House built around studio design/build thread

[Gregwor]

Hi Greg, struggling to see how flipping them like this allows you not to have a 4th baffle over the other design, but you seem to know what you're doing with it so all seems good.
So, in my first rendition, the trunk was closer to the wall and to have the exit of the silencer match up with it, I'd need the 4th baffle. I flipped the trunk and register positions so the register will be closer to the wall instead. Now, the exit of the silencer will line up with the trunk only having 3 baffles.

If the walls are fixed directly to the steel jack posts I wouldn't worry about additional noggins, those connections will probably be far more secure than the adjacent timber sections.

For sure. I'm going to investigate drilling holes through the jack posts for this. I sure hope it's to code.

Have you considered the facing on that section yet?

Measurements will determine that. For now, fabric is the only thing I know will be on there in some form or another!

The RFZ looks good btw. You thought about your back wall yet?

Just hangers. I initially had 20" for rear wall treatment but added an extra 4" to it last night to make an even 2 ft. I would like a diffuser on the back wall for aesthetics, but I do know that it will make the mix sound worse for the band. I'm leaning towards having one because ultimately, I want the room to sound the best for me, not them.

I realised when playing on sketchup the other night, if you trace the vertical RFZ from a single speaker at the correct angle, it's a little different, especially when angled clouds come into play.

One night I messed around with that and it hurt my head, bad. I couldn't for the life of me trace the angle properly. You should make a tutorial video on YouTube showing how to do it

If you want to ray trace using the speaker angle add the rays to the speaker component itself and the rotation axes will be relational to the speaker rotation, so you can still use the handy red, blue and green axes with your protractor tool

I totally get that, but how are you taking the angle of the cloud into account? (the ray isn't going to stay parallel to the speaker)

Thanks Waka for the response. I sometimes feel like I'm talking to myself here haha

Greg

[Soundman2020]

on a ray trace eminating from the mid point of the speakers.

Ummm... that's why the rays of a ray trace should NOT come from the midpoint of your speaker! They should come from the acoustic center of the speaker! The spot where the acoustic axis starts.

If you want to ray trace using the speaker angle add the rays to the speaker component itself and the rotation axes will be relational to the speaker rotation, so you can still use the handy red, blue and green axes with your protractor tool

This is how I do it:

Soundman2020-Ray-Trace-method-01.jpg

That version only goes out to 35°. I have other versions that go out more. There are several layers of components there, with different things attached to different parts of the model, but yes, at the top level of the hierarchy they are all attached to the speaker, so moving or rotating the speaker also moves and rotates the ray-trace "cone". Note that the ray-trace component is centered on the acoustic axis, not the middle of the speaker. Important.


- Stuart -

[Soundman2020]

but how are you taking the angle of the cloud into account? (the ray isn't going to stay parallel to the speaker)

Draw a series of rays from the acoustic center to the cloud, all in the same plane, but at various angles at regular intervals, as I show in the diagram above. At the spot where each ray meets the cloud, drop a construction line perpendicular to the cloud. Measure the angle between that perpendicular and the ray, and draw a new ray that starts from the intersection point, but flipped to the opposite direction by the SAME angle (angle of reflection= angle of incidence). In other words, if the incoming ray strikes the solid surface of the cloud at 27° from perpendicular, then the reflected ray will start out from that same spot, but angled at 27° in the opposite direction.

It's boring, tedious, but not that hard to do.

- Stuart -

[Gregwor]

Draw a series of rays from the acoustic center to the cloud, all in the same plane, but at various angles at regular intervals, as I show in the diagram above. At the spot where each ray meets the cloud, drop a construction line perpendicular to the cloud. Measure the angle between that perpendicular and the ray, and draw a new ray that starts from the intersection point, but flipped to the opposite direction by the SAME angle (angle of reflection= angle of incidence). In other words, if the incoming ray strikes the solid surface of the cloud at 27° from perpendicular, then the reflected ray will start out from that same spot, but angled at 27° in the opposite direction.

Coming to save the day as usual!

I'll give this a shot when I'm not feeling so sick an can handle the tedious task.

Do you have any insight on my other posts by chance Stuart?

Thanks again!

Greg

[Waka]

Ummm... that's why the rays of a ray trace should NOT come from the midpoint of your speaker! They should come from the acoustic center of the speaker! The spot where the acoustic axis starts.

