Weekend Project: Yet Another Studio Re-Do

[László]

The weather was so nice over the weekend that of course a couple of RealTraps that I ordered were delivered first thing Saturday. Naturally, this required me to stay indoors and engage in Studio Re-Do #562, avoid any semblance of being in sunshine, and get my exercise doing math and moving furniture around. :top:

Math, you ask? Why yes, there's a mathematical formula that one uses to place absorption panels at first reflection points, after you've made various measurements based on the location of your speakers, your listening position, etc. And there's filtered pink noise that you can use in conjunction with a sound pressure level meter to figure out where to put your bass traps.

Oh sure, you can use a mirror to approximate reflection points, and just stick the bass traps in the corners of the room, which works out to be pretty much the same as measuring and math, but where's the fun in simplicity? Math tells you the mirror was right!

This measuring and math can completely kill off a couple of hours on a nice day. Putting the bass traps and absorption panels up only takes a few minutes, unless you're 100% klutzy like me, in which case it takes a good hour.

But then you get everything mounted in the right location, and you notice that the room now looks pretty cluttered, and things like artwork and furniture must be moved around. Of course, this requires more work with the SPL meter to move the bass traps here or there (as long as you don't change the speaker and listening location, the side panels can stay, thank goodness).

So in addition to putting up the traps and the panels, I re-hung some pictures, put some of the equipment I had in a second rack into the rack under my keyboard stand, to minimize reflections off equipment, moved a shelf unit to the front wall, moved my guitar stuff around, and moved both of my storage cabinets, again to minimize reflections bouncing back into the room. As you know, furniture reflects sound just like a wall.

Here are the results. And yeah, I know, I should become an interior designer with all this effort. :vroam:

The workstation area is here; the rack under the keyboard stand is now full (the gear in there doesn't show in the pic) and filling it allowed me to eliminate a whole rack (the less furniture the better as far as I'm concerned, it just gets in the way):



My Big Idea about a stationary place for my amps was not exactly workable. I learned the hard way that I need at least one Anthro cart to be able to move my amp nearer to the workstation, and I'll have to order another one for the other amp (or for both). But I did find a better location for my Mesa cab. It's on an Isoacoustics stand that was sitting on a caster board so I could find a location that sounded best. Once I did, the stand and the cab were placed on an Auralex Gramma platform.



And finally, I moved the storage cabinets out of the way. The whole thing leaves plenty of room for acoustic sessions of various kinds for my work. This back area has some acoustic diffusers bass traps, and absorbers coming:



All in all, I'm pretty happy with the result so far; the side panels make a substantial difference in clarity, the bass traps are located properly (I have two more that aren't shown in the pic that go in the rear of the room), and I've finalized what else needs to be installed - two larger bass traps, one more absorber in front, and then a few more for the rear.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

C.L.E.A.N.

 

[rugerpc]

C.L.E.A.N.

It's a S.I.C.K.N.E.S.S.





...maybe he could be ill in my studio.

 

[László]

It's a S.I.C.K.N.E.S.S.





...maybe he could be ill in my studio.

Haha!

Messy is the sickness, neatness is the C.U.R.E.!!

Seriously, I'm that guy who trips over stuff when I move around in the studio. So everything has to be out of the way.

 

[toothace]

Loooking goood!

 

[rocguitar]

Nice weekend project.....beats doing yard work!

 

[andy474x]

Warning: failure to adhere to the Schefmanian weekend philosophy can result in the following:

And...

The former can be quickly remedied, the latter... that's gonna be an unfortunate summer tattoo.

Where was this advice last weekend Les???

 

[Michael B]

Nice man!! Looks like a very comfy place to play Les!!

 

[Raven17]

Very cool brother, my studio will hit a makeover next year.

 

[markie]

That's what I'm talk'in bout ................ Very nice Les!

 

[László]

Thanks, guys!

Cool selfie, Andy, clearly I avoided the dreaded burn!

That rear wall will have a few diffusers and mini-traps installed, takes a few weeks to make them. But the room is really starting to take shape. I'm working on a new project starting today that I get to play some roaring guitar on, so that'll be fun and I get to work out the kinks.

 

[Egads]

Dang, Andy! How short is your keyboard player?

