church conversion

Hello, This is my first post here. I've read all the guidelines , hopefully I got it right. I'm considering buying a church that I would use as a rehearsal space and recording studio. The main room is 28' wide, 62' long and 15' high. See attached pic:

nice place! i'd use any booths downstairs mainly for amp rooms and overflow, or as rental studios/control rooms - post prod, video, gaming etc..., and look to put in a drum booth upstairs and maybe a small vox booth on the side of the CR. use gobos for open recordings.

Thanks for the reply Glenn. I'm used to recording drums in my 700sf and 10' ceilings and I think the results are great. I'm not sure if this room would be too big for drums! is too big a problem? plenty of room for gobos though. Thanks Philip

nope its a nice big room. i was thinking of iso for the drums just in case some session needed it. if nothing else, it could be a partially enclosed drum riser with a nice cloud over it. this way if you need some more isolation you could stack some gobos around it.

One last question (I'll have more if I buy it!) The floor slopes down 18 inches over a length of 40 feet. I would have to flatten it out to make it comfortable for musicians. Would this elevated floor create acoustic problems? would it act like a resonator of certain frequencies? Philip

i don't see it as an issue except for people standing on a slight slope (~1/2" per foot). leveling it might be a challenge since one end would be 18" deep worth of leveling cement... :shock:

gullfo wrote:

i don't see it as an issue except for people standing on a slight slope (~1/2" per foot). leveling it might be a challenge since one end would be 18" deep worth of leveling cement... :shock:

An alternative would be to create terraces, leveling the floor out by making it "stepped" (two terraces = 9" deep, three terraces = 6" deep), if it's possible.

I was thinking that the slope could be problematic for instruments on wheels (piano, vibraphone, etc...) terraces might work as long as it's planned out properly from the start, I wouldn't want to have to move a piano from one to another. I was thinking of flattening it out with a wood structure though, not cement. Of course, the floor would have to be strong enough to support a piano. Philip

the problem with the wood floor is potentially it becomes a drum... you could make the floor terraced and add "ramps" between layers to facilitate moving heavy equipment on rollers - a 6" ramp up shouldn't be too much of an issue on one side or the other. you'd want to have someone determine if you could go with the solid floors though... you might just get stuck with the platform flooring... http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/3298/drumphilfg4.th.jpg http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/8428/drumphilrendersl6.th.jpg

It amazes me how easily you come up with plans and images for your ideas. I tried Sketchup but I need a lot more time to produce anything decent. I should have mentioned that this part of the building in on the second floor and that adding a cement floor would probably put too much pressure on the structure. Thanks for all your replies but this project is on hold for now. I went to the city and I found out that they won't give a commercial permit for this building. So unless I decide that I want to live there as well, this project is dead....

gullfo wrote:

the problem with the wood floor is potentially it becomes a drum...

What if he built this wooden framed floor and had sand/something dense installed in all the voids? Wood that help to reduce or eliminate the drumming ?

same issue - weight... i suspected that would be a main issue since there was a basement or lower floor...

yea, yea...take away that issue:) Oh heck, the moment has passed...