trashes it.

If it is excessive the musicians can't hear each other properly, which
makes group playing difficult and ruins section sound. Everything in the
real world is a compromise, and acoustical isolation is no exception.

The amount of acoustical attenuation for a given instrument in a room
depends on the room's global characteristics. As with any radiated
field, sound pressure levels diminish as the square of the distance
from the source. Double the distance, lose 6 Db SPL. The equation holds
for any distance in a perfectly dead room or out of doors.

In a normal room, however, the walls reflect some of the sound. Since the
source sound level diminishes with distance, at some point the reflections
from the walls will equal the source level. Beyond that point the sound
no longer dies away, and the level becomes constant at any further
distance. The distance at which this transition takes place is currently
called the Critical Distance. It has been called other things in other
centuries, as it's existence has been known for a very long time. It is
easy to observe, easy to measure, and a remarkably accurate indicator of
a room's acoustical performance.

The Critical Distance (Dc) of a sound source depends on the reflectivity
of the walls and how much wall surface the sound hits. As an example, a
firecracker hung on a string in the middle of a room produces a spherical
sound field which will bounce off all six walls of the room. Six, because
sound has no sense of direction, and can't tell a floor or ceiling from
any other surface. This spherical source is assigned a "Q" (figure of
merit) of 1, meaning it has no directionality at all. Hang the cracker
against a wall, and it radiates a hemispherical pattern. That's a Q of 2.
Halfway up the wall and in a corner it's a half hemisphere, and the Q is
4. On the floor and in a corner, Q =8. Q represents the beam width of the
sound source. The higher the number, the narrower the beam.

The narrower the beam, the less wall surface is struck by a source's
sound. Therefore, the higher the Q, the longer the Dc. And the higher
the surface reflectivity, the shorter the Dc.

It follows from the above that low Q instruments will have the shortest
Dc's, and the poorest isolation. As it happens, low Q describes both the
human voice and the entire rhythm section. A moment's thought will
explain that. Bass, piano, guitar and drums were used to accompany the
human voice for several centuries before mikes and such were invented,
and were designed to match it. They match quite well, which leaves us
with a kit of Q 2.5 instruments as the basis of isolation design.

The most difficult instrument in terms of isolation is the voice. Not
because it's so soft, but because of limiting. Unless a studio wants
to turn out 1940's records, there is no choice but to limit vocals,
and the limiter costs about 12 Db of isolation as it pulls up the
consonants in the singer's words. What this amounts to is that the vocal
channel should show something approaching minus 20 Db when the vocalist
is quiet; 12 db for limiting, and 10 to 14 to clear the consonants and
allow a little dynamic range for the singer. Since other instruments
work nicely with a clearance of 6 to 10Db adequate vocal isolation
becomes the criterion for acoustic design in studios.

Vocal isolation is made a little easier by the small size of the
instrument, which allows miking at a half foot without running into
serious proximity effects, and generally presents about 86 Db SPL on
mike. Hardly thunderous, but the peak level differences between voice
and the rhythm instruments are not as great as commonly assumed. It's
limiting up the minus 12 Db consonants that give rise to vocal iso
problems. Still, since other instruments can be 6Db or more over the
voice's 86 Db, the room characteristics have to lay for about 26 Db
of acoustical loss from a vocal to mike distance of six inches to any
other mike twenty acoustical feet away, keeping in mind that the 20
feet may simply be a few feet in front of the vocal mike. It is not a
straight line measurement.

The problem is made harder by a simple but nasty fact. A SOURCE GOES
CONSTANT VOLUME AT IT'S Dc, AND THE VOLUME IS THE SAME EVERYWHERE IN
THE ROOM. Distance beyond Dc makes no difference in fallthrough, and
directionality has no effect, except to mud up the fallthrough.

Dead flats don't work. Hyper cardioid mikes don't work. Nothing works.
The levels of the rhythm instruments have to fall about 26 Db before
going constant volume, or you can't work a vocal anywhere in the room.

