Please help with studio design

Hi all, My Name is Josh Herzog. I'm from Altamont. New York, a small town near Albany. I have two rooms in my house that I'd like to turn into a nice recording studio. Before I go any farther, I'd like to thank the creators of this board. I never thought I would find info like this. It's always been my dream to have a great home studio. Thank You! I'm trying to follow the "read this before posting" rules the best I can. Overview - I have spent a lot of time at this forum reading and learning. I am now looking to get my final plan in place and start building. I already have an electrician who will install a properly grounded 3 phase system and have decided to go with a mini split system for heating and cooling. Also I will install ventilation fans for fresh air when needed. Lighting is also already planned. The goal of this post is to see if someone could help me out with a design. I am good with construction and building, but can't figure out how to design the layout. I want a control/mixing room and a recording room that will record everything from drums to voice overs. I don't know if that is asking too much? I am horrible with graphics programs so I had to hand draw my rooms for you. It's not to scale. If it's not good enough let me know what I must do to make it ready. After looking at the drawing, I failed to label the left room "control room" and the right room "drum room". I have neighbors on both sides and accross the street. They are all just about 300 feet away. Here is my concern. Sound proofing is not needed to isolate sound inside the house. I only need to make sure sounds from my neighbors aren't getting in when I'm doing voice overs. The loudest noise would be them mowing their lawns with riding mowers. Budget - After I get the electricity, mini-split, and lighting in, I'll have $5000 left for making the two rooms. Is this budget adequate for what I'm thinking? Existing Construction: All ceilings are 8 feet. There are base board heaters in both rooms. In order to make a proper studio, I figure internal walls must be built and will cover them. Am I right? They stick out 3 1/2 inches. I plan to bypass them and make them inactive from the rest of the system. That's why I plan on a mini-split system. Interior Walls - 2x4's every 16 inches covered with 1/2 inch sheet rock. Side and end of the house walls (from inside out) - 1/2" sheet rock, 2x4's every 16 inches with 4 inch insulation, ship lap, tar paper, ceder siding. Attic Construction - 2x6's every 16 inches with 4 inch insulation. 1/2" sheet rock is covering ceiling. Floor Construction - 2x10's every 16 inches. Floor is covered with 1/2 inch plywood, then carpet. Some Notes - There are two windows in each room one double and one single. Only double window shown in pic. All the windows are set into the wall, meaning they could be covered with ply wood or sheet rock to make a flush wall. What is the best material to cover windows with? In each room there is a closet. They are back to back with a 2x4 wall between them. This wall will be removed to make the storage space between the two rooms. You'll enter the storage space via a new door installed at the end of the hallway between the 2 existing doors. The next pic show the closet door opening. It's 71 1/4" wide and 80" tall. When I tear down the wall in the closet the matching door frame from the other room will now be exposed, joining the rooms. I don't know if it would be better to put 2 sliding glass doors in the two door frames, or frame in windows? I'll stop here for now. Thank you so much. I hope this is enough info to get a response.

In each room there is a closet. They are back to back with a 2x4 wall between them. This wall will be removed to make the storage space between the two rooms. You'll enter the storage space via a new door installed at the end of the hallway between the 2 existing doors.

What do you know about the overhead joists in this area? My guess is they run (looking at the above picture) from left to right and either lap at the closet walls or land on the closet door walls and finger across the short run. I'm working on the assumption this is a gable roof.

xSpace wrote:

In each room there is a closet. They are back to back with a 2x4 wall between them. This wall will be removed to make the storage space between the two rooms. You'll enter the storage space via a new door installed at the end of the hallway between the 2 existing doors.

What do you know about the overhead joists in this area? My guess is they run (looking at the above picture) from left to right and either lap at the closet walls or land on the closet door walls and finger across the short run. I'm working on the assumption this is a gable roof.

They do run left to right. 2x6's butted up againt each other, sitting on two load bearing walls. I know that the two walls where the closet doors are, are the load bearing walls. The wall I want to remove is not a load bearing wall. My roof is a hipped roof. Hope that helps.

the room dimensions don't seem to make sense... the drum room side has a short wall and a hall which is smaller than the closets... i tried mapping this out in sketchup and came up about 1' short...

gullfo wrote:

the room dimensions don't seem to make sense... the drum room side has a short wall and a hall which is smaller than the closets... i tried mapping this out in sketchup and came up about 1' short...