Hi Stuart, I was actually referring to how Greg had drawn his RFZ from a point between the two speakers' acoustic axis, perpendicular to his front wall. I understand it needs to be at the acoustic axis.

Draw a series of rays from the acoustic center to the cloud, all in the same plane, but at various angles at regular intervals, as I show in the diagram above. At the spot where each ray meets the cloud, drop a construction line perpendicular to the cloud

This is also how I do it

[Gregwor]

Well, I've been working quite hard on the design, jumping from one thing to another.

I have a question that maybe someone could shed some light on. Here in this picture you can see that my lower soffit hangers are pretty short due to 4" of insulation around the walls.

Soffit Hangers.jpg

Obviously deeper insulation works better, but so do deeper hangers. If you had to choose between deeper hangers or deeper wall insulation, what would you choose? Obviously deeper wall insulation would be the cheaper solution as homasote is outrageously priced here.

In other updates, I think I'm getting my HVAC subpanel (which will have my home central air conditioner on it as well as my live room mini split) as well as my "studio" sub panel (which will have all of my outlets on one leg and lights on the other leg) run/hooked up tomorrow.

Greg

[Soundman2020]

I would drop the thickness of the one at the top of your picture to 2", and add 2" length to all of your hangers. The 2" thickness is still reasonably decent.
Also, try angling your hangers a little, instead of having them head-on to the front of the soffit. Perhaps have the one on the right more or less parallel to the right edge (skip that small one on the right, and start with the large one). Also consider extending the front of each hanger so that it "sticks out" in the empty area between the framing members, if possible. Maximize surface area of each hanger.

- Stuart -

[Gregwor]

So here is a picture of the sub panels installed. The bottom small one is for the house central air conditioning unit and the ductless mini split I'll have for the drum room/garage room. The top sub panel will be for outlets and lights for all three of the studio rooms. Overkill at 100 Amps for the top sub panel as I'll be running LED lights and don't have lots of outboard gear. But hey, I didn't pay for the wire!

Sub Panels.jpeg

And, I've been hard at work on SketchUp. 10+ hours each week doing research and drawing. Then ~2-4 hours a day studying the Acoustic Handbook and this forum. I'm getting fine details sorted out for things like ceiling joists and the window framing. I'm also really close to being done the soffit design. I've blocked out the mounting system out of respect for Stuart. I'm happy with how I designed the speaker mount module so that I can change speaker types with ease. You can see the divider platform is two layers of 1/2" MDF, then the base of the module itself is also two layers of 1/2" MDF. It bolts in with ease.

Blocked Soffit Mounting 1.jpg

Blocked Soffit Design 1.jpg

I am going to use 1" of 703 in front of hangers and areas like that. There is no dimensional lumber that is exactly 1" thick, so I've decided to use regular dimensional lumber (like 1x6"), run it through the jointer to make it nice and square and then rip it to 1" strips. With that, I can build frames to hold the 703 and pull fabric taut over it/staple it to the backside of the 1" lumber. After that, I think I'll use 2" brad nails to fix these units wherever needed. If anyone has any better methods, please share. I'm at the stage where I'm thinking about finishing materials.

For example, I was trying to figure out how I could cover up the nasty side of my soffit baffle beef material AND fix 1" of 703 (as described above) to the side of the soffit (the window area that has grey fabric in "blocked soffit design 1" picture). I found some trim that has a bit of a weird shape made by a company called Alexandria. It's not super expensive (but not cheap as it's a white primed real wood, not MDF) but it has dimensions of 1 1/4" x 4 9/16" which is almost perfect. You can see it here on the right side of the picture, from below so you can see the profile. The shape of it lends to my viewing angles into the ISO room too!

Trim 1.jpg

Along with the fabric frames challenge came a struggle I've yet to conquer. You can see in the pic below, I've drawn the profile with simple lines on Layer0 in Sketchup where I need to have backing to fix fabric to. It's a tilted/twisted nightmare. To make sense of the picture, the bottom right is the soffit, the bottom left is the soffit wing, the top left is the HVAC soffit frame that runs down the sides and across the back ceiling of my control room. The top right is my cloud (ignore the colors - I'm just experimenting with colors and fabrics that I've found on 3D Warehouse).

