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Help building a small room with audio

Hey everyone, I've got a small "area" in my basement that I use as my computer/recording studio area. I've been thinking about walling it in to make a "room" out of it and I was wondering if I could get some advice.

My speakers are Von Schweikert VR-1's and my rig is a yamaha M406 mixer powered by a Stewart PA1000 power amp. Source is primarily audio files on my PC. The primary instrument recorded via mic is trumpet - everything else is typically electronically generated or recorded directly.

Here is a link to a JPG rendition that I hastily concocted:
http://netnet.net/~tyandjo/forsale/room.jpg

The room is to be 10x8 feet with a desk running the entire length and left side. There is one 2x2foot corner that is cutout to make room for the chimney. Ceiling is roughly 7 feet and will remain unfinished. Desk will be constructed of 2x4's and plywood. Floor is concrete but would be carpeted. One wall is concrete and the others would be drywall. I could drywall the concrete wall but would prefer not to.

My main reason for walling things off is keep the room warmer in the winter months. I live in Wisconsin and it gets cold down in the basement!!

I'm pretty happy with the way things sound right now in spite of the concrete floor and wall. Will it sound completely horrible if I wall it in?? What can I do while constructing to make a small room sound decent?
bentx2
tpreaves's avatar
tpreaves
2,686 posts
 
Completely horrible,I have no idea.It will sound completely different.
schipo
1,268 posts
 
treat the corners and make or purchase some absorbent material. But be liberal with the use of it or you could turn the room into the dead zone.
zargon's avatar
zargon
453 posts
 
Bentx2,

I recently built a dedicated room in a basement which had block walls and a concrete floor similar to yours. One of the walls had existing openings over the blocks between the joists. At the start of the project I carefully measured the frequency response of the room and measured again at various points along the way.

Despite using ideal room proportions, an insulated and suspended ceiling, and insulation and drywall over the sidewalls, the fact the room was now fully enclosed and airtight caused significant low frequency modal peaks that were not present at the start. The low frequency energy was reflecting off the hard cement surfaces and simply had no place to go to be disipated. This energy was previously escaping from the ceiling corners between the joist.

Thankfully, there was a solution which required trapping this energy with corner traps and constructing a hemholtz resonator behind the rear wall. But even though this solution worked very well, the measurements were not quite a good as where I started and extra effort was necessary.

Also, your proposed room will be very close to square, which will exasperate the modes even further. If there is any way to vary your room length/width/height proportions to a greater extent (see Cardas web site) and/or leave openings over the walls between the joists, I would highly recommend it. Even then, plan on plenty of corner trapping.

You might take a look at my system to better understand what I am describing. Making your room succede is possible, it just takes some careful planning and execution.
buconero117
2,311 posts
 
I've done a basement media room, and aside for some of the comments already made, attention needs to be paid to isolating the sound that the furnace will make. Not only the furnace itself but also the duct work. It is very difficult to get the noise floor down, especially if the furnace is old and the blower unit is not properly mounted in the housing. Depending on the unit, it may pay to look into replacing a replacement blower.
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