Questions about control room construction

[Chris Whealy]

I'm gathering information at the moment about control room design
because we may need to build another one at my church. The room that
could possibly be turned into a control room is a ground floor room with
the following dimensions. L 4.29m, W 3.70m and H 2.81m (that's roughly
14' 1" by 12' 2" by 9' 3" for those people still using old money)

Does anyone have any experience with the style of control room
recommended by Dave Moulton?
http://www.moultonlabs.com/more/making_music_sound_good/

Is this a respected or widely used design nowadays, or is it just a
boutique design with little genuine value? The above article only
briefly describes the style of construction and does not sufficient
detail in order to describe how avoid problems like flutter echo between
the hard, flat side walls.

In addition to having hard side walls, Moulton recommends that control
room speakers should have wide band dispersion in the horizontal plane
of >140 degrees and acheives this by mounting the speakers facing
upwards at an "acoustic lens". The concerning thing is that this design
is now licensed to Bang and Olufsen - which immediately makes them very
expensive. B&O now market this speaker as the BeoLab 5
http://www.bang-olufsen.com/page.asp?id=40

Are there genuine benefits to this type of control room design, or is it
just audio-phool nonsense, or somewhere in between?

Also, I've taken a virtual tour of various recording studios in London
and noticed that although they all have sufficient space, they still use
nearfield speakers on the meter bridge for monitoring . Is this just
the preference of the engineer, or is there a benefit to using nearfields?

Any first hand experience here would be appreciated.

Thanks

Chris W

--
The voice of ignorance speaks loud and long,
But the words of the wise are quiet and few.
---

[Laurence Payne]

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:24:22 +0000, Chris Whealy
> wrote:

>I'm gathering information at the moment about control room design
>because we may need to build another one at my church. The room that
>could possibly be turned into a control room is a ground floor room with
>the following dimensions. L 4.29m, W 3.70m and H 2.81m (that's roughly
>14' 1" by 12' 2" by 9' 3" for those people still using old money)


What's being controlled? If live sound, the main priority is good
visual contact with the performing area and easy access to the
audience area, so you can easily monitor what is REALLY happening. Or
have you got a recording studio in the building?

If this is a recording application, I wouldn't worry too much about
big, expensive main monitors. My experience is that they only get
turned on to impress visitors. Mixing is done on nearfields.

[Chris Whealy]

Laurence Payne wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:24:22 +0000, Chris Whealy
> > wrote:
>
>
>> I'm gathering information at the moment about control room design
>> because we may need to build another one at my church. The room that
>> could possibly be turned into a control room is a ground floor room with
>> the following dimensions. L 4.29m, W 3.70m and H 2.81m (that's roughly
>> 14' 1" by 12' 2" by 9' 3" for those people still using old money)
>>
>
>
> What's being controlled? If live sound, the main priority is good
> visual contact with the performing area and easy access to the
> audience area, so you can easily monitor what is REALLY happening. Or
> have you got a recording studio in the building?
>
> If this is a recording application, I wouldn't worry too much about
> big, expensive main monitors. My experience is that they only get
> turned on to impress visitors. Mixing is done on nearfields.
>
Sorry should have mentioned its for a recording studio that will be in
the adjacent room.

Chris W

--
The voice of ignorance speaks loud and long,
But the words of the wise are quiet and few.
---

[Scott Dorsey]

Chris Whealy > wrote:
>Does anyone have any experience with the style of control room
>recommended by Dave Moulton?
>http://www.moultonlabs.com/more/making_music_sound_good/
>
>Is this a respected or widely used design nowadays, or is it just a
>boutique design with little genuine value? The above article only
>briefly describes the style of construction and does not sufficient
>detail in order to describe how avoid problems like flutter echo between
>the hard, flat side walls.

I have worked in rooms like that, and liked them.

Flutter echo issues can be fixed by cocking the side walls so they are
no longer parallel, and/or by using polycylindric diffusers. The latter
are not very popular today but are wonderfully effective if somewhat
expensive to built.

>In addition to having hard side walls, Moulton recommends that control
>room speakers should have wide band dispersion in the horizontal plane
>of >140 degrees and acheives this by mounting the speakers facing
>upwards at an "acoustic lens". The concerning thing is that this design
>is now licensed to Bang and Olufsen - which immediately makes them very
>expensive. B&O now market this speaker as the BeoLab 5
>http://www.bang-olufsen.com/page.asp?id=40

You can set this up with any system if you'd like. Frankly, I don't
think it's a very good idea. Yes, the wide dispersion is critical so
that you have a nice wide sweet spot, but I think the side effects of
the reflection arrangement aren't worth it.

But, there ARE good wide-dispersion speakers out there. And you can
also argue that now we work in an era where the engineer is glued to
a DAW, the need for a wide sweet spot is reduced.

>Are there genuine benefits to this type of control room design, or is it
>just audio-phool nonsense, or somewhere in between?

It's one way to make things work.

>Also, I've taken a virtual tour of various recording studios in London
>and noticed that although they all have sufficient space, they still use
>nearfield speakers on the meter bridge for monitoring . Is this just
>the preference of the engineer, or is there a benefit to using nearfields?

Everybody has nearfields because some engineers like them, because they
reduce differences between different rooms, and sometimes because they
are check mix monitors.

You'll notice that they have other monitoring in addition to the nearfields,
though. The nearfields are seldom the only thing available.

>Any first hand experience here would be appreciated.

I recommend the F. Alton Everest book on small studio acoustics. Personally
I don't know what makes a good or a bad room on paper, but I sure know it
when I hear it. I have heard good rooms with a very wide variety of
different designs.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."