Item one is 26 Db. More is nice, but getting much over 26 in a small
room involves so much treatment that the studio turns into an anechoic
chamber, with fuzz covering every wall.

Which brings up item two; listenability of the room.

Totally fuzzed walls return no sound to the players, who respond by
playing louder. And worse.

It's very difficult for a group of musicians to work in concert (pun
intentional) unless they can hear each other. Outdoors, with nothing
otherwise coming back to the players, stage monitors are used to supply
the sound of the group to the group. An engineer can use the studio
playback speakers for the same purpose, and it works surprisingly well,
but in both cases the players hear the mixer's balance, not their own.
They play in one balance and hear another, which creates some subtile
but nasty musical corruptions.

As an example, no mixer will let a solo ride at too low a level. It's
the mixer's job to maintain a proper balance, and mixers do their jobs.
So if a musician plays a tentative first solo, the mixer raises it's
level as needed, and it plays back in proper balance. After a few takes,
the soloist gets used to the idea that his solos will come out right no
matter what he does, and lays back on all of them. It's easier to play
soft. The mixer also adjusts to the situation, and bumps the level for
each solo. All this sounds pretty good at the time, but after a few days
both parties discover that the solos don't sound like solos. They sound
like lifted fills. That's because a solo is generally a high energy item,
and when a player lays back rather than putting out the energy, the solos
lack drive and intensity.

Technically speaking, this is a matter of harmonic content. When an
instrument is played hard or loud, the energy shows up as an increase
in harmonics, and the result is a loud sound. When not, not, and
artificially boosted soft solos just don't make it.

While this is one of the less obvious problems involved, musicians who
can't hear their overall sound well enough to maintain solo and section
balances during performance are very unlikely to play at their full
potential, and they need to hear themselves directly. That's especially
true if the mixer is tricking up the sound as it goes through the console
to the tape.

Since the usual studio setup points the musicians and their instruments
at the control room, the obvious (and normal) way to supply direct
feedback is to bounce the player's sound off the control room wall.

Control room walls are left reflective as a matter of conventional wisdom,
and are even somewhat optimized by stacking the musicians cases against
the wall under the control room window. The cases offer a fair degree of
dispersion to the strong boundary layer sound traveling along the floor
to the control room wall, and integrate it before reflecting it back to
the players. That won't work with a rug on the floor, but improves things
quite a lot otherwise.

Given that a primary function of the control wall is to supply a live
surface to the musicians, it can be made more effective by using some of
the techniques employed in the backs of control rooms. These involve
substituting RPGs for the stacked cases, retreating the wall for maximum
reflection, moving the control room window to the upright position, and
installing a reflector above the window angled to bounce even more sound
back to the rhythm section. The combination of flat and dispersed
reflections has been shown to be optimum for critical listening, and if
it's good enough for engineers, why not supply it to the people who are
doing the actual work in a studio?

In any case, the amount of acoustical treatment in a studio is limited
by the need to leave the major part of the control room wall reflective.
And there advantages to a live floor in allowing solid boundary layer
sound at the control wall, in addition to making it easier to move things
around in the studio.

The side walls are far less critical. Because of that, they are commonly
either left untreated or given some kind of uniform treatment. Neither
is a good idea.

Flat, straight walls have been known to be acoustically unacceptable for
centuries. That's partly because sound reflects off such walls as a flat
smack, which sounds bad, and partly because it bounces so strongly. If
the side walls are either untreated or evenly treated the sound will
ricochet around the room like a ball on a billiard table until it finds
an open mike to get into. That was the problem with Doc Sabins' room.

It is probably possible to control the results by putting an absorbent
flat behind every mike in the room, but it's a tedious process, and
interferes with player communication. Much better to clean up the bounce.

Since the villains in the piece are flat, evenly treated walls, the
obvious remedy lies in knobbing up the walls and installing absorptive
treatment in patches.