Thanks so much for putting that into sketchup. Sorry my drawing was not better. I did not draw everything correctly. The hallway and closet area are the same width just offset from each other. I made another bad drawing to demonstrate. It also has some updated measurments. Hopefully this clears things up. Thanks for helping me out with this. Josh

Hi All, I realize my drawings are horrible. Sorry!!! My friend told me he had sketchup and helped me out with a basic layout with measurments of my room. I think this will be a lot easier to work with. Details of the room are in the 1st post. Thanks you to anyone who can help.

The left to right of your house measurements, 11', 4'-3", 11'=26'-3". That number divided by 2 equals(roughly) your existing room wall length(top to bottom). That would be a square, I have heard square rooms and they are square. They do not sound inviting and are not recommended by anyone who matters. I couldn't find anything about what type of exterior material this structure has. Wood, brick, vinyl? But, as it stands, you already have a basic two leaf wall system. Everybody does :) So to build a framed wall structure on the interior of this build and place 1/2" rock on it will be counter-productive and is also, not recommended.(Unless you are considering removing the existing sheetrock from the walls...not a suggestion, just an observation.)

Sound proofing is not needed to isolate sound inside the house. I only need to make sure sounds from my neighbors aren't getting in when I'm doing voice overs. The loudest noise would be them mowing their lawns with riding mowers.

This will be a challenge. Not only are the windows going to need a "plug" each, the attic over your head will let sound in rather quickly. The floor, which is probably 3/4" with something else, maybe 1/2", on top, is also a weak area. Hope that helps.

xSpace wrote:

The left to right of your house measurements, 11', 4'-3", 11'=26'-3". That number divided by 2 equals(roughly) your existing room wall length(top to bottom). That would be a square, I have heard square rooms and they are square. They do not sound inviting and are not recommended by anyone who matters. I couldn't find anything about what type of exterior material this structure has. Wood, brick, vinyl? But, as it stands, you already have a basic two leaf wall system. Everybody does :) So to build a framed wall structure on the interior of this build and place 1/2" rock on it will be counter-productive and is also, not recommended.(Unless you are considering removing the existing sheetrock from the walls...not a suggestion, just an observation.)

Sound proofing is not needed to isolate sound inside the house. I only need to make sure sounds from my neighbors aren't getting in when I'm doing voice overs. The loudest noise would be them mowing their lawns with riding mowers.

This will be a challenge. Not only are the windows going to need a "plug" each, the attic over your head will let sound in rather quickly. The floor, which is probably 3/4" with something else, maybe 1/2", on top, is also a weak area. Hope that helps.

So if I remove the sheet rock from the existing walls, is that the only way I can frame in inner walls and have them work properly? If I do that, do you think my rooms could work as a studio. If there are too many problems with my rooms, should I build in the basement. I do have a 26 x 13 x 7' room in the basment that I could use to make 2 rooms. I just thought the short ceiling would not work as well as the 8' ceilings upstairs. The outside of the house is covered with ceder shakes, then tar paper, ship lap, 4" insulation, 2x4 frame, then 1/2" sheet rock.

Cat Trax wrote:

So if I remove the sheet rock from the existing walls, is that the only way I can frame in inner walls and have them work properly?

I don't believe they would work like you are wanting. Structure borne sound and airborne sound when present, are going to find a way into your overhead and floor. When they do, they come right into the air space inbetween the exterior wall and the newly framed interior wall as well as the room. Some here have added mass to the interior of above ground rooms like you have, and made use of it for their music. Your time may be best spent re-visiting the use of your basement?

xSpace wrote:

Cat Trax wrote:

Your time may be best spent re-visiting the use of your basement?

I thought about what you said and decided to use the basement. I have a sketchup file of the layout. Do you think that in this set up I could fit a control room, vocal booth, and a "live" room? When I look at the layout, I see coming down the stairs and entering a vocal booth, then straight ahead into a control room. The smaller room at the bottom would be the "live" room. Visibility is a problem, but I figure a window between the control room and vocal booth and a glass door between the vocal booth and "live room" would work. The ceilings are all 7' with no obstructions except the steel beam that goes accross the bigger room. Do you think I could construct workable rooms with these dimensions. Any advice is greatly appreciated. I really get stuck when it comes to the proper angles to build the walls and coming up with a proper layout. Thanks!

I'm not a designer. If I could suggest some of the basement builds here for more inspiration: Mystery Machine studios Cram's Basement Jam Room With the floor plan like your basement has it wouldn't surprise me to see your control room be the first room you enter as you come down the stairs. I have been wrong before.

I've decided to build in my basement. If my basement temperature is 55 degrees Farenheit all year, do I have to worry about air conditioning? Heating yes, but will the rooms stay that cool once they are constructed. A control room, vocal room and drum/recording room. I know they will need fresh air, but what about AC? Thanks.