Cloud Meets HVAC Soffit Framing.jpg

Anyway, I'll keep working and keeping you guys updated. Please chime in with any thoughts, concerns, or tips!

Greg

[Waka]

So here is a picture of the sub panels installed. The bottom small one is for the house central air conditioning unit and the ductless mini split I'll have for the drum room/garage room. The top sub panel will be for outlets and lights for all three of the studio rooms. Overkill at 100 Amps for the top sub panel as I'll be running LED lights and don't have lots of outboard gear. But hey, I didn't pay for the wire!

Sub Panels.jpeg

And, I've been hard at work on SketchUp. 10+ hours each week doing research and drawing. Then ~2-4 hours a day studying the Acoustic Handbook and this forum. I'm getting fine details sorted out for things like ceiling joists and the window framing. I'm also really close to being done the soffit design. I've blocked out the mounting system out of respect for Stuart. I'm happy with how I designed the speaker mount module so that I can change speaker types with ease. You can see the divider platform is two layers of 1/2" MDF, then the base of the module itself is also two layers of 1/2" MDF. It bolts in with ease.

Blocked Soffit Mounting 1.jpg

Blocked Soffit Design 1.jpg

I am going to use 1" of 703 in front of hangers and areas like that. There is no dimensional lumber that is exactly 1" thick, so I've decided to use regular dimensional lumber (like 1x6"), run it through the jointer to make it nice and square and then rip it to 1" strips. With that, I can build frames to hold the 703 and pull fabric taut over it/staple it to the backside of the 1" lumber. After that, I think I'll use 2" brad nails to fix these units wherever needed. If anyone has any better methods, please share. I'm at the stage where I'm thinking about finishing materials.

For example, I was trying to figure out how I could cover up the nasty side of my soffit baffle beef material AND fix 1" of 703 (as described above) to the side of the soffit (the window area that has grey fabric in "blocked soffit design 1" picture). I found some trim that has a bit of a weird shape made by a company called Alexandria. It's not super expensive (but not cheap as it's a white primed real wood, not MDF) but it has dimensions of 1 1/4" x 4 9/16" which is almost perfect. You can see it here on the right side of the picture, from below so you can see the profile. The shape of it lends to my viewing angles into the ISO room too!

Trim 1.jpg

Along with the fabric frames challenge came a struggle I've yet to conquer. You can see in the pic below, I've drawn the profile with simple lines on Layer0 in Sketchup where I need to have backing to fix fabric to. It's a tilted/twisted nightmare. To make sense of the picture, the bottom right is the soffit, the bottom left is the soffit wing, the top left is the HVAC soffit frame that runs down the sides and across the back ceiling of my control room. The top right is my cloud (ignore the colors - I'm just experimenting with colors and fabrics that I've found on 3D Warehouse).

Cloud Meets HVAC Soffit Framing.jpg

Anyway, I'll keep working and keeping you guys updated. Please chime in with any thoughts, concerns, or tips!

Greg

Looking good!

About your fabric problem in the last image, Is there a reason why you need to use fabric here? To me it makes more sense to run your hvac soffit framing the entire length of the wall and box it in with plasterboard (drywall), then increase the height of the speaker baffle wing, but cut the corner out of it to slot around the hvac soffit, and also make the cloud slot around the hvac soffit too.

This is the best image I could come up with on my phone whilst laying in bed Maybe it will give you an idea of what I mean.

sketch-1533287653242-1200x766_crop_1136x711.jpg

Orange represents the hvac soffit boarded in. Brown is a continuation of the speaker baffle wing cut around the hvac soffit. The blue line is showing the cloud fitted around the baffle wing and hvac soffit, alternatively you could just make the cloud not as wide here and make it larger once past the speaker baffle wings. Just a suggestion.

[Gregwor]

Waka (please tell me your real name haha), thanks for your input as usual!

Is there a reason why you need to use fabric here? To me it makes more sense to run your hvac soffit framing the entire length of the wall and box it in with plasterboard (drywall), then increase the height of the speaker baffle wing, but cut the corner out of it to slot around the hvac soffit, and also make the cloud slot around the hvac soffit too.

Yes, leaving the top and bottom of the baffle "open" will prevent deflection of sound in those areas, allowing sound to enter the hanger section behind (I'm working on that section design now). Also, I hate finishing plasterboard and if possible, will avoid having much exposed, period.

