John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I am in the process of trying to decide how I'd like my vocal booth to be designed. The length is 13' 8" and the width is 6'8". These two dimensions will probably be less by the time I finish designing it, but for now, those are the numbers I'm dealing with.

The ceiling right now is 8'7" before drywall, RC and flooring. The present plan is to have one long wall and one side wall to be a Helmholz Resonator wall, and the other long wall to be drywall, but have panel absorbers with cloth fronts. (The 4th wall has the door in it. I will be making this wall absorbent also) The ceiling in the vocal booth and control room will have clouds in them. I want some "liveness" in the room, but at the same time good absoption.

What I need to know is this...

1.) If I'm on the right track as far as having the room designed this way and any suggestions you may have.

2.) Which direction (which long wall) should the singer sing?...towards the slat resonator wall, or towards the wall with the absorber panels?

ALSO!!!

3.) I will have somewhat heavy bass in my music. The length of the room will be approximately 18ft 5in. I was planning on putting corner traps on the rear wall, a bass trap with hangers next to the corner traps, and a diffusor in the center because of the room length. I have seen some other designs with the whole rear wall (including the corners) being a bass trap with hangers. I was wondering if it would be ok to have the corner traps made the same way as the bass trap with hangers...to have it as one whole trap with a diffusor in the center. I COULD make the rear trap 2ft deep (at it's widest point) Right now I have the depth of the trap at 1ft 6in at it's widest point. I plan on having my trap-hangers in the herringbone pattern made like the design Steve did in the post below (near the bottom of the post)...and BTW...Steve, in case you reply to this, I saw your last comment on page 2...I will probably be in the 75-105db listening range with somewhat heavy bass...would the hangers be necessary then?

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =bass+trap

SO... should I..

A) Make the rear traps with the whole thing being a bass trap (with hangers) and diffusors in the center?

B) Make the standard corner trap with bass hangers next to the corner traps and a diffusor in the center?

C) Make standard corner traps with the REMAINDER of the trap being all bass trap hangers (no diffusor)

D) Something else????????

E) (threw this one in...) The design of the corner trap uses slats in it...No matter what suggestion (A-B-C-D) is given, should I continue the slats up to the diffusor (if the diffusor is something I need to have) or should the BASS TRAP portion front only have cloth on it?

(See the drawing I have attatched below)...(NOTE! The drawing has scale on it, but it is not totally correct as far as the final design... The room design will be basically as shown, but the door/wall to the vocal booth will be different. The square "box" area (with the thin deminsion line) in the rear wall (trap) would be where the diffusor would be...final studio design for critique is coming very soon!!).

THANX!

What I need to know is this...

1.) If I'm on the right track as far as having the room designed this way and any suggestions you may have.

Modally, the dimensions work pretty well; just a minor dip in response around 50 hZ, which shouldn’t bother any vocalist I’ve heard :=)

2.) Which direction (which long wall) should the singer sing?...towards the slat resonator wall, or towards the wall with the absorber panels?

Depends on the sound you want; singing toward the absorption panels will give a dry, focussed sound. Singing toward the slats will leave it brighter and a bit more diffuse; also depends on the mic used (whether cardioid, omni, super or hyper cardioid, etc), how close to the wall, etc - best way is to experiment til you get the sound you want for the particular track.

ALSO!!!

3.) I will have somewhat heavy bass in my music. The length of the room will be approximately 18ft 5in. I was planning on putting corner traps on the rear wall, a bass trap with hangers next to the corner traps, and a diffusor in the center because of the room length. I have seen some other designs with the whole rear wall (including the corners) being a bass trap with hangers. I was wondering if it would be ok to have the corner traps made the same way as the bass trap with hangers...to have it as one whole trap with a diffusor in the center. I COULD make the rear trap 2ft deep (at it's widest point) Right now I have the depth of the trap at 1ft 6in at it's widest point. I plan on having my trap-hangers in the herringbone pattern made like the design Steve did in the post below (near the bottom of the post)...and BTW...Steve, in case you reply to this, I saw your last comment on page 2...I will probably be in the 75-105db listening range with somewhat heavy bass...would the hangers be necessary then?

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =bass+trap

SO... should I..

A) Make the rear traps with the whole thing being a bass trap (with hangers) and diffusors in the center?

B) Make the standard corner trap with bass hangers next to the corner traps and a diffusor in the center?

C) Make standard corner traps with the REMAINDER of the trap being all bass trap hangers (no diffusor)

D) Something else????????

E) (threw this one in...) The design of the corner trap uses slats in it...No matter what suggestion (A-B-C-D) is given, should I continue the slats up to the diffusor (if the diffusor is something I need to have) or should the BASS TRAP portion front only have cloth on it?

This all depends on whether you want to still be able to hear in a year or three; hangers were used in CR’s when loud was better. Since then, it’s been more widely understood that prolonged loud ANYTHING isn’t good for your hearing. I never mix at volumes above 90 dB SPL, C weighted, slow - I reserve that for “dog and pony shows”, and only for brief periods. OSHA limits for safe hearing are at no more than 85 dB, A weighted, for 8 hours - C weighting will show higher levels since there’s more emphasis given to lower frequencies, so I’m actually UNDER the OSHA recommendation by a bit. If you’re anything like most of us, it’s possible you’ll have days where you’re actually in the studio for 12 hours or more. Keeping levels under control is the only thing that’ll save your ears for the long haul, so I STRONGLY recommend EVERYONE follows these guidelines.

In addition to the above, loud mixing will distort your perception of how much bass you need, and prolonged loud mixing will fatigue your hearing to the point you can’t make a valid mix decision without resting your ears for a day or two…

Your room is probably just big enough that rear diffusion might work for you; It’s also big enough to get away with using slats on your rear corner absorbers without running into early reflection problems; however, you may not actually LIKE the room with slats on the rear corners. One way to handle this question is to build the corners framed in, put your absorbent batts between the studs, cover with cloth, and LISTEN. If it sounds good to you on several commercial CD’s, you’re done. If not, and it needs to be brighter, add the slats.

Rear trap - If you can spare more depth, do it. I’d use at least 4” thick rockwool across the front and rear of the trap, and if your rockwool is higher than 3 PCF I’d put a layer of “fluffy stuff” in FRONT of the rockwool before adding the cloth - this will keep the trap absorbent at higher frequencies with less absorption loss due to grazing incidence of the higher density rockwool. Hangers, if made with lighter batting and inexpensive wood, may be cheaper than just filling the entire trap with offcuts - I think it’d be about a toss-up acoustically between hangers and a complete fill of rockwool. Keep in mind this is just a guess; I’ve never had occasion to compare side-by-side or measure the differences.

HTH… Steve