Hi,

After months of threatening it I hereby start the Diginerd's Monster Studio buildout thread.

For those who don't know (or have waited so long that they've forgotten what I'm talking about!), I'm building a purpose built space in the basement of my house.

My key goals for this are:-

1. Best possible monitoring at the listening position.

Time for a fair amount of Maths and a bunch of modelling before I start, and then lots of tweaking once it's built

2. Be ergonomic (ie easy to use and be in).

I'm fed up with my gear being poorly laid out, hard to reach around the back to connect cables (the fact I have to do that regularly is a sign that it's not right!), and the wife would appreciate it not being a fire hazard!

3. Minimize cables & clutter as far as possible.

If you've ever had more than 3 bits of gear you'll be quite aware of how cables and tangles breed like rabbits. Id like to minimize that, or at the very least hide it all from view.

I have a pretty substantial collection of rack gear, so this is really important, espectiall when coupled with point 2.

4. Try not to break the bank or myself whilt I'm building it.

I've not set a budget for this, but I'd like to keep it as cheap as possible whilst still doing a good job. Time, Money & Quality, pick 2.

I I need quality and cost effective, so that means it's going to take a lot of time.

Right now if you put a gun to my head I'd estimate this is going to take at least $2000. Last time I had someone do the buildout for me, it took him and his assistant 3 weeks full time for construction (No painting or gear installation) and they billed me around £7700 all in (That's right, about $13,500!). Of course I moved out 1 year later and it wasn't right so I'm not going to repeat that mistake again!

I really have no idea how many hours this is going to take, but there's going to be little music produced for a while!

I also need to be careful not seriously injuring or killing myself during this process too. Powertools are dangerous, as are heave pieces of sheetrock, sharp edges on studding, and worst of all working with power, breakers and outlets. This stuff can kill. If I stop posting suddenly there may be a reason!

Ok, let's begin.

Here's the space I have to work with:-


View from the bottom of the stairs #1





View from the bottom of the stairs #2




View from under the Window




Back towards the window from the other side




The Ceiling




Planning coming soon..

I like this idea a lot. Please keep us updated with pictures of the construction in progress. My girlfriend and I are planning on buying our own place very soon, and I'll building a project studio strait away.

I'd like to learn from your little proejct here.

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things that come in mind:

1. Make your room symetric. Locate your listening position so that reflextions from walls around you will have equal travelling time and absorption.

2. You got a quite small room, make your walls absorb as much as you can.

3. Place speakers at least 1.5 m away from walls or make them fit inside the wall. Avoid faces (desk, equipment,...) that provide direct reflection from speakers to listening position.

...keep on posting your plans, I'll check them if you like (have M.Sc. in Acoustics).

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The above text is believed to be derived from objective logic. No personal offence, implicit or explicit, is intended. Ambiguous expressions are to be interpreted in the less offensive way.

Thanks for the tips, I am seriously aware that I don't have a lot of space so there are going to have to be some pretty significant tradeoffs.

I'd love to float the room for isolation, but I don't have the height or the budget for that. Right now I'm not even sure of the exact dimensions of the room, as I haven't taken a look behind the panelling. I do know that behind there is the outerwall of the house which is about 15 inches thick. On the long wall the outside is buried under the ground, as is half of the wall with the window. The wall next to the stairs has another thick loadbearing wall, and behind is the garage.

I'm going to have fun with the partition wall that's going to be going up infront of the pillars. Not sure how I'm going to compensate for that. I'm not sure that I want to be putting in massive amounts of brickwork down the middle of the basement..

I'm up to my eyes in CaraCAD right now building models of the room.

I'm tweaking wall and ceiling construction as well as interior dimensions to try and get the smoothest distribution of absorbtion.

This may lead to the room getting up to 12" smallerin width & length as I essntially turn the walls into basstraps whilst making the hwd as dissimilar as possible in the space given.

Oh and I failed to mention I need to damp as much sound going up and out the window as possible. It's no fun mixing at 3am and having the neighbors complain.

As for speaker placement I have a pair of ATC SCM-50A's which are too big for the room. Soffit mounting them could be an option, but I'd loose an additional 24" on whichever dimension I stuck them in.

At first glance it looks like I'll be running lengthwise (Speakers next to the wall with the window) as the modes are more widely spaced that way, as well as making the room have enough space to fit a couple of people in there. It's goign to be tight with the amount of gear I have to install..

Here's an excel sheet I found to start calculating modes & positioning.

Link to speaker specs.

http://www.atc.gb.net/scm50/scm50.html

Gah, a thought just occurred to me. It might be a really bad idea to Soffit-mount these guys in the space available.. Each one has three Class A amps in the back with a massive heatsink.

For those not aware, class A amps are always running at full power draw. If you are listening to silence you basically have a couple of expensive electric radiators as the power is dissipated as heat.

In an enclosed space with little / no cooling this would be a major issue. ATC have a work around (Which I'm not happy to do!) which is remove the amp packs from the cabinets and mount them separately in a cooled space. The throught of ripping theys guys apart is not one I'm comfortale with..

It might be scary. But It might be your best option. It makes total sense in the long run. In fact all of our schools studio speakers (except the mini-self powered monitors on the meter bridges etc) amps are in racks in the wall with cooling equipment.

I would do it if I were you. Then again. I don't own fancy speakers that I would be very nervous about taking apart.

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Hmm, it looks like you'd want to use a dehumidifier down there. (Judging by the look of the paneling near the floor)
They're a little noisy, but keep your basement dry and odourless. I'm thinking moisture would be bad for the studio equipment.

The basement is actually very dry. The damage there is from a flood over 10 years ago, there is now decent drainage outside so it shouldn't happen again.

That said it's a consideration that I want to keep the power far off the floor, and prolly my gear too!

Back to the soffits, another problem is the main power board for the house is in that closet next to the window. I'm going to have to tear it down to make space, or I could build out a wall to put the speakers in with a door next to them.

The problem then is I would have a very asymetric setup around the back. Not only that but by chopping off 2 to 3 feet off the length of the room screws with the ratios of Hight x Width x length, I need to run some more numbers to work out if the payoff is worth it.

I think I'll start poking at the ceiling tonight.

My hope is that above the false ceiling there are open beams to the floorboards above. If that's the case I'll caulk between the boards and along the joists, pack the cavity between the joists with rock wool leaving a couple of inches of joist protruding (Airgap).

I'd like to hang the ceiling (currently planned to be at least 2 (Prolly 3)layers of 1/2" sheetrock off of Resiliant Channel (Top Hat profile track) screwed to the joists.

I'd love to use proper hanging clips too but the resultant additional drop in height would pose problems both accousically and ergonomically. One of the guys I work with is pretty tall and him banging his head into lights (I dream of halogen track lights) would be ungood.

Also they're wicked expensive and from the last time I went through this the kind of construction I described does a pretty decent job, though not perfect.

Thoughts?

Very intresting and good idea posting this, i will follow it

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quote:

Originally posted by Diginerd The basement is actually very dry. The damage there is from a flood over 10 years ago, there is now decent drainage outside so it shouldn't happen again. That said it's a consideration that I want to keep the power far off the floor, and prolly my gear too!

You think it's dry. But no regular basement is dry enough to have electronics in them. (I guess unless you live somewhere really warm)
Also the moisture will be in the air. It doesn't matter how close to the floor the equipment are.
Trust me, it's worth it. The air gets so much better.

Those centre beams would have some (if little) effect on the room modes.
Is bricking up the window an option?