Both objectives can be accomplished by hanging live sided boxes filled
with Fiberglas on the walls. (See drawing.) Floor to ceiling treatment
is unnecessary, as mikes rarely point up. The boxes should start high
enough off the floor to clear chairs and other clutter leaned against
the wall, and will generally top out at eight or nine feet above the
floor.

A box with reflective sides will act as a disperser, and at a foot or
so deep will disperse down to about 550 Hz. Not ideal, but not bad,
and at a foot the boxes are pretty manageable. They are normally spaced
at three to six feet apart, leaving the walls reflective between them.
This presents a combination of dispersion, absorption and reflection to
both the musicians and the mikes, and cleans up the billiard ball
syndrome quite nicely while presenting an optimum listening environment
to the hard working types in the studio.

The back wall can be treated in the same way in small rooms, although
it is best to leave the back as live as possible, as reflections from
it give the players a sense of being in a room rather than working
with their backs to a vacuum.

In cases where a great deal of absorption is needed, the wall area
above eight feet and below about two can be totally treated without
ruining the generally live sound of the room, as the ear only needs
a little encouragement to think it's in a normal environment.

The ceiling is another matter, and needs be almost entirely dead,
because it is almost never high enough to establish a decent modes
structure. The standard literature lists acceptable room proportions
of up to two to one as an extreme case, and the vast majority of
ceilings are well over that. As always, the best way to deal with an
unsolvable problem is to eliminate it, and since a non-reflective
surface generates no modes structure one way or another, dead ceilings
are the norm in most studios.

The ceiling also presents the largest area available for serious
treatment, especially as it can be totally absorbent without making
a room sound dead. Short, yes. Dead, no.

Unless a ceiling is extremely low the ear ignores it, preferring to
take it's cues more or less horizontally.

It is critical that the ceiling treatment be acoustically flat in it's
absorption. Given an ordinary grid hung 16 inches below the structural
ceiling, flat response can be accomplished with 1-1/2 inch Fiberglas
ceiling panels or with thinner panels and a Fiberglas batt overlay.

It is wise to check manufacturer's literature for exact specifications,
as the low end absorption of the ceiling must extend far enough into
the bass range to avoid the common fault of acoustical treatment that
soaks out the top end of the room while leaving the low end live. That
kind of treatment results in a muddy room with terrible isolation probs
in terms of bass, floor tom, and bass drum.

The need for flat low end response applies to all room treatment unless
the studio has big windows or it's walls are so flimsy as to transmit or
absorb bass by vibrating to it. Even then, bass attenuation will seldom
exceed 30%, leaving 70% to be supplied by other means. While there are
any number of bass absorbing devices which can be built or purchased,
they are inconsistent in operation, inefficient except in corners, and
very difficult to analyze as to the number and size required.

On balance it's more practical to install the general treatment in such
way as to absorb uniformly from bass to cymbals.

Controlling high frequency reflections is easy, but bass absorption is
largely a matter of absorber depth, and it takes considerable thickness
to get flat down to 60 Hz. Hung ceilings manage it with thin panels and
the 16 inches between panels and the real ceiling, but a wall mounted
absorber needs a minimum depth of 6 inches for Fiberglas (703) board,
and a foot for glass wool.

DON'T USE THIN TREATMENT! Carpeting and drapes absorb 2 to 14% of bass
while soaking out 60 to 70% of the top end, yielding a room with no
presence and extreme boominess. Bad for playing, worse for recording.
At 70% efficiency, they also require an excessive amount of treatment
and wall area. Interestingly enough, both products cost far more than
proper acoustical materials, and are not necessarily more attractive.

By and large, Fiberglas in one form and another is probably the most
practical treatment available, and it can be covered in any number of
handsome fabrics or in Tectum if a durable wall is needed.

With the type and location of studio treatment in hand, we can finally
address the question of how much absorption is needed.

