There are four primary parts to the Calculator:
The Axial Mode display uses the room's dimensions to calculate room resonances and report problems.
The Absorption Tables calculate absorption of many common materials.
The RT60 Graph displays the summary information in a simple-to-understand format
The Miscellaneous section keeps some handy information easily available.
The program requires Excel 4.0 or better. It was written for Macintosh, but usually runs fine in the Windows environment.
Here are the files in Macintosh Stuffit format.
Here are the same files in PC ZIP format.
Brief documentation in text file format here.
Some people report having problems downloading the documentation page. You can view and print the docs here...
File names have no extensions, the main sheet contains macros that are blocked by many downloaders. Rename STUDIO to STUDIO.XLS to load it.
Note that the PC version will require changing the default font from Helvetica, Arial works well. Do not change the bold/regular settings, just select the entire sheet and format->cells->font to select Arial, and 9 or 10 point. Leave the style blank to preserve bold vs. normal. I don't know what is required n the Mac version.
As it stands, the individual graphs do not display in Excel 2000, they need to be re-linked to the proper cells to the right - you want to link to the fixed Sabin values.. If someone does this, if they would be so kind as to post the update to me I will add it to the site.
Please Note: I am a music professional, not an acoustical professional, and cannot guarantee or support any calculations made by this sheet - the math works, and if used correctly will give useful results, but if you, as I, are an amateur at sound conditioning - and if you're reading this, you almost surely are - then you're in the same boat as I - no money and a great sounding room in your mind. This program is offered for the purposes of assisting other small studio owners in improving the sound in their recording and mixing environments, and is meant purely as a guideline for assisting in sound conditioning pre-configuring - that is, trying out ideas for building vs. buying sound traps, various absorbers and reflectors, and is meant to be used with the aid of the really good books currently available that describe in great detail how to maximize the sound in your recording and mixing spaces.
The basic idea is that first you educate yourself in what it means to create and condition a small studio (read one of the books, or go online to one of the companies that offers tutorials. you don't need to know a lot, but you must understand the terms and concepts or none of the numbers will make sense. Then try out different room sizes till you get a ratio of wall sizes that will sound good (or just accept the room you have, and enter those numbers.) The program calculates the places where the room needs help.(the overlapping or absent nodes) and shows them to you. You can enter the area of the room composed of vrious common substances - wallboard, brick - and generate a graph of trhe room response. Then you can try adding 'x' amount of this treatment, or some of that, and watch the results on the graphic chart. When it looks as good as you can get it, build it.
The one qualification and endorsement I can make is that it has made three of my rooms sound great! And I can promise that any attempt made to improve the sound, if done thoughtfully, almost always makes an audible improvement.