This is the best image I could come up with on my phone whilst laying in bed

I'm impressed with your skills!

Greg

[Gregwor]

I just finished the soffit wing design. You can see the hangers and such in the picture. The longest hanger is 4' 7 1/4" long. Homasote and insulation batts only come in 4' lengths, so I'll either have to have a second hanger at the end of the longest one to add the extra 7 1/4" (as I've drawn) or just super chunk that little bit. I think it will come down to cost of material.

Soffit Wing.jpg

Greg

[Waka]

My name's Dan btw I like the hanger design. Are those hangers parallel to the side wall? If so I believe they work more effectively angled away from parallel to act like wave guides.

For the fabric covering, it might be worth covering the baffle wing top ( with fabric ) before putting the hvac soffit frame in.

[Soundman2020]

If so I believe they work more effectively angled away from parallel to act like wave guides.

They still work as waveguides, Dan, even when parallel to the side walls. When they get that big, angling them even a tiny bit reduces the number you can fit in, and makes it complicated. The main reason for angling small ones is so you can make them larger without using up more room depth, but that's not so much of a problem in the corners. Those are plenty large, and will go deep.

- Stuart -

[Gregwor]

So I finished my control room and ISO room inside out ceiling design (minus cutting holes for my HVAC silencer sleeves to penetrate it. The thing that was really bumming me out was that 703 only comes in 2x4 foot batts, and so does drywall and OSB (well 4x8). So, I'm either going to be wasting large amounts of OSB/drywall, or if I make the modules 2 feet wide total, I'll have to trim off 3" of 703 from the length and width. I decided that I'd rather trim off the insulation as I can use it to stuff in places like the soffit, couch riser or the attic portion of my garage. Besides, when I got the engineers stamp for the 7 1/4" deep LVL stud, it was for 2 ft on centre.

Anyway, just to keep you guys in the loop, and I know you all like pictures, here is the modules for the rooms looking from below. They are framed out of 2x6" dimensional lumber and have 1/2" OSB, then two layers of 5/8" drywall on top. A 2x6 is only 5 1/2" tall and the LVL is 7 1/4" deep. That leaves 1 3/4". The 1/2" OSB + two layers of 5/8" drywall = a depth of 1 3/4" which is perfect.

I O Module From Below.jpg

Now, I'm going to price out the difference between 4" thick 703 for the modules (which would leave a 1 1/2" air gap above the insulation or use 5 1/2" thick Owens Corning Pink Fluffy R24. I can't even remember what the exact dimensions of the fluffy is. If it works out that the fluffy is cheaper, I might have to tweak the dimensions of my modules... again

Greg

[Gregwor]

And continuing on with some ceiling design, I checked out some pictures of a Canadian studio design firm: http://www.pilchner-schoustal.com

Basically, I was just inspired by the modern aesthetics of their designs. In order to make my spaces easy enough for me to build without wasting a ton of material and time, I'd prefer to keep things at 22.5 or 45 degrees. Clearly, things like the soffit and soffit wing will be exceptions, but there's no real way around that. Anyway, the cloud right over head (which is parallel to the inside out ceiling above it) will be anchored directly to the inside out skeleton LVL. I will mount lights in it and it will provide "thick" insulation (11") I could build this frame out of 2x4's instead of 2x6's and have 9" of insulation above head instead. I'm honestly not sure whether I need such thick insulation on the ceiling. The two extra inches would help the room feel bigger. . . Either way, that's an easy enough change. If anyone has any input on that, please chime in.

Furthermore, I want to build it into shapes to provide some aesthetic appeal. Between the shapes, I can leave 1" gaps where I can hopefully stuff some LED strip lighting. Between the cloud and my HVAC soffit framing, I will leave 9 1/2" gap where I can also build in some strip lighting for that glowing cloud effect. After sketching a ton of different shapes and ideas, here's the first one I drew up on SketchUp:

Cloud Idea 1.png

The brown wood chunks would have pot lights in them. There would be no voids in the cloud other than the 1" gaps between shapes despite this drawing having some of the shapes without texture on them.

I have also thought about inlaying some strips of different coloured wood on my soffit wing baffles. Something in the triangular theme. Not lots, but something to tie the room together aesthetically.

Greg