 

[rugerpc]

Dang, Andy! How short is your keyboard player?

+1 I was wondering at too....

 

[László]

Below is a shot of the speaker cab on its correct combination platform. The other shot was the cab and the iso platform on the caster board.



Why two isolation devices, you ask? Here's why:

In a room like mine, there are some pretty significant problems that need to be overcome when a loudspeaker is cranking out volume. First, there is a concrete floor. Although the floor is covered with extra thick carpet padding and carpet, concrete tends to vibrate pretty easily and to transmit vibration into the adjacent structures; the studs, the walls, etc. Also, a basement room like mine has concrete walls behind two of the four drywalled walls. As with the floor, these vibrate, too. But there's more bad stuff with basement walls like these: in a regular room above ground, the walls and wooden floors act like diaphragms, move in and out, and don't hold in sound pressure to the extent that concrete does. To make matters still worse, two of the four walls do act as diaphragms, which makes bass resonances a further problem, unbalancing the sound of the room.

Add to these issues a grid ceiling with ceiling tiles suspended on metal rails prone to rattling, and metal ductwork between the ceiling tiles and the upstairs floor, and you have even more ridiculous noise transmission issues. Even with a speaker cab very well isolated under normal circumstances, sound pressure levels and room resonances are going to make for rattles, noises, etc. You get the dreaded rings and buzzes going on a recording, and it's not good, especially if you are relying on the quality of said recording for your livelihood! I did have a ceiling designed for sound absorption installed, with more massive tiles (mass=less sound transmission), but it's like peeing into the ocean. Doesn't do that much to the ocean.

A cab sitting on the floor will generate half-space bass reinforcement (i.e., bass gets doubled) sitting on the floor. An adjacent wall will double that amplitude again. So the room's inherent problems are made worse.

The best thing one can do is isolate the cabinet from the floor, and get it off the floor. If it can be angled up slightly, you can not only hear it better to place the mics, it will also angle the SPL away from the floor.

I use two isolation devices in combination to do both things. The Auralex Gramma is a good isolator; it's not perfect by itself though, for three reasons: First, it only gets the cab a couple inches off the floor, and while vibration is greatly reduced, you're still getting reflections off the floor causing half space reinforcement. Second, there are reflections off the surface of the platform itself. And third, while the Gramma greatly reduces vibration transmission, it ain't perfect!

So I also use an Isoacoustics stand. This allows me to raise the cab further off the floor, tilt it back, offers additional isolation, and the way it's designed it not only achieves greater decoupling from adjacent surfaces, it counteracts the movement of the cab when the speaker pistons move, so the image of the signal going into the mic is more stable.

I suppose I could use a chair on top of the Gramma, or some such, but then it'd be kind of tippy, and I'm kind of not into tippy. My idea of a good time doesn't include seeing my speaker cab go crashing onto the floor from chair height...plus the Isoacoutics riser is a good design. It's upper surface is soft rubber slightly cupped feet that actually suction onto the surface of the cab a bit, making it more stable. And it sounds better due to the aforementioned isolation device, tilting, etc.

Of course, crank the volume loud enough, and the simple sound pressure levels are going to shake what's in the room, but up to about 95-ish db, I get no discernible buzzes with this setup, and it's reasonably rattle-free at over 100 db (the sheer volume at the mic is enough to mask the few rattles that remain in the room).

Since most of this room rattling occurs in the lower frequencies (a low C note being the worst culprit with the cab), I'm installing the Realtraps Mega bass traps within a few weeks, as they're the most efficient on the market. I might have to use some of their ceiling panels, too. Unfortunately, this is the price one pays when one doesn't have a purpose-built studio with floating floor and properly installed and angled walls. But constructing one would put me out of business during the time it'd take to build, and I can't have that happen. Plus my budget for gear would be greatly reduced. And it would be a mess. I'm too old for living with that kind of mess for a few months. Just not gonna do it.

Anyway, how's that for a very long-winded rationalization for a simple thing like a place to stick a speaker cabinet?

 

[sergiodeblanc]

How many layers of drywall you got down there?

 

[László]

How many layers of drywall you got down there?

