Gold Coast studio design

Hi All! I'm 5 weeks away from settling on a new house on the Gold Coast with plenty of space to build a new standalone studio from scratch. Any/all critique on my design is very welcome! The Sketchup plan, with tabs detailing the construction sequence, is here. It's complete except for cloud/lighting fixtures and hanger trap details. Some design considerations: All room ratios were determined by Eric Desart's graph of Louden ratios Maximum exterior wall height of 3 metres so it doesn't dominate the yard too much. The entire block is almost perfectly flat. I've costed the current design and it's just within the available budget of around AUD$90k. Construction will be mostly DIY where allowed. Bathroom & kitchenette need to be located at the south-west corner for proximity to water & waste services. Isolation: There is a suburban railway line nearby but trains were inaudible from inside the house (standard double brick construction with 3mm glass doors) so I'm confident that 200mm core-filled concrete block, 200mm insulated gap, and 2x16mm plasterboard layers will provide adequate isolation. I'll test that properly when we move in next month. The only thing I'm not happy with are the live room silencers, I'd really appreciate any ideas or suggestions with those.

Congrats man, i really like the layout of your studio! One word of caution, dont rely too much on your "Budget", im in the process of building a studio myself and before construction started we made an estimation of the cost and so far we are 50 % complete and the cost has already doubled compared to my original budget! Good luck.

Nice space you got there! Keep posting and all the best for your studio build. Cheers Roman

Adam, Looks good bud, will check back in a while and see how you are going. BTW The drum kit is a little small /scale? (not that it matters).....you should be able to get a 5 piece band in there if needed. When you say "silencers" in the live room you mean the traps? Are the walls of live room going to be flat/gyprock inside or cloth over insulation with some bass/broadband control slats? Cheers Eliot

Thanks for the encouragement guys. PTJ, if the budget blows out, then I'll be downing tools and heading out to play/sing/record for more money! I'm pretty sure I've accounted for everything (including rising transport & material costs) but time will tell. Eliot, the silencers I'm talking about are the HVAC/Air con silencers - the big insulated boxes which attempt to maintain isolation of the wall where the duct penetrates. I'm just not sure of the best way to distribute that volume of air to the right parts of the room while maintaining isolation. I guess I might need to drop the ceiling, or run soffits around the outside? The north live room wall, 3 of the booth walls, and 3 of the CR walls are "inside-out" with fabric and/or slats facing the inside, the rest are straight gyprock. I could turn 1 or 2 more of the live room walls around but it's a reasonable size (roughly 5x7 metres) and I want it to stay fairly live. You're right about Sketchup's standard drum kit size, I've never met such a modest drummer :)

Adam, What are the dimensions of each room. I am very interested in building a studio just like the one you have. Any help would be grateful. Eric

Hi Eric, The outside of the building is 15 x 8 metres, you can download the sketchup file above to get the exact measurements you need. You're welcome to use my design, but I'd strongly suggest getting a professional to look over it. There are concessions in the layout, for example I need to cater for possible future re-use of the building as a granny flat, and (2) simplicity of construction as I'll be doing most of the work myself. I'm still in the early planning/feasibility stage myself, but I will be using John's consulting service before I break ground. As a side note for any Aussies watching, I've just installed a 12.5kw Fujitsu ducted air cond unit from these guys for under $6k all up. I'd had quote for a 10kw unit installed for $10.5k! It's a great deal for anyone building a studio who will want to install the ducting themselves anyway.

Looks great! Gives me a couple ideas for my own project. The one thing I'm wondering is about the window directly to the left of the engineer's head. Won't this give some sort of issues with reflections, since it's in a first reflection point? Just curious. I've seen a lot of studios made this way and it always puzzles me a bit. Also, how are you constructing the large angled wall that creates a non parallel wall in the live room? Is that going to be a trap? Slot resinator? Neil

BTW, your sketchup skills are sick! Neil

Hi Neil, Thanks! I stuggled with that same the first-reflection-on-side-windows question myself. As I understand it, the problem is mitigated by the dispersion pattern of the speakers. If you draw the first reflection path, you'll see that it's more than 45 degrees off-axis from the speaker. The higher (directional) frequencies which you're trying to avoid for first reflections should be significantly attenuated beyond 45 degrees - depending on your monitors. The large angled wall in the live room is something that I'll need specific advice about, but I imagine it will end up being a wall frame filled with insulation, covered with cloth and timber slats, with hangers on the inside. I'll leave these treatments until last, so they can be based on actual measurements in the room.

Great design, looking forward to watching it grow! Have you thought about adding a 12deg slant to the ceiling of the control room? Looks like you have the room to move. the "ceiling gap consealment"- how are you planning on doing that? obviously you dont want a physical connection from the roof. lil

Hi Lilith! I was thinking something like semi-rigid fibreglass panels (which aren't really "rigid") wrapped in fabric for the concealment. I'm not even sure if they're necessary for the parts above head height. I see that you have similar gaps to fill too! In other news, the monsoonal rain we had here recently put the site of my new studio under 6 inches of water for several hours! :shock: That has caused us a re-think about where this thing's going to go. We're looking at building it as an extension to the house now, up on higher ground. That will actually give a bit more height to play with, so yep I'll look at using the 3rd dimension more effectively.