Looking for a property for new studio - Gold Coast

Hi, I have introduced myself in the welcome thread. It is so cool to have this resource. I don't think I would be embarking on this project if not for you guys. I have been looking at Warehouses to move my studio into. I'm going Pro! It's a big stretch. I still need to secure my finances and we may sell our home . My wife likes this warehouse on Township Drive in Burleigh on the Gold Coast ion Australia. The Gold Coast is becoming a nice little Studio hub. Taking into consideration this is the fastest growing city in Australia and a business SWAT analysis I'm concluding this project will be financially viable. This project is being budgeted around $600,000 including the purchase of a $450,000 warehouse. Hope for the best and plan for the worst. Anyway, the planning begins. I've included a pic of the warehouse and some plans of the Studio (downstairs) and apartment (upstairs). These a really rough and just a mess around to get some ideas going and to get some feedback. I've been loving reading all your post so it's time for me to post. Cheers, :wink:

Waauw! :shock: no kidding. It's beautifull.... Could you modify your sketchup to include the names/functions of the spaces as you had em in mind? Also a 'top view' 2D picture of each floor here in your thread for all to see would be a good bonus. Cheers, Sigert

Another thread's reference to "studio porn" comes to mind. This is a gorgeous space.

Drumdrumdrumdrum wrote:

Hope for the best and plan for the worst.

Excellent, Bourne Ultimatum :) Seriously, VERY nice.

Hi Sigert, I'm still learning how to use SketchUp. I think this is the 2D image you requested? Cheers

Excellent.

just curious. it seems expensive to build a $600K+ facility... you might consider hiring a pro designer because of the money involved... John Sayers is near by... :D for my 2¢... i would definitely flip the CR and booth so the CR is accessible to the hall w/o having to go through the booth, or one of the live rooms. i'd also park outside and use that space for more than car storage. if you're planning on living in the same building (i.e. building a living space on a second floor) i'd think carefully about the relationship between the 2 floors...

I'm listening??? This is why I'm posting so I can get all this great advice. The car space is a requirement for putting in the second level. Have to have a certain amount of car spaces per sq meter of commercial floor space. I do want to access the CR from the hall. Any thoughts about the 'relationship' between the two floors? I'm just experimenting with a few ideas just now. I have not decided on a property yet. However we had previously been looking at 100 sq m properties for $250,000. Then we saw this next to the park and considered selling one of our other properties. I know it is a lot of money $600,000 and I will defiantly use John, living in the very next suburb and all. I'm doing a proper marketing plan for the studio too. I was looking at having two CR's to make it more financial too?

I must say "motown room" has an intriguing ring to it. Could you explain the concept a bit? Unless of course you'd rather keep it a mystery or company secret... 8)

Motown Room! It's no secret. I think Avatar in New York have done it too. It's just using the same materials they had in the room in Detroit. I believe it was a vinyl floor wall to wall. Office type titles suspended ceiling, plaster walls and from the old Motown photos I've seen vinyl and ceramic tiles half way up the walls too. I need to do a bit more research but thats the basics. Everything goes against the 'theories' of a 'good' studio sound. I love the drum sounds they got at Motown. Anyone else ever built a Motown style room?

now all you need is some of the Funk Brothers and your Motown room is complete :wink: "Standing in the Shadow of Motown" DVD - required viewing... twasn't the room to be sure... when you consider the 2nd floor - i'd make sure that no quiet spaces (like bedrooms) or high impact spaces (like exercise rooms) are over the live room. same for plumbing over the CR etc... this way you avoid disturbing folks in their sleep, or having thuds from dropped wights or running machines or dance practice from interrupting the next Yesterday recording. or having sewage overflow or burst water line wipe out your desk and racks... also fire protection from the downstairs... didn't realize you have to have in interior garage to qualify for a second floor... in the US many places need a minimum sq ft area for parking which is dependent on community bylaws (most times) to determine if a garage is needed and if it can be detached or not... if this is a commercial facility, then i'd also take into consideration any disabilities requirements for the floor plan, access, bathrooms etc. safety for occupants upstairs - separate egress routes if possible. i think the idea of having additional "control rooms" (like post prod or video edit suites) is a good idea and having the ability to split off the 2 live rooms/control rooms (i'd make the Motown room more capable than just Motown using reversible or changeable treatments) so you could have 2 projects going on at the same time without interference... that said, lot's of things to consider between 2 floors, commercial vs residence, and the odd shape of the building imposing itself on your layout...

gullfo wrote:

when you consider the 2nd floor - i'd make sure that no quiet spaces (like bedrooms) or high impact spaces (like exercise rooms) are over the live room. same for plumbing over the CR etc... this way you avoid disturbing folks in their sleep, or having thuds from dropped wights or running machines or dance practice from interrupting the next Yesterday recording. or having sewage overflow or burst water line wipe out your desk and racks... also fire protection from the downstairs... didn't realize you have to have in interior garage to qualify for a second floor... in the US many places need a minimum sq ft area for parking which is dependent on community bylaws (most times) to determine if a garage is needed and if it can be detached or not... if this is a commercial facility, then i'd also take into consideration any disabilities requirements for the floor plan, access, bathrooms etc. safety for occupants upstairs - separate egress routes if possible. that said, lot's of things to consider between 2 floors, commercial vs residence, and the odd shape of the building imposing itself on your layout...