The following data are not hypothetical. The Dc figures were determined
during extensive reality testing of a newly written acoustical design
computer program.

The test method consisted of retro engineering a number of recording
studios, in each of which the writer had done some hundreds of sessions.
The majority of the studios were acceptable, a few were marginal, two
were bad, and two superb.

The object of the exercise was to find a common parameter that related
to actual studio performance, and the voice Dc proved to be a figure of
merit for isolation in properly treated rooms. Other correlations became
evident over several years of repeated computer runs on these and other
studios in an acoustics course taught by the author at a local college.

Designing for isolation is both simpler and more difficult than it first
appears. The simple part is very simple indeed, as voice Dc and therefore
isolation turns out to be function of the amount of absorption in a room
regardless of room size.

The absorption required for 26 Db of acoustical loss from 6 inches to 20
feet (a voice Dc of 11 1/2 feet) is about 2700 Sabins. Sounds easy.

If the practice were as straightforward as the theory, one could stuff
2700 square feet of Fiberglas into a studio and open for business without
further ado.

Unfortunately, what's wanted is 2700 Sabins of absorption, and the actual
amount of treatment for that figure can vary from less than 1500 to just
over 2500 depending on the size of the room. First bear in the woods.

The reason for a difference between actual treatment and effective
absorption is that the standard Sabin formula is linear, and absorption
in highly treated rooms is not.

In fact, when 80% of the wall surface absorbs at 1 Sabin per square foot,
the effective absorption of the treatment is doubled. There is a formula
for this effect, (Norris Eyring) which is reasonably accurate, but since
it involves the use of natural logarithms, it is tedious to use.

Second bear.

The third bear is the well-populated acoustical forest is the difficulty
of accurately assigning absorption values to various materials already
in the room. Most standard materials can be looked up in tables printed
for the purpose, but there are always a few things that aren't listed.

Additionally, it is very easy to mistake one kind of acoustical material
for another and come up with significant errors in calculations.

Calculations are a pain anyway, so it's best to circumvent the bears by
measuring the acoustical performance of the room.

There are several thoroughly scientific ways to do this, and any number
of manufacturers eager to sell equipment for the purpose, but as a
practical matter such measurements are of little or no use to the studio
owner. Cheap equipment yields cheap results, and the data gleaned from
upscale equipment require expert (and costly) interpretation.

In the first instance, the figures aren't completely trustworthy, and in
the second routinely repeating the tests will cost a fortune.

Following the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) rule, the writer prefers to
measure a room by determining it's voice Dc. The equipment costs nothing,
it takes about two minutes, and the results are more than accurate enough for real world use.

Better still, being a simple-minded test, it reports simple-minded
figures with no interpretation, no ambiguity. Best of all, a Dc check
makes it's measurement at about 100 Hz, where improper treatments cause a the majority of isolation problems.

Measuring a voice Dc is child's play provided one keeps in mind that the
purpose is to determine the global characteristics of the space. Toward
that end, it is essential to make the measurement in the acoustical
center of the room. Given normal treatment, that will be in the physical
center as well.

In cases where the absorption is considerably greater on one wall than
another, the acoustical center will have to be found.

Again, dead easy. Using the incredibly sensitive instruments found on
either side of the human head, one sidesteps away from one wall toward
another until the reflected sound from the two are equal in each ear.
If the reader has not done this in past, he may find it useful to
calibrate his ears to wall sound by stepping up to a live wall and
varying his wall to head distance from a couple of feet to a couple of
inches until the wall sound is firmly fixed in mind. It is usually
perceived as a kind of pressure on the ear, and will very reliably
inform the listener of his position in a space. No sound other than the
room's random noise is needed, and once the listener knows the sound of
a close wall he will find that he can walk to within a foot or so of any
live wall with his eyes closed, This is simply a case of practicing a
normal human ability into a skill. The blind do it all the time. So do
the rest of us, but unconsciously.

The writer once deadened one wall of a hallway, and sighted people veered
into it to the point of wearing out the treatment.

