Just opening a small studio in Madison, WI to help out the local bands with a cheap but good place to record. My control room is a rectangle, about 10 ft x 30 ft. The window to the live room is in the middle of the 30 ft wall. I need to treat the room so it sounds good. Any recommendations for placement of stuff in the control room, how to better isolate without ripping out walls, and diffusers/basstraps/etc.? Thanks!

It's best to have the desk facing the 10' wall so the sound has to travel a longer distance when reflecting off the wall behind you. Position the desk so that you are sitting 1/3 of the distance of the room from the front wall, which in your case will be 10'. I would suggest bass traps in all the corners (from floor to ceiling), high frequency absorbers on first reflection points (use mirror to find points on the side walls and on ceiling above you), high frequency absorbers on wall directly behind you and directly in front of you, and isolate your monitors from the stands or soffets. For best results, you'll want to isolate the live from the control room as good as possible. Why? Becuase it's hard to tell how something sounds coming out of the monitors if your also hearing bleed from the live room. You said the wall has a window looking into the live room. Is it just a piece of glass separating the two rooms? If so, sound will travel right through that and it will be almost like the drums are sitting in the control room with you.If you can provide a bit more info, I can suggest some ways of increasing isolation between the two rooms (L x W x H). Here's some basic info I need to make a better assesment. How big is the live room? Is there a door that goes directly from the control room into the live room, or do you have to go through another room to get between the two? How are the walls constructed (standard wood framing with R13 batt insulation and single 5/8 drywall on each side, resilient channel, metal studs, multiple layers of drywall, double framed walls, brick, etc.)? How about the ceiling and floor? What kind of heating and cooling are you using? Do you need to isolate sound from traveling outside of the studio or noises from coming into the studio? Is the electricy run inside the walls, or in conduit mounted on the outside of the walls?

OK, cool. That helps a bunch. The mirror idea is great! I already have a couple of bass traps and may turn the desk 90 degrees (which will make the window be on the left side of it...that should be ok though..right?)

Hi and thanks for the help. Here are the answers to your questions:1. The live room is about 30x30, both rooms have ceilings of 10' hanging ceiling tiles. Above them is that wool insulation stuff they use in basstraps, above that im not sure. Floors are concrete, I was going to put a rug in over that to look fancy/absorb sound?2. The window is on the 30' wall between the CR and LR and I had installed by some woodworking friends that had extra glass lying around. There are two panes, each one about 1 thick. There a half inch apart at the top and about 4 inches appart at the bottom. Sealed with extra insulation around the edges inside behind a piece of board. 3. The walls are standard 2x4 with standar insulation inside. Not sure the depth of the drywall boardes, but i would guess 5/8's, maybe 1/2? there seems to be a decent amount of sound getting through, but the amps are on the dividing wall between the rooms and the bands practice really effin loud!4. Neighbors won't get pissed about sound, we're cool there. There's alot of building around the room, so i don't hear any noise from the outside. The building itself is pretty thick and solid brick. 5. Electricity is run through conduit on the outside of the walls.6. Heating is electric baseboard panels, no cooling as of yet other than a wall ac (blows hot air into the hall)in the live room....and a fridge that im sure i'll have to unplug when recording or move somewhere else. 7. The Live Room and Control Room's doors are both off of a hallway and so have no connecting doors.Unfortunately both rooms are pretty square, there is potential down the road to rip out walls and redo later, but it's not very affordable now until i get some more projects through the place. And the spot is only costing me about 70/mo (but I have to share the live room with some other bands i know, they practice there, but i figured I can move equipment out for a recording session or have a separate storage area eventually.

As a minimum I would place a bass trap in each corner. Place acoustic panels in primary reflection points in your room. This can be worked out with a mirror. Sit in your listening position, and get a friend to walk around the room with a mirror flush against the wall. Not moving your head, anywhere you can see the monitors directly in the mirror, along all wall and ceiling surfaces will require an acoustic panel. This is the primary reflection point. This will very noticeably help focus the reflections in your room. Also the placement of where you are located in the room can help too. They usually say around 2/3rds back in your space is best.

Very cool info sir! Thanks so much for all of the tips. Eventually I would like to rebuild the wall in between to get more angles and build the wall and install the window properly. I don't have enough tenure in this place to do that yet, but eventually they may let me do that. All of the ideas you brought to the table sound excellent and reasonably easy to acheive. Again, I really appreciate the help!

jasonj3512 wrote:2. The window is on the 30' wall between the CR and LR and I had installed by some woodworking friends that had extra glass lying around. There are two panes, each one about 1 thick. There a half inch apart at the top and about 4 inches apart at the bottom. Sealed with extra insulation around the edges inside behind a piece of board. 3. The walls are standard 2x4 with standard insulation inside. Not sure the depth of the drywall boards, but i would guess 5/8's, maybe 1/2? there seems to be a decent amount of sound getting through, but the amps are on the dividing wall between the rooms and the bands practice really effin loud!By angling your glass panes the way you did, you lost more in isolation than you gained in reflection control. You want as much dead air volume between them as possible. Since the air has no place to travel it acts as mass, thus increasing the isolation. The average airspace volume is reduced significantly due to the angle. Also, the angle actually needed to keep reflections out of the average mic area is something quite excessive. Many studios use a very slight angle to their glass panes, not for sound reflection, but to deal with annoying light reflection.Another tip, if you can't redo any walls to make them of the proper double leaf construction, double up on the layers of drywall on both sides, preferably making the two layers different thicknesses to make them resonant at different frequencies. You can also use Green Glue between the two layers as well. Then, seal the outermost sheets of drywall to the floor using acoustic caulk, or some form of silicone caulk that will keep its elasticity for a long period of time. Any type that dries out easily is no good. It needs to be able to contract and expand within reason.Also I see that your live room is 30x30x10. A general rule of thumb for acoustic room design is to not have the dimensions be multiples of one another. Not only are they all multiples of one another, 2 are exactly the same. If built properly, you can shorten a dimension and gain a storage space to deal with that.

Bump. I am also in the process of starting up a project studio and I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on the best door/window treatment for sound between the live and control rooms. There looks to be some nice prefab studio doors and windows out there. Is that the best way to go? Thanks!

I'd imagine the prefab stuff is pretty expensive. We built the window between control room and live room and we're idiots. It wasn't terribly difficult and although the glass was not cheap, the rest didn't cost much at all. We built a window about 5' by 3' and a small maybe 2' by 2' for under $800.

I don't know if you have recycle centres there, or anything similar? Its basically a dump with stuff people can go and buy, occationally finding absolute bargains.Well, here we have a few, and I found a perfect solution to the control room window. Instead of buying expensive double glazed windows new, or anything similar. I decided to check out one of the recycle centres, where I found what was once a conservatory pulled apart in to sections, one of these window sections was a perfect size to go between my control room and live room, bigger than most double glazed windows. 50 double glazed, mint condition, and I can just build the wall around it. I suggest you take a look, phone around places. Before planning/building a studio space I would have laughed at old conservatory being sold. Now, it is my favourite bargain.Sometimes these places will have awesome doors too, old conservatory door would work well if you could build it in to your space? If you were to fill the door with insulation it would also be pretty damn good acoustically.