The Perfect Studio The purpose of this (and many) studio builds is to create a great listening space, a place where one can mix and/or master audio with complete clarity and translation to the 'outside world'. To achieve this, we firstly need to know what constitutes a great listening space, an answer that has evolved throughout the years of studio design, but is often vaguely, and perhaps over-simplistically, defined as a room with a flat frequency response. Meaning all freq

The Final Finishes... Hiding, Hiding, Hiding! At this point, the studio as a working room had, by all intents and purposes, been built. But there were still a few of those final steps to make the finish look plush. First of all, the ventilation and access points needed to be hidden/cupboarded away. This involved attaching some soundproof plasterboard to the upper wings of the side walls, again, using acoustic sealant to seal the gaps and make sure the ventilation ducts were s

The Design Clearly, I had reached the point where I just wanted to fill my still-to-be-finished studio with more furniture! Shortly after building my sidecar, I decided I also needed a new guitar pedalboard. My current pedalboard was designed for lugging about gigging, it was a sturdy case but was flat and didn't have any space for hiding cables. I wanted a board that looked nice, could hide the cabling, and functionally more convenient. I initially looked around the internet

Studio Sidecar Design Remember a few blog posts back, when talking about audio connections, I hinted at the concept of always preparing for expansion? Well, that's exactly what I didn't do with my studio desk! I started to realise I was running out of rack space (why is new gear always so tempting?), and, to be fair, the studio could do with some more surfaces and cupboards/drawers to put equipment on or in. I began looking at suitable sidecar expansions, however, most of the

Now we can begin to make the studio look nice...ish! As I was using the original brick walls as the boundaries of the studio, I wouldn't be finishing off my treatment with plasterboard. Firstly, this would undo some of the acoustic treatment, and it would, in part, make my room acoustically smaller, which would throw my initial calculations out the window. Secondly, it would add back in further mid and high frequency reflections back into the room. So how do we cover up the a

One part of the pre-planning stage for the studio build involved thinking about convenient connectivity. Ideally I wanted all connections to be within easy reach, near the appropriate equipment, while also being out of the way. The last thing I wanted was unsightly cables and looms running across the studio floor, otherwise what was the point of it all! In my various prior temporary set-ups, I would inevitably find myself rummaging around the back of equipment looking for tha

Why Diffusion? The decision to build a diffuser into the studio came about from an aesthetic appeal, and a curiosity in their acoustic characteristics, having never really worked in a studio with diffusion before. After doing some research, I found that some of the benefits of diffusion suited my room and its usage. Essentially, diffusers can make a room 'sound' bigger than it actually is, which, in the case of my small basement, would be much appreciated! Aside from this, it

It was time to finally finish the front wall. This consisted of cutting, sanding, oiling, and attaching around 60 pine strips to the existing MDF board. The reason for this slatted wood design was two-fold; firstly - at a depth of 17mm they would add extra weight to the front wall, secondly - the slatted design would also act as a diffuser - keeping the room acoustically lively. After I had attached the fabric to the front wall and ceiling, using a staple gun, I attached the

Having been worried through research about the low-end problems of a small room, I looked at all possible avenues for appropriate solutions. Not being content with just one form of bass-trapping alone, I decided I would also add some acoustic hangers. Acoustic hangers are known to provide a good amount of absorption, especially in the low frequencies. However, there is not a great amount of detail on how these types of absorbers actually work. The paper 'Sound Field Character

This week we're turning our attention back to the front wall design, the how, and why, I mounted speakers flush into the wall. Why? What are the benefits of doing this, and do they outweigh the negatives? First, the positives: Mounting speakers into a wall removes potential SBIR issues. SBIR stands for Speaker Boundry Interference Response; this is the phasing effect you get from placing your speakers near a wall. As sound radiates from a speaker in multiple directions, espec

The ceiling was always a point of contention, the already low ceiling height would be introducing some nasty room modes, but the room height couldn't be reduced by much more without becoming uncomfortable! There was also the matter of sound-proofing from the room above, which would take up even more space. So what was the solution? Unfortunately, there wasn't a one-fix solution for all problems, and I decided to focus my efforts on treating the internal acoustics over sound-p

With the internal walls in place, I could turn my attention towards the floor. As with most studio designs, carpet is a no-no, absorbing too much high-frequency energy can make the room sound dull and lifeless, especially if used for recording. A reflective surface is preferred, with the option of using a light rug to stop any nasty reflections. I opted for 14mm thick engineered wood instead of laminate or vinyl, as these cheaper alternatives tend to ping back too much of tha

With the fundamental bass trapping in place, I could now turn my attention to the front wall construction. In my design, I opted for flush mounting my speakers into the front wall due to several factors. One was the chimney breast taking up some of the front wall space, leaving empty cavities in the corners of the room, placing my speakers and lots of acoustic treatment within would make good use of this empty space. Secondly, there was some ugly pipework that I needed to hid

The problem with small rooms is that they tend to exhibit disparate low-frequency energies, with large nulls and peaks up and down the low-end. With bass frequencies having the longest wavelengths, they typically require a large amount of space to be absorbed sufficiently to avoid these issues. Herein lies the quandary, how much of the already small room are we going to take up with large amounts of acoustic treatment? There are several different approaches to treating the lo

Having clean, usable power and the right lighting in a studio is a must! I've been in too many studios where you spend more time searching for an available plug socket than making music, or sitting under sterile lights not feeling the music. A studio needs to be an environment where you can create and feel the music without distractions, this is where getting little details right like suitable power and lighting can make your studio a home. One aspect to take into account is

With any sealed or sound-proofed room, the challenge is in getting a constant flow of fresh air into the room and getting the stale air out. Taking with it any excess moisture, especially from a room situated underground. If adequate ventilation isn't achieved, a muggy, damp, and hot climate will be the result - far from ideal living conditions! The downside to adding ventilation is that it creates a path for sound to travel through, minimizing the amount of sound reduction b

Once the fundamentals were sorted, it was time to start building the internal framework. I bought a shed-load of pressure-treated timber from my local timber merchants, which they suggested I would be able to carry home (just around to corner) and I wouldn't need to bring the van around. That walk was the longest in my life, and the closest I've come to feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. After recovering from the walk I could get down to measuring and cutting, m

The problem with basement builds is damp. The problem with soundproofed builds is ventilation. So why not combine the two and have one super problem that I have to solve! Well, that's just what I did. In this week's post, we'll focus on the damp proofing side of things, but bear in mind that adequate ventilation was planned to keep a decent flow of fresh air coming into the studio. The first step was to check for trouble areas in the basement. As I mentioned earlier, the base

Removing Supporting Columns As with anything, we need to start with a solid foundation to build upon, in this case... literally. Before I could begin throwing up the studio walls, I needed to sort out a few problems with the basement. Firstly, the supporting columns that were standing in the way of an open studio space. The picture below shows one column left standing, but there were 4 of these! As this was working with the foundations of the house, I wasn't comfortable doing

Testing the Waters Before beginning this project, I hadn't had much experience of building things apart from the odd bit of DIY. So I decided to start building the desk for my studio, although the studio wouldn't be ready for another year, this would provide good experience for me and I could still use the desk in my temporary studio space. Desk Design The main thing I wanted to my desk to be was ergonomic, having everything within reaching distance and to be sat at the right