One to the outside concrete walls (they're insulated, too), and two to the inside walls leading to the storage/hvac areas to reduce noise from the HVAC. The problem isn't soundproofing (which is why you double the drywall or do a room within a room), it's the ceiling grid and the ductwork. Double thickness drywall doesn't help that, of course.

And noise also escapes and enters via the suspended ceiling openings, which would happen with any suspended ceiling.

In my last house, I had the basement ceiling drywalled; it looked better and had less rattling at high volume, but the disadvantage was that in order to service something like a leak in the water pipes, or a duct, I had to have a hole cut in the drywall, have it repaired (I don't do that kind of work ya know), and have the ceiling painted. That got old damn fast! So I decided not to do that again.

One thing that influenced me not to have the room set up for live recording in the first place was that when I moved in, I was working a ton at a studio designed by Russ Berger, that was a real-deal place where the owners had invested a couple of million bucks in the construction alone, not including the gear! I didn't really plan on recording live instruments at my home studio, just planned to write and mix here. I was a consultant to their studio, and was assured I'd have no issues getting in whenever I needed to.

Trouble was, after I moved they started getting booked up so fully for audio post that I couldn't get in to record. So my decision not to do a better basic job on the room proved to be not so good!

I blame...myself.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

The problem isn't soundproofing

Ahh... So the space isn't really acoustically treated besides some diffusion? That's dope your wife doesn't hate on you too much for making a racket, even though it how food gets put on the table the people in my life are just constantly annoyed with me when I work from home. I miss my old space and wish I had taken pictures to share... Right now I'd kill for a lead box I could crawl into for work, or maybe a whisper room... I'm thinking about building something in the basement but I really like this idea for a "Scream box" from that TV show Malcom in the Middle, I figure I could just out a mic in there.

They show it here at the 1:02 mark. (don't know why I can't embed it to start there.)

 

[László]

Ahh... So the space isn't really acoustically treated besides some diffusion? That's dope your wife doesn't hate on you too much for making a racket, even though it how food gets put on the table the people in my life are just constantly annoyed with me when I work from home. I miss my old space and wish I had taken pictures to share... Right now I'd kill for a lead box I could crawl into for work, or maybe a whisper room... I'm thinking about building something in the basement but I really like this idea for a "Scream box" from that TV show Malcom in the Middle, I figure I could just out a mic in there.

They show it here at the 1:02 mark. (don't know why I can't embed it to start there.)

Haha! Yeah, I need one of those!

Actually, the room is treated with absorption via those side panels in the pic, and bass traps. There's hardly any noise leaking upstairs from the usual keyboard work, mixing, etc., I do. However the guitars do get kinda loud, despite the heavier duty ceiling tiles I bought and the bass traps.

So I generally record guitars during the day. If I have to record guitars at night, well, my wife's just happy I'm making a living, I guess! If it's really, really, late I'll lay down tracks with a modeler, and then re-amp them the next day.

However, my son told me that he got great results on the most recent 30STM album recording with an early AC30 in an iso-box built for the band's tours (they keep the cabs offstage and mic them in an iso-box for live shows, something that surprised me!).

It looks like a big road case, but inside there's quite a bit of absorption, and a mic holder, which is kinda cool. I wouldn't have imagined something like that sounding very good, but the guitars on the record sound darn good. The record was tracked at Jared's home studio, that like mine, isn't soundproofed, so there's another idea I would like to try one day. But I do hate the idea of investing in a big padded box when there's other gear out there that I need, and that's frankly a lot more fun!

For drums, I just book outside rooms. I do have the room to record drums, but it's just too much of a pain.

 

[Boogie]

...an iso-box built for the band's tours...It looks like a big road case, but inside there's quite a bit of absorption, and a mic holder, which is kinda cool...

I saw this technique in action at Experience one year and have been on the hunt for an old, beat up road case ever since. Problem is, those cases last for ever, so there aren't any available. But yeah, it worked perfectly and the ambient noise was whisper quiet.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

I saw this technique in action at Experience one year and have been on the hunt for an old, beat up road case ever since. Problem is, those cases last for ever, so there aren't any available. But yeah, it worked perfectly and the ambient noise was whisper quiet.

I know a guy.