WSDG: Architecture and Acoustics

Inside Expression's Studio 2

Expression College has been a client of WSDG's for many years. Ben Versluis recently blogged about Studio 2, which recently opened providing even greater flexibility to students.  Here is an excerpt:

"Expression College recently opened their new room, Studio 2. It was designed to be a hybrid tracking/mixing/mastering room (in fact, it’s the only room at the school that is deemed as a mastering room). It is, of course, a Pro Tools HD3 rig running on OS X Leopard with a Control 24 and a whole bunch of outboard gear. Custom ATC monitors, too." Photo courtesy Ben Versluis. Read the entire post here or visit the WSDG project page.

Seven Myths and Common Mistakes in Studio Design/Construction

Some time ago, Tape Op did an interview with John Storyk and included a very interesting sidebar--"Seven Myths and Common Mistakes in Studio Design/Construction." Since that article ran over two years ago, we have had requests from all over the world--in fact as far as Poland--for copies. So here is the "7 Myths' piece (below) as well as the entire article in PDF form.

 Seven Myths and Common Mistakes in Studio Design/Construction

1.  Parallel walls are bad. This is simply not true.  People confuse the fact that hard reflective parallel walls can (sometimes) cause flutter echo, which (sometimes) is not a good thing.  Flutter echo is very easy to correct.  In fact, rectangular spaces can often be quite beneficial, more economic to build and for low frequency modal analysis, much easier to analyze.

2.  Acoustical ceiling tiles are really acoustical.  Ridiculous - they are just absorptive at speech frequency and they are the benefactor of a very old marketing effort.  If you look up acoustical contractor in the yellow pages, you will usually find a list of people who simply know how to install acoustical ceiling tiles!

3.  Standing waves are bad – Again, ridiculous.  Standing waves happen whenever you have sound in an enclosed space. What can be troublesome is standing wave frequencies (eigentones) that are piled up at the same frequency, causing rooms to appear to reinforce certain frequencies more than others.

4. One common mistake is to apply too much absorption in studios.  Deadening critical listening rooms with foam or similar products usually causes mid and high frequencies to disappear but does little to affect low frequencies, thus causing even more discrepancies between the low frequency ranges.  Put mid –high frequency absorption only where reflection control is really required.

5.  Always orient a control room with the long dimension front to back.  Actually I would try not to do this in general.  Having the side walls further apart usually assist in controlling first order reflections from the front stereo speakers.

6.  Bass traps have to be deep. Not true. They can be, but in fact, some of the most efficient base management architectural devices are membrane type absorbers which do not necessary have to be deep.  Placement is probably more important than depth.

7.  Curtains or other similar sound absorption devices will keep unwanted exterior noise out through my windows. Usually not! The curtains will control sound that is generated from inside the space, but will have little or no effect on transmission.  You would be better to try to seal the glass edges, or install a better glass window unit with higher transmission values.  Without a doubt, the holy grail of acoustic isolation inventions would be acoustic paint! – I am still waiting for this.