John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I'm John Lehmkuhl - I own PlugInGuru.com and have worked as a principal sound designer with Korg since 1988. I recently bought a new house for my workspace and thought I'd ask what you would do with this space.

This 12 x 21 foot room is on the second floor. Carpet and particleboard comes out tomorrow- beautiful engineered hardwood floors installed early next week. At this point we're nailing the floor down - unless you spend massive money a floating floor won't yield much advantage and will probably be installed incorrectly by the flooring team that's installing the flooring.

Other than the floors, I'm not sure what to do with this space.

Desk with 2 monitors, additional racks with modules - keyboard stands everywhere. I'll do some sessions here but for the most part, I just want a cozy workspace that is accurate to what I'm programming sound-wise. I use Genelec 8340A's, no subwoofer needed.

Where would you sit? Any red flags that I should address before the floor goes in? I will consult with an acoustic specialist but I thought I'd ask here first.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Photo of the room / dimensions:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k5hvk3qts83qy ... 2.jpg?dl=0

This 12 x 21 foot room is on the second floor.

12x21 is a nice size, for sure. Excellent for a control room... assuming that the height is good! Did you check that with a room ratio calculator, to see how your modal distribution will end up?

Carpet and particleboard comes out tomorrow

unless you spend massive money a floating floor won't yield much advantage and will probably be installed incorrectly by the flooring team that's installing the flooring.

Right! http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... f=2&t=8173

Other than the floors, I'm not sure what to do with this space.

Do you need isolation? (What some people call "soundproofing")?

What is the purpose of this room? Is this just a hobby studio, to fool around and a bit and impress friends and relatives? Or is this a serious workplace, where you'll be mixing / mastering commercial music?

Desk with 2 monitors,

What desk? What monitors? And get the monitors OFF the desk! That's about the worst possible place to put them, for many reasons. You should lay out your room correctly, base on the general guidelines and specs for control rooms (assuming you really do want it to be as good as it can be).

additional racks with modules - keyboard stands everywhere.

Those will all have to go in the rear half of the room, if you want it to be acoustically accurate. If the racks are small enough, they might be able to fit under the desk, or in wings off the sides of the desk, like I did in this studio: www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20471

I just want a cozy workspace that is accurate to what I'm programming sound-wise.

"accurate" as in a typical hobby home studio? Or "accurate" as in a high-end pro control room that meets all the top international specs?

Genelec 8340A

OK, so scratch one of those questions above: now we know what speakers you will be using!

Where would you sit?

In a chair?


Sorry, I'll get my coat and show myself out....


OK, on a serious note: There are general guidelines for how to lay out the correct geometry for a control room, that will give you a good starting point. In most cases, that will be sufficient for reasonably accurate acoustics, after you put the correct treatment in the right places, of course. But if you want high precision in your room, then it is often possible to find a better location starting from that theoretical "optimum" location and making a large number of small movements in the positions of the speakers and mix position, while using an acoustic measurement (such as REW) to check the results at each location, and see which is best. It's a long, slow, boring process, but if you want "good as it can be", then that's the way to do it. The correct "theoretical" location is to have your ears 38% of the distance between the front wall and the rear wall, and have the speakers set up in the correct geometric relationship to that, with the acoustic axes of the speakers both aimed to intersect with each other at a point about 12" to 18" behind your head, give or take a couple.

Any red flags that I should address before the floor goes in?

Yup! The above: Do you need isolation? Is your room ratio good?

Also, if you want to hide the cabling that connects the mix position to the rest of the world, then putting it IN the floor or UNDER the floor is a good option. So you would first of all need to get all your cabling organized BEFORE putting the new flooring in.

I will consult with an acoustic specialist but I thought I'd ask here first.

Ummmm... not trying to be a smart-ass, but why would you want to consult with ANOTHER acoustic specialist, after consulting with us? Don't you trust us? Do the studios that we have designed and built not convince you that we we know what we are doing? It just seems strange that you would come here to the forum, which is widely regarded as one of the best places on the internet to get good, solid, scientifically sound acoustic expertise, with proven track record and over 22,000 happy members (rather than the myths, legends, garbage, snake-oil, marketing hype, and amateur silliness that you find in most other places), and then go to someone else as well. I'm very curious about that! If you plan to hire another studio designer to actually design your place, then why ask for advice here first? And if you trust our advice, then why hire another guy? That's a little confusing...

- Stuart -