Questions about how to build ceiling and then some...-Acoustics Forum-Acoustic Fields Forum

Hi everybody. What a great place.

I have tried to search the web and this forum to find some advise. I do not hope that i have missed a topic. If so I’m very sorry for posting again. My first question is about the ceiling. And the only thing i could find about ceiling was for soundproofing this is not an issue in my room. Soundproofing doesn’t matter at all. What matters is the flattest possible frequency response specially from 300hz and down

I bought a Behringer ECM8000 three months ago downloaded REW EQ and thought i would make a nice bedroom with a flat frequency response My wife and I quickly decided that it would be better if i found another place to build a studio :yahoo:

I have some questions that i hope some of you can help me with. This is a totally new world for me.

I moved in to my new room two months ago. The room is actually in 2 plans. But the upstairs will be used as a lounge/office/soldering-nerdy-lab-ish thing. We mostly do Producing/mixing and mastering for electronic music but occasionally we will be recording in the room as well. Therefore there will be instruments in the room, drums, guitar/bas amps, a upright piano and some synthesizers. This means that i can’t sit in the 38% spot of the room. I have to sit closer to the front wall, but after moving my speakers around this seems to be a better spot anyway. (I could be terribly wrong here )

I have done all the wrong things. Moved in taking measurements with a lot of stuff in the room. Put up bass traps measured again, moved speakers around after implementing traps and absorption etc etc. But i has been okay for learning how to measure. But kind of useless. now i wanna do it probably. Unfortunately i don’t have a mdat file from where the room is totally empty with out any traps. I know this is really bad

In the room i have made superchunks in all four corners. These are made of isover (I’m Based in Europe it’s the insulation mostly used here) – From floor to ceiling.

My room:
Length 21.8 feet
Width 15.1 feet
Height 8.7 (actually 7.9, but i will explain later )

The walls are all made of pinewood. On the side walls there are beams supporting the upstairs plan. These are 4X4 inches which means the side walls isn’t plain. The beams are sticking out from the walls with 4 inches. (drawing attached)

I have three questions to start with. There might come more down the road bare with me.

The first one is about the ceiling. At the moment the ceiling is just spear’s with 1 inch plywood on top. The height now is 8,7 feet. But after closing the ceiling the height will be 7,9. The Plywood functions as the upstairs plan floor. I have attached a picture. This is not from my room but it’s the same kind of spear’s in my room though they are a bit more far apart. My plan is to fill up the gaps with rock wool/isover then put laminated water vapour retardant climate membrane on the rock wool/isover and then some kind of fabric and some slim wooden panels.

The reason I wanna do this instead of drywall is because of the height in the room which already is on the short side of what is preferable. In this way I hope to be able to not having a cloud but make the whole ceiling function as one big cloud. Is this good thinking ? or am I missing out on something crucial ?

I have attached waterfall graph and spl measurement from Room EQ wizard. I have a null at 64hz and 108 hz. unfortunately this is an older reading with some bass traps installed. But it might help anyway. I can’t figure out what these peaks and nulls come from. But when i play 64hz/108hz with a sine generator. It is clear that i have a lot of resonant going on in the ceiling between the spears (of course)

Second question. Would it be preferable to build the front wall with 8inch air to the pinewood then 8inch rock wool/ isover and some fabric. to try and reduce the bouncing of the front wall now that I have my speakers placed close to the wall? This will of course take some of the length in the room.

And the third. Because of these 4 inches beams on the side wall. I get small corners vertical all the way down both side walls every time there is a beam. Would I gain anything by filling up the wall with rock wool and add on drywall or fabric ?

Remember soundproofing is not important. It is only for the acoustics in the room.

to summarize:

Ceiling:
Should i use fabric or drywall?
Should i fill up the whole cap in height or would it be better to go with 9 inches of rockwool 9 inches of air? or anything better.

Front wall-
what to do ? Fill up the whole wall with rockwool ? rockwool – air pinewood? leave the pinewood.

Side walls
Do i gain anything by putting 4 or 8 inches on the whole wall to get it plain and nice. If so. What would be better drywall or fabric. (there are also some aesthetics involved here, would love to do something to the walls they are not nice at all).

And last. I was thinking about doing these things side walls/ front wall / Ceiling filled with rockwool. For low end absorption .

Then adding some skyline diffusers in ceiling and behind the listening spot. My thoughts are to give back some liveliness to the room so it’s not totally dead when we need to record instruments. But isn’t my room to small for ceiling diffusers? I would build them into the ceiling so they would end at ceiling height (7,9 feet) (this of course depends on the design/ which frequency to target.

Any advice is highly appreciated. I wanna nail this ones and for all and get my life back :( My plan is to do the ceiling and the walls. then start measuring and decide if more bass trapping is needed. Am I on the right track here ?

And i should add that my main speakers are genelec 8040A with a 6 inch woofer. If you need any kind of information or if I haven’t made my self clear. Let me know and will provide you with what ever you need. Here is a link to the mdat file froom Room EQ https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g9bj6jxzivdn … PhEXa?dl=0

All The Best
Jakob