I'm digging ya. I put the plumbing from the bathroom behind the wall at the back of the CR. I was thinking that would be sound proof enough and also accessible for repairs. The easiest thing will be to keep ALL the plumbing in one place just above whatever plumbing is already installed ie. the Toilet. The car spaces does not have to be indoors. There is no room outside on this particular property. Like I keep saying, this property may not be 'the one'? I do like it's outlook and want to utilize the parklands and windows in the recording area if I can. I like your design, very effective and useful for the amount of space. Are the the parallel walls cool? I've always liked the straight old rooms like Oceanway and Universal (now being refurbished as NorthWest) I think they are the way to go. There is another school of thought that says NO parallel walls. Any comment, criticism or theories on this one??? This following plan is for a smaller warehouse that I looked at last week. This one is going for $250K and the fit-out will be around $75K??? (to $100K?) including residence.

It seems that most of the plans I'm doing are for the bigger warehouse with the windows. My wife and I went back and had another look at a couple of warehouse again last week. We both like this one with the windows onto the park. It's way out of our budget. I'm getting stuck into a business plan to see if we can get a venture capitalist (investor) on board. Here is another plan for this warehouse based on the dual CR design put forward by the other Glenn.

i like your latest one. seems very practical. nothing wrong with parallel walls, you just need to understand the options from construction, space utilization, treatments, etc. i see a lot of designs with non-parallel walls which work because of space restrictions but the trade off is often less treatment options and in small spaces that can be a hard choice. if there is space, i opt for parallel boundary walls to simplify construction and design analysis, then plan the treatments. if smaller spaces, angled walls can work to help some of the potential treatment issues (like flutter echoes) but room modes, rt60, etc all still need to be treated and so one way or another you should expect that treatments will occupy space, its often just a matter of where... if you have overhead space, then that can go a long ways towards alleviating issues relating to the floor plan...

Sounds like you where just getting on a roll there Glenn? It seems there is plenty of space in this property at [removed] However, the space does come at an expenses. I've managed to squeeze some more space and get a bigger live room in this design. PS I also edited my other JPEGs so that they don't mess up peoples view of the thread. Cheers.

looks awesome that last drawing!! Love the house - looks like lots of very nice possibillities! Good luck with it!

I've moved from planning in sketch-up to planning in Excel!!! I think rather than keep doing all these fancy drawings I better get a business plan together if I want to build something as substantial as what I've drawn? I've been interviewing a couple of local commercial studio for a 'competitor analysis'. Lose Stones and Big Note Productions. You may know them John? I'll be doing this business plan for the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile I'll be posting some pics of my current studio soon. Cheers.

Here are some pics of Mustard Seed Recording Studio as at January 2008. I thought I would document the journey from a home studio to a commercial studio. Cheers

I think you maybe need another couple of drums just to finish off that kit :lol:

definitely need more pedals, i cannot imagine how you can keep up during 320bpm songs with so few... :shock:

ok ok. I always get the wise cracks about the kit. But seriously........I will get a couple of more drums and pedals in time. The only thing holding me back is that I have run out of mic pres. It's useless having such a fine drum kit if I can not record it :wink: This is a recoding forum after all. The funny story is that when I started building this kit last year I was looking around for a studio to record my solo drum compositions in. The only places that had all the mics and gear I wanted where the expensive commercial studios. I did the math and decide to buy my own gear. Then I had a few other bands start asking me if they could hire my studio. Thats when 'Mustard Seed' was born. Follow this link to see the kit in action: http://www.youtube.com/v/_hMeakhkvG8&rel=1 Cheers

dude! its like having a one-person percussion team! nice work. have you ever tried just a 3 or 4 mic recording? dampen the snares a bit and with the right room, could sound pretty incredible without resorting to close mic'ing everything...

Thank you Glenn. The 'Trap' kit was originally created back in the 1920's to do the job of an ensemble. Somehow along the way it became it's own thing. Now, I think, it's time to get back to the ensemble thang. I have seen a setup of Terry Bozzio mic'ing his kit with only 7 or 8 mics. Awesome pre amps and each mic was worth over $3000! Lots of ribbons. He gets a nice sound. The YouTube was mic'ed with only 3 room mics. I'm happy with the close mic'ing for now. I think I'm getting a good sound. When I have a few 'Diablos' and 'Coles' I may use just a few mics? Currently using: 2 x AT4050 - OH Beta 52A inside main kick 3 x NT1000 out the front of each kick 5 x Sen 421 on 10" to 16" toms 3 x AKG451 over the 5 x 8" toms SM57 on SD 1 x SM57's facing away from the kit into the room But before John moves this thread to the wombat hole I would like to show you all another "DESIGN". This one is a standard 8mx13m warehouse 117 sq m. I've worked out a way to fit two CR's and get access to everything but the drum room from a hallway. This affords me the luxury to have my kit set up and to teach in the drum room while I have a band recording in the live room. Amps can go in small iso cambers under the stairs. Each room is still fairly spacious. I'm quite happily surprised by this one :D I read that someone else here in Australia is designing a studio for a similar amount of space. Cool!

Shoot I could play that kit! I'd have to hire help, but I could get er' done;)

you might go with a smaller CR window (on the inside) to allow the soffits to move in a bit and get steeper angles on the sides. on the live room side the window can be wider since you have a view angle that expands from the CR out...