Control Room Size?

[seeds]

I'm thinking of using a 13 X 13 room as the control room in my new building (for the time being...to save on buildout costs)

My console is 7' x 3.5' so it would fit width wise, but I'm concerned with the depth from the behind the engineer to the wall... Anyone see any issues with the size of the room? Is there an ideal size, (anyone or any room designers out there?)

[gerax]

Hi

I'm not a room designer, but the only thing I know for sure is that a square room (13x13 in your case) it's the worst shape for a control room, since modes and standing waves are going to pile up due to the extreme simmetry and parrallelism of the walls; the only even worse sahpe is a cube ( [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] ) for the above reasons x3.
Check out some of these links for more infos:

WSDG.com

acoustics 101

tubetrap

Hope this helps

L.G.

[Barnabas]

I agree, you don't want a square. Take part of the space behind the engineer and make a closet, or a closet and a vocal booth.

[ctmartin]

Seeds,

I'm not a room designer either, but as suggested in a previous response, you REALLY should check out the ASC TubeTraps to deal with the acoustic issues you're definitely gonna have with a square room... they sound fab. They're multi-purpose too, so you can set 'em up around your board & monitors for mixing one minute, then on a whim set 'em up around a vocalist, drums, whatever for recording talent. I know more than one serious producer who uses them, one of whom had to set-up a makeshift control room in an office space (!!) and mixed a record there with the TubeTraps that Howie Weinberg at MasterDisc (mastering facility) didn't have to do much with -- the mix was that tight.

Peace,
C

[CCash]

I think in the latest issue of Pro Audio Review Jon Storyk (spelling) answered that the quickest fix to a square room is to indeed build a machine closet the length of one wall. He tends to favor facing one of the long walls in a small control room.
There is a book by Alton Everest called "Sound Studio Construction on a Budget" that gives some "favorable room dimensions", basically ratios.

Here they are:

A Height 1.00 Width 1.14 Length 1.39
B Height 1.00 Width 1.28 Length 1.54
C Height 1.00 Width 1.60 Length 2.33

[PDupre]

Beyond the shape question, there is the question of size. Everyone I speak to about control room size says that they wish they had made the live room smaller and the control room larger. With the advent of so much DI, guitarists, bassists, and keyboard players all want to track in the control room. I'm not sure why, but they do. I would make the control room as big as possible without causing accoustical problems. My .02

Peter

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally posted by PDupre:
Everyone I speak to about control room size says that they wish they had made the live room smaller and the control room larger.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That's possibly the best advice one could offer. Unless you are cutting orchestral sessions, there is never any point in having a larger studio than control room because everybody is going to always want to listen back in the control room together. Too small a control room becomes a deal-breaker long before too small a studio ever does.

[seeds]

Thanks for the feedback. Bob, or anyone, I have the floorplan layout with the current dimensions I could email a .bmp file, if you have time to look at it and offer any advise...?

Thanks a million.
[email protected]

[adam_w1]

I'd say don't go crazy with grandiose schemes since you're making the best of a bad lot;

Since you know your room will be problematic, use nearfields to get as much direct sound as possible to the listening position & moderately treat upper front, back & side positions with some wideband absorbant materials, maybe melatech or even rockwool slabbage at a pinch.

In a space that size you are not likely to introduce a structure of sufficent mass to alter the room dimensions effectively, and perversely, with a rectangular/square room it is somewhat easier to predict the problem bass nodes and therefore treat at the worst offending frequencies with the use of tuneable bass trapping. Building a big ass closet/room is probably going to act as a bass trap unless it is built of serious blockwork, so make sure you get it right frequency wise rather than compound the problem, as a studwork structure like a wall with plasterboard on it sounds like a panel absorber to me..

just my 2 euros..!

[seeds]

Adam, the back of the engineers head will be just 4-5 feet from the wall behind him, not room for a closet. After the room soundproofing (new walls outside) and deadening inside (using Moulton Room method maybe?), any recommendation on building base traps...I've seen some folks that made like bench/seating with them?