Back at the turn of the century, when I built my first studio for our own use,  I was told: "put 4 inches of rockwool on the wall, and cover half the wall with pine slats". This was all the information I could access in the pre internet era. I built it, and people who recorded in the studio seemed to enjoy the experience, and I was commissioned to build some of their spaces. Along the way, I figured out that there is more to music studio design and acoustics, than rockwool and pine slats. Over the course of my early projects, I have had the dubious privilege of making many unnecessary and expensive decisions... When I get involved in a studio design project these days, I try to make sure that such errors are not repeated.

A well designed music studio is a thing of beauty and a joy to work in. To build such a studio, it takes much more than the random scattering of "acoustical" materials around the room. 

An understanding of the principles can be very advantageous. Acoustics is not an intuitive science, particularly when it comes to small rooms. For examples:

* Three glass panes separating the control room from the recording area are not better than two... Unintuitive as it may seem,  two are much better.

* A room cannot be "floated" simply by supporting it on 2" x 4"  joists, over so called "neoprene rubber". (This is one of the mistakes I have made,  several times). 

* A diffuser should never be placed at a distance that is less than three times the wavelength of its design frequency (it should have a 'design frequency' in the first place...!). 

* A minimum of 30* milliseconds should separate the original signal from any reflections. 

* Low density  fluffy insulation, under many circumstances performs much better than high density rigid insulation, which is far more expensive... 

These, and many others, are not intuitive... 

A great deal has been understood about small room acoustics over the last 30 years, with significant developments in the last 15 years. For example, when it comes to the design of Control Rooms, there are two disparate preferences. Livelier control rooms - as pioneered by Chips and Carolyn Davis in 1980, by way of their seminal paper published through the Audio Engineering Society, entitled 'The LEDE Concept for the Control of Acoustic and Psychoacoustic Parameters in Recording Control Rooms'. ("LEDE" stands for Live-End-Dead-End). This approach has now evolved and branched out, with a few variations.

The other, is the 'Non Environment' approach, which was pioneered by Tom Hidley, and propagated by Philip Newell, who has written the most comprehensive book on the subject.

While I much prefer the 'Non Environment' approach, it is easy to concede that both approaches have their merits, and suit specific situations and tastes.

On another note, the design of recording spaces can be approached from multiple directions. There are several parameters that are involved in optimizing a recording space for its intended purpose. For example, the decay times at various frequencies must be tailored to suit the instruments and voices being recorded. A room intended for the recording of instruments with deep bass frequencies can be approached very differently from a room intended for the recording of voices. There is also the very interesting possibility of variable acoustics, by way of which a room can be 'tuned' for each recording session, providing options for the sound engineer to choose from. 

Studio Design also involves the art of balancing compromises... the experience of knowing how far one really needs to go, before the point of diminishing returns has been reached... having realistic, achievable goals, with an understanding of the risks involved. For example, an isolation of 80 dB between the control room and the recording space would be desirable, but it would also be cost prohibitive, and eat too much into the available space. So where do we stop? What is really necessary? How do we balance accuracy, isolation, comfort, space and cost? These are questions best worked out with someone who has had the experience of navigating the same issues.

As I mentioned at the outset, I am here to keep you from making expensive, avoidable mistakes. Take a look at the other pages here, and contact me if you are considering building a music studio. 

THE MAIN CHALLENGES

When it comes to acoustics for recording studios, there are two independent things to be considered - isolation and sonic character. In both cases, the challenging frequencies to deal with lie within the first three octaves of the audible bandwidth (20 Hz -160 Hz). 

If the studio is not sufficiently isolated from the inside to the outside, it will simply be stopped from functioning. Experience has shown that neighbours are a more powerful force than low frequencies. 

If the studio is not sufficiently isolated from the outside to the inside, the scope of its use will be extremely limited. Recordings will be polluted with unwanted sounds, leading to compromises during the mixing stages. 

To obtain sufficient isolation at low frequencies, the room usually has to be 'floated', and this is a big challenge in itself. The floating mechanisms - elastomers/springs/jack-up systems - must be designed with great precision and awareness of the exact loads and load bearing capabilities, to result in a system in which the highest resonant frequency is well below 10 Hz. Only this can lead to a room which is sufficiently silent, to make recordings that are unrestricted by the acoustics.  

Sound has both velocity and pressure components. The velocity component is easily controlled with porous insulation such as rockwool. However, accurate control of the pressure component of sound which manifests itself to be a problem at the lowest frequencies, requires expertise. This can only come from experience, and an in depth understanding of the science. 

Some years ago I mentioned to one of my mentors that control below 160 Hz is a "pet" pursuit of mine...  His response, was that the lowest frequencies are "wild beasts" and they will never be pets. All energies go towards controlling them, and by the time you have managed to tame them, you have only respect for their power... To quote him, "everything else is just kindergarten acoustics in comparison".   

THE EASY WAY OUT

As noted earlier, control of the lowest frequencies requires time, space and money. If you are at a loss for one or more of these, there is an easier way out. The good news is that a significant portion of the audible bandwidth can be treated easily and inexpensively, and such treatments will make the most dramatic and obvious difference to your listening environment. You just have to work harder to figure out how your room is affecting the lowest frequencies... trial and error, experience, intuition, and educated guess work. 

I have designed room treatment kits that are available off the shelf, from The Inventory. With one or more of these, you can optimize your room to the extent possible, overnight. If you are willing to work with the attendant compromises of such an approach (something is better than nothing!), mail me with a description of your room, and I will recommend the appropriate solution.

I also build custom VLF (very low frequency) absorbers. These address only the lowest frequencies, which the above mentioned kits are not optimal for. They are more expensive than the room kits, and their benefits are likely to appreciated by experienced professionals only. A few of these, in combination with a couple of the  above mentioned kits, have the potential to quickly and easily flatten your room response, down to the lowest  significant frequencies. 

Bear in mind that these solutions do not address any isolation issues. If your neighbours can't deal with the noise, or you want to record in a noisy area, you still have a problem.