Critique My Studio Design in Sketch Up

I recently found an investor to go into the studio business with and were pretty close to start building. The space we plan on building the studio in is actually my bands old practice room, so there's no concern for reducing sound levels outside for the neighbours. Our main goal is to make a sound proof control room that divides the space into a live room, control room, and somewhat dead room. And if there's money left over we might consider putting in a kitchen. Our budget is $15,000, but at least $7,000 of that is going towards a Toft ATB and monitors....so roughly $8,000. I've attached a step by step Sketch Up file of the basic studio design in hope that some of the more experitised studio builders that visit this forum can help me iron out the flaws. Any help would be greatly appreciated. thx Jason

Aloha, Here's a 2D view. Aloha 8)

looks ok for a start. what about reception, lounge/kitchen, bathroom, disability access, fire safety, HVAC, etc.? some of these things will alter significantly when your budget is for construction of a commercial facility.

gullfo wrote:

looks ok for a start. what about reception, lounge/kitchen, bathroom, disability access, fire safety, HVAC, etc.? some of these things will alter significantly when your budget is for construction of a commercial facility.

Hi Glen The space shown in the sketchup file is in the same building as a rock club owned by our investor, so fire safety and disability access will be taken care of by him. He recently installed a new HVAC and heating system for the whole building. But I do realize that we'll probably need a seperate system for the control room. The two big black doors lead to our investor's office that we'll most likely be used for reception. The smaller black door leads directly to the club's bathroom. We're considering installing a kitchen in the odd space directly in front of the control room if it's not used for a vocal booth. Hope that helps. thx Jason

so how much isolation is needed from the rock club and other rooms?

gullfo wrote:

so how much isolation is needed from the rock club and other rooms?

Well here's the deal. We've been using this space to record bands for sometime now and we've never had a problem with bleed from the rock club. It would be nice to isolate the live and "somewhat" dead room from the club, but with the budget we have, our main goal is to have an isolated control room. And hopefully by building the control room between the two rooms, the other rooms will be isolated from each other.

in that case, i think your design could work as long as you take into account the ceiling over the rooms to ensure the possible flanking is minimized.

gullfo wrote:

in that case, i think your design could work as long as you take into account the ceiling over the rooms to ensure the possible flanking is minimized.

I've never heard the word "flanking" in regards to acoustics before...can you explain what it means? And would ceiling clouds take care of this? I'm also unsure how to go about treating a control room of this size for room modes. There's so many different ways to go about it...any suggestions? As for the tracking rooms, they both have parellel walls. Would there be a big improvement in acoustics if we built one angled wall?

flanking refers to sound paths through openings around the isolation assemblies (such as openings in the ceiling between rooms or duct work) or through the structure itself (such as shared walls, floors, etc. which conduct sound). room mode treatment as well as first reflection points is best started by using broadband treatments such as porous absorbers made from rigid fiberglass across corners to low frequency control, and a variety of absorbers on walls and ceilings to break up reflections to get the control room nice and tight, or without killing the ambiance of the live rooms. you can build treatment walls on angles to get absorption, diffusion, and reduce echoes.

flanking refers to sound paths through openings around the isolation assemblies (such as openings in the ceiling between rooms or duct work) or through the structure itself (such as shared walls, floors, etc. which conduct sound).

Thx for explaining that to me. :) There shouldn't be too many problem areas.

room mode treatment as well as first reflection points is best started by using broadband treatments such as porous absorbers made from rigid fiberglass across corners to low frequency control, and a variety of absorbers on walls and ceilings to break up reflections to get the control room nice and tight, or without killing the ambiance of the live rooms.

For room treatment, we plan on building clouds to take care of ceiling reflections in the control room, and if budget permits, in the live rooms as well. In my sketch up design I purposely built the two tracking room walls differently...the one I've been calling the "live room" has the drywall on the outside so there's more reflections, and the other which I've been calling the "somewhat live room" has the drywall on the inside and the 703 on the outside inorder to absorb reflections. Would it be more wise to build both tracking room walls like the "somewhat live room's"? And in the control room, should I consider soft mounting the speakers or would I be safe mounting the speakers on stands?

you can build treatment walls on angles to get absorption, diffusion, and reduce echoes.

I'm guessing you're referring to the parallell wall question I asked? thx for your time.

flanking refers to sound paths through openings around the isolation assemblies (such as openings in the ceiling between rooms or duct work) or through the structure itself (such as shared walls, floors, etc. which conduct sound).

Thx for explaining that to me. :) There shouldn't be too many problem areas.

room mode treatment as well as first reflection points is best started by using broadband treatments such as porous absorbers made from rigid fiberglass across corners to low frequency control, and a variety of absorbers on walls and ceilings to break up reflections to get the control room nice and tight, or without killing the ambiance of the live rooms.

For room treatment, we plan on building clouds to take care of ceiling reflections in the control room, and if budget permits, in the live rooms as well. In my sketch up design I purposely built the two tracking room walls differently...the one I've been calling the "live room" has the drywall on the outside so there's more reflections, and the other which I've been calling the "somewhat live room" has the drywall on the inside and the 703 on the outside inorder to absorb reflections. Would it be more wise to build both tracking room walls like the "somewhat live room's"? And in the control room, should I consider soft mounting the speakers or would I be safe mounting the speakers on stands?

you can build treatment walls on angles to get absorption, diffusion, and reduce echoes.

I'm guessing you're referring to the parallell wall question I asked? thx for your time.

you could build reversible treatments so you can vary the room acoustics and this way if you need two more dead than live rooms you have them, or if you need one or the other live or dead its possible.

gullfo wrote:

you could build reversible treatments so you can vary the room acoustics and this way if you need two more dead than live rooms you have them, or if you need one or the other live or dead its possible.

You wouldn't happen to a have a link to the reversible treatments would you?

here's an idea: http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7329/example2016x1720room202eo8.th.jpg panels with absorption on one side and plywood on the other hung by wire so you can flip them over. same for clouds overhead. slots are options for diffraction and should vary in size and spacing - fwiw not the same as resonators slots... also if you do a search on this site, you find some examples of built in treatments which open and close to expose different surfaces.

gullfo wrote:

here's an idea: http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7329/example2016x1720room202eo8.th.jpg panels with absorption on one side and plywood on the other hung by wire so you can flip them over. same for clouds overhead. slots are options for diffraction and should vary in size and spacing - fwiw not the same as resonators slots... also if you do a search on this site, you find some examples of built in treatments which open and close to expose different surfaces.

That's a great idea Glen. One question though, should I build the "somewhat dead room" wall the same as the "live room" wall, where the drywall is on the outside? thx Jason

drywall the entire room for boundary purposes and then hang the absorbers/reflectors on the walls. flip them as needed to make more live...