Having determined the acoustical center of the room, Dc is measured by
two people more or less astride the room's center starting at a distance
of 15 to 20 feet. One of them walks toward the other droning one, one,
one as the other waits for the sound of the talker's voice to suddenly
get louder. The process works both ways, with the talker's voice abruptly
going constant volume as he retreats, but the writer's experience with
several hundred students indicates that toward is easier to hear than
away, particularly in the learning stage. It is also easier to hear if
the talker walks briskly at first. He can slow down for greater accuracy
once the listener has the sound of the transition in mind.

While rare, there is one case in which it is nearly impossible to get
a decent Dc measurment, i.e. a room with a very high ceiling and a
dead floor. Short a couple of tall ladders and considerable time, it is
not possible to get to the vertical center of the room, so it's back to
plan B. (drop back 10 and punt)

The pair can also check room's frequency response by measuring the Dc
using the word six, leaning on the s and x and suppressing the vowel,
so that most of the sound is at 3 to 5 Khz. This is a pretty rough test,
but if the Dc's are wildly disparate, they indicate a room with more
absorption in the midrange than at the low end.

While Dc is a square root function of a room's global characteristics
and therefore a rather short ruler, the breakover is sufficiently abrupt
to make measurements to within a few inches quick, easy, and repeatable
by any number of talker-listener pairs. Other than the one above, the
only conditions under which it doesn't work properly are rooms in which
the Dc is greater than the wall spacing, (rare) and huge rooms which
appear to divide themselves into several acoustical areas due to
extreme losses between one wall and another.

In the first instance the room will be too small and dead to be of any
practical use, and in the second the room volume will be well in excess
of a million cubic feet. The writer knows of one at 6 million that acts
funny, but it's in no danger of being used for studio work.

Once the Dc of a room has been measured, some acoustical modifications
may seem in order. If so, a few cautionary notes should be kept in mind.

First, the Dc varies as the square root of the room absorption, so
doubling the effective treatment and thereby halving the reverberation
time will extend the Dc to only 1.4 times it's previous figure. This
presents no problem in a medium to large room, but good isolation in a
30x20x10 foot studio would require some 1550 square feet of Fiberglas
scattered over only 2400 square feet of surface area.

Even with the floor thickly carpeted, leaving a 20x10 foot control
room wall reflective would require a 75% treatment of the other walls,
and result in a reverberation time of just over one tenth second.

Some rooms are simply too small to treat for live studio work, as they
get too dead. The 6000 cubic foot case in point is probably the workable
minimum.

Second, a big studio is rarely allowed more that about one second of
reverberation time, which results in a voice Dc approaching 20 feet.
Obviously, such a room needs no help in isolation, and is best left
alone. It is a general rule in acoustics that big rooms are easy. It's
the little ones that give you the pip.

Third, professional engineers commonly do good work in bad conditions.
The writer has done any number of sessions in studios with 7 to 8 foot
Dc's which turned out well enough to sell bags of records. It's not
impossible to record in a room with poor isolation, it's just damn hard
work.

The point of proper treatment is that it allows one to get decent sound
with any reasonable setup, and it eliminates time lost in fooling around
trying to correct the room's faults.

Fourth, none of the figures given are engraved in stone. A twelve foot
Dc is better than ten, and less good than sixteen, but acoustics are
inherently inexact, and there is no sharp point at which rooms switch
from bad to good; they just glide from exasperating to no problem, with
the latter occurring and something around a 12 foot voice Dc for the
bulk of studio work.

In summary, a few minutes spent in measuring the real world acoustical
characteristics of a recording studio may reveal unnecessarily poor
isolation, and some of the treatment methods suggested herein may
improve it's general usefulness.


Since the measurement involves no expense and the treatment is designed
to make experimentation easy, these techniques offer a practical way for
a studio to confirm or optimize it's recording rooms.

