Acoustics!

This week the first acoustical treatments began showing up in the control rooms. In this shot of the front wall of Control Room A (remember, they're all identical except for color and fabric treatments) you see layers of rock wool attached to the framing for the corner bass traps. Unfortunately, I didn't get a shot of what's inside the cavities - namely loosely stacked unfaced pink insulation. The traps will be sealed on all sides except the front.


As you can see, rock wool extends beyond the line where the acoustical ceilings will hang, all the way to the hard drywall ceiling. Suspended ceiling height for the front of the room will be 8' 6", with the hard drywall ceiling at 12'. Plenums for HVAC supplies will set atop the corner traps and feed air into the room through a 6" reveal between the suspended ceiling and front wall. Very clever and discreet.


Believe it or not, this isn't quite all the conduit. Two-inch pipes will also be included to handle larger 16-pair microphone and line level connections to the machine room patchbays. The framing cross member in the center is to hold the flat panel wall mounts. Each control room will feature a 52" 1080P monitor in this spot.



And now for the rear wall. Ceilings at the rear will be 10' 6" high, then slope down to the front wall height of 8' 6" beginning about the middle of the room.


That's not a picture window in the center. It will hold six 2' x 2' wooden diffusers. Not only will these help the room's acoustics, they'll look cool too. Beneath will be a plenum and HVAC register for the return air. If you notice the short joists across the top, these aren't just structural supports for the front of the wall. Hanging diagonally will be double-faced rigid bass traps. By being suspended from above, they're more effective at trapping those insidious, rogue bass frequencies. David tells me the frequency response of our new control rooms will be superb, which is exactly why we're going to the effort. It's great knowing that we'll be making critical mixing decisions in that kind of environment.

Now on to the largest room in the new place, Studio 1.


I wrote about construction of the stone walls (and their acoustical importance) in earlier posts. Here, the framing is complete for the bass traps which will angle gently into a 14' high theatre curtain at the front of the room. David will use the same rigid bass traps in these cavities that he's using in the rear wall of the control rooms. You'll notice that the hanging joists are in two tiers. The raw material for these hanging traps only comes in 8' heights, so it takes two tiers to get the job done - 8' at the bottom, and just over 5' at the top. Total height of the traps (and the stone walls) is 13' 6" and the suspended ceiling will be at 14". Compared to our current tracking room, that's some extra cubic feet of room volume!


These traps will also be sealed. The sheetrock on the back wall wraps around to the back of the trap. The theatre curtain will be installed 2' from the back wall (flush with where the traps end) so we can store mic stands, music stands, stacking chairs and such behind the curtain for a nice neat appearance. The cavities behind the traps to the side walls create a perfect nook to tuck the theatre curtain when it's open. As you can see, rock wool is ready to line these structures as the work continues.

Meanwhile, drywall finishing in the common areas is almost complete and painting of the hallways, offices, restrooms and break area may begin this week. Next week installation of the ceiling grid will commence.

The only problem with all this great progress is that every time I visit, it's getting harder and harder to drag myself away and get back to writing some music!

Until next time...