THEN AGAIN, THERE'S ALWAYS THE ACOUSTICAL DESIGN PROGRAM (AD.BAS) WHICH
ALLOWS EXPERIMENTATION FOR STUDIO IMPROVEMENT OR DESIGN WITHOUT DOING
ANYTHING PHYSICAL AT ALL. MATHEMATICS ARE WONDERFUL.

-30-


WORDS 4887

I believe the author is an engineer, first and foremost.

[StewartFang]

Originally Posted by Rod Gervais

Stewart,

Tony Bongiovi is close personal friend of mine - there is nothing about Tony that you can dig up off the internet that I do not already know - and plenty you'll never find that I am aware of.......

However you completely missed the rest of my post - apparently focusing on Tony for some strange reason.......

First off - I acknowledged that Tony had a strong background in the industry...... so why you felt the need to copy and past from some website in reply will remain a mystery to me.....

However, what you (apparently) missed was this statement:



So no, it was not a case of my "learning" "from someone who was very involved in recording"

I will admit that Tony and I discussed some interesting concepts along the way (we still do)....... and would also point out that there is much MUCH more to Tony than meets the eye........

In my case it simply made sense......... the concepts were very intuitive - although the learning curve for acoustics was pretty steep - and still is in some cases (I am forever learning)............

I am still of the opinion that it is not a prerequisite...... and consider myself proof of that fact....... and it is a fact

Sincerely,

Rod

Rod...I actually really appreciate your approach to studio design...I have your book and absolutely love it...but let's not fudge details to suit your argument.


Why is it so important for you to reject a pretty fundamental principal. You obviously obtained knowledge from a great source and expanded on that from there...great stuff...why poo poo the (very good idea) that some good recording knowledge is essential to building an effective recording studio.?..which is specific to how it sounds....an architect designing an office building is not the same thing...the nature of the businesses in the office buildings has basically zero to do with the design of the building....a recording studio is a COMPLETELY different animal...and you know that Rod!

You obviously have ears...you obviously gained some recording knowledge along the way through Tony and others...why suggest that someone on there way up doesn;t do the same?

[DAS19]

side note. I work at two studios that model there rooms off of the original power station. Everything from the big reds to the pultecs

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Gearslutz.com App

[audiothings]

stewartfang,

its a given that knowledge and understanding of what goes on in a studio is essential to its designer. a moot point. this does not mean that the designer should have spent decades in the music business. The guy who is commissioning the design should know what he wants, from a functional perspective, and convey it clearly to the acoustician... otherwise you have your problem right there. I need my acoustician to be very strong with his science... Something that would be difficult for him to accomplish, if he spent 20 years behind a mixing board.

.02,

[JustinW]

I'd look for an internship.

[12ax7]

Originally Posted by PRODIJ

How do you become a music studio designer?

Step 1:
Convince somebody that you can design a good studio for a reasonable amount of money.

Step 2:
Design a studio for them.

Step 3:
Work with them to actually make it happen (for a reasonable amount of money).

Step 4:
(Hopefully) this satisfies the client.

Step 5:
Repeat step 1 (with a new client).

Step 6:
Rinse, repeat, etc.

Step 7:
If you don't waste your clients' money, the word about your ability just might spread (thereby attracting more clients).

...Of course, in order to actually pull this off, you might have to actually know what the hell you're doing (which means you just might have to work your ass off to actually LEARN STUFF!).

(Learning math and acoustics FIRST will damn sure help a lot.)

.

[Max Dread]

I think perhaps a good analogy to use here is that of a guitar tech. I'm sure there are plenty who do not necessarily play the guitar.

There is no necessity to play guitar when one comes to a guitar to change strings, intonate, repair a broken headstock, etc etc.

In the same way that different producers/engineers might want a live sounding room, deader sounding room, wide stereo filed vs narrower, etc. different guitarists will have their preferences such as action, string gauge, tension, etc.

If a consultant knows the science of acoustics, the tools available to measure sound, the tools used to fix anomalies and make adjustments to the sound in a room, and so - then they can work towards achieving the goal as set by the producer who will use the room.

Likewise a guitar tech setting up a guitar for a guitarist.

So I don't think there is a need to be a producer/guitarist at all....

And I think if anything there is more scope in the guitarist analogy for difference and deviation due to the variety of "types" of set-ups and how they can differ but still be "right". Even so, the tech does not need to be able to play guita. He just needs to know how to adjust the guitar so that it plays as the guitarist wishes it to.

And likewise a studio....

That's my tuppence anyhow!

Cheers

Max

[Rod Gervais]

Originally Posted by StewartFang

Rod...I actually really appreciate your approach to studio design...I have your book and absolutely love it...but let's not fudge details to suit your argument.

Stewart,

Seriously now, you weren't there - I was - would you please explain to me exactly which details you're referring to?

There is a long LONG way from stating that there might be some benefit in having that background and the claim that it's "the most important part".

There seems to be a piece of "I figured out how and why the rooms worked long before I ever had the chance to actually meet him" that you aren't grasping..

Some people's minds just work that way.......

Here's an example of how some people's minds just "get things" - they don't need to actually have done anything in the field (of music engineering) or had contact with anyone in the field, to just "get it".

Tony figured out - at age 17, how Motown made their drums sound the way they did.....

He had never worked as an engineer - had never been in a recording studio - had no friend who had, he just wanted to know how it was done - and he just figured it out - all on his own.........

This was something that a lot of studios wished they could duplicate - but they could just never quite figure out how it was done........ yet this 17 year old kid did.....

Some people just understand things, without ever having been exposed to it before.......

BTW - Tony is an acoustical genius........ something I make no claim to......

Why is it so important for you to reject a pretty fundamental principal.

Because it isn't a fundamental principle at all...... it is not a prerequisite - it is not the basis from which all other things grow........ it is simply a potential piece of a puzzle which may (or may not, as the case may be) be helpful if someone had a desire to head in that particular field......

I have met a large number of recording engineers in the field who do not have a clue about acoustics......... I've even had to inform a few of them that this is the case when they were having a conversation (in Power Station) as to how the acoustics in the spaces worked.

There is no fact (substantiated) that this is a prerequisite, it simply may be beneficial if someone with that particular knowledge decided to get into the field....

It's really that simple......

You obviously obtained knowledge from a great source and expanded on that from there...great stuff...why poo poo the (very good idea) that some good recording knowledge is essential to building an effective recording studio.?..which is specific to how it sounds....

Listen, I have obtained knowledge from a whole load of great sources........ still am in fact..... this is no different than any other field - none of us are born knowing what we come to know.....

However - I do not have (although perhaps one day I might) any recording knowledge - good, bad or indifferent..... I play around with things in my home perhaps - but that is not of any benefit to me in the field - yet I can build (and design) some excellent spaces..... and I am not "poo pooing" anything - except the statement that this is "the most important part" of studio design.....

When I want something recorded I go to people who actually know what they're doing in that regard.

an architect designing an office building is not the same thing...the nature of the businesses in the office buildings has basically zero to do with the design of the building....a recording studio is a COMPLETELY different animal...and you know that Rod!

Sorry, on that you are mistaken, effective design of any space has to include a true understanding of the function and flow of the space....... this is true whether it is a recording studio, movie studio, business, store, hotel, school, residential home, etc., etc., etc.

A statement like this indicates to me you have little understanding of architecture.....

You obviously have ears...you obviously gained some recording knowledge along the way through Tony and others...why suggest that someone on there way up doesn't do the same?

I don't suggest that anyone do anything - I merely state fact...... nothing more nothing less...... things are not as concrete as you would have them seem.........

BTW - I'm glad you like the book...... thanks for the kind words.

Sincerely,

Rod

[spice house]

I'd rather have rod design my studio than mix my music

wheres my popcorn...