Designing a recodring studio in an underground garage

This is my first post in this forum and I'd like to say a big thanks to the people involved in this site for all this information they provide. Also, my english are not that good, my apologies. Me and my brother (we are from Crete, an island in Greece) decided to invest our savings to raise a 4-floor building with appartments to rent, including a 2-floor garage for parking space to rent. I play semi-professionally drums and I always thought of having my own personal recording studio for me, my band and other musicians. I can't afford to buy or rent another property for that, so I decided to sacrifice parking space from the garage to build it. Images of the underground garage with that space allocated. My budget for this project will be about 20000euros or 30000$ The following attachment contains a .skp file I created according to the real plans of the garage (it's my first drawing in Sketchup 6.4, sorry about that, dimensions are pretty close though) and shows the space available to build my studio. The area painted in wood is that space. I've included dimensions (in cm) of that particular space. Keep in mind that there is an identical garage floor right above this one and after that we have the appartment floors. We are underground, so in every other direction we will meet mother Earth. The rest of the garage space will be open or closed parking spaces. Now, let's talk about designing the studio. I need the following rooms: Control Live Vocals Drums Kitchen/Lounge Toilet The area I have available for the studio is quite big (the selected area is about 95m2) but very difficult to work on due to its non-symmetrical shape. It's very long and narrow (7m the biggest width, about 5m the shortest width and 16m the length, height is the same for the whole floor, about 3m). I just need some starter-pointers for sqeezing all these rooms in that space. A rough placement, nothing fancy, just to get me started. If you require more information of this projetc, I will gladly provide you with it. Thank you for your patience for reading this long post and thank you in advance for your time helping me with this design.

Hello jlemon, I think your presentation is really nice and covers all the initial details with just enough depth for a first post. I am going to take a look at your .skp file and maybe make a suggestion. I am far from versed in studio design but maybe I can give you some inspiration. Best of luck to you, as you embark on your building project. It is indeed a multifaceted adventure! /Gash Edit: Looked at your sketch up and it looks really nice. As you say the environment will be tricky to use but I guess that also helps to stretch the imagination a bit. Could you tell me, where in your drawing is the actual entrance to the area?

Gash wrote:

Hello jlemon, Edit: Looked at your sketch up and it looks really nice. As you say the environment will be tricky to use but I guess that also helps to stretch the imagination a bit. Could you tell me, where in your drawing is the actual entrance to the area?

Thank you very much for the quick reply! My sincere gratitude for trying to help me! The entrance to the lowest garage floor would be a car-elevator (as you look at the picture I've just posted, the first structure from the left) and a service ladder located about 4m away on the right from the studio allocated area (where the tooth-edge is). I will update my design, adding these features we're discussing. Thanks!

Ya sou Kreta... my 2nd favorite island! I've been to Crete (Rethymno to be exact) a zillion times, so I wish you all the luck in the world. In what city will this project take place? Kalinichta; Kalò taxidi! (translates into: wishing you goodnight and a great journey building)

Hey Jlemon, good to see ya...digitally speaking. Before I got completely in love with this idea I wonder if a walk into an existing parking garage would be in order? If there is something similar, a parking garage like what you guys are wanting to build, then stroll around it and take a listen to it. Trucks and cars, horns blasting and tires squelling not to mention structure borne and moving elevators can create some thick vibrations and mechanical thunder that can be awful to deal with for isolation and an acoustic environment. Hours of operation may be all day long and this too would not help your cause. It's a swell idea but could prove problematic. Just my take on it. Good luck, Brien

Edo Peters wrote:

I've been to Crete (Rethymno to be exact) a zillion times, so I wish you all the luck in the world. In what city will this project take place?

Thank you very much for your wishes Edo! I like Rethymno too, great night life and beuatifull beaches. The project will take place near the center of the capital of Crete, Heraklion.

xSpace wrote:

Trucks and cars, horns blasting and tires squelling not to mention structure borne and moving elevators can create some thick vibrations and mechanical thunder that can be awful to deal with for isolation and an acoustic environment. Hours of operation may be all day long and this too would not help your cause.

Always nice to meet friendly people like you Brien! The thing is that we are not going to rent the parking spaces by the hour, it's gonna be more like a per month renting, so the number of traffic in and out of the garage will be far less than, let's say for example, a supermarket garage where cars go in and out by the hour. I have thought about the isolation the studio would require and I know that it would require more work (and money) for isolating external sources than internal ones but that's something I'll be ready (and capable I hope) to face when we get to that part of the project. I'm not ready (knowledge-wise) yet to discuss this aspect of the project, sorry my friend, but in my humble opinion, it can be done.

Brien already brought up LF isolation. Another thing to keep in mind is that you will require greater LF absorption in the rooms because concrete walls do not absorb LF like drywall walls, which most treatments you read about here are based on. Good luck! Andre

AVare wrote:

Another thing to keep in mind is that you will require greater LF absorption in the rooms because concrete walls do not absorb LF like drywall walls, which most treatments you read about here are based on.

Thank you very much for your advice Andre, much appreshiated. As little as I know of construction materials and techniques used to implement an isolated enviroment, I know that a 30cm (about 1 feet) concrete surrounding 3/4 of the studio's perimeter without proper treatment will do little to prevent in and out LF transmitiions. Or, to say it in plain englsih, I will hear and/or feel the bit... :lol: As I said to Brien, that's not my primary consern right now. My first priority right now is to come up with a proper plan for the studio rooms, considering the difficulty of the space allocated. If I can't do that, I will be forced to cut some rooms off (naybe the kitchen/lounge and/or the vocals) as a civil engineer friend of mine told me... :cry:

Hi Jlemon and another welcome! You have two of the 'dudes' with you on this one, but I sure wish I was involved with this build!!! What a place! :wink: You haven't yet mentioned Balos - Falasarna - Preveli - Matala -! Not to mention Faistos!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :wink: :wink: :wink: Warm, I mean really warm regards my friend! Building a Recording Studio on the beautiful island of Crete with summer temperatures usually above 40 degrees??????? :shock: :shock: :shock: Good luck buddy, you'll be fine! Lou. 8)

Lou wrote:

Warm, I mean really warm regards my friend! Building a Recording Studio on the beautiful island of Crete with summer temperatures usually above 40 degrees??????? :shock: :shock: :shock:

Hello Lou, very nice to meet you, thank you for your support! I'm very happy that Crete has so many admirers! I'm very proud of my island, it's a very beautiful island indeed. Above 40 degrees for a normal summer day temperature is a bit rare though... I would say around 30 degrees, -/+ 5, is more accurate. Still, it's hot enough! :wink: I hope the ventilation and air-condition system that we are going to install is going to work... :)

I just added a few more details to my .skp project, some labels to describe the surrounding area and a different perspective of the studio space allocated. Cheers, John Images Updated

jlemon wrote:

xSpace wrote:

sorry my friend, but in my humble opinion, it can be done.

That isn't under scrutiny. I am simply asking you to get to know more about what you can expect from a concrete structure the size you suggest with the amenities you and your brother desire. Just put your hand on a wall when a truck goes by. Your going to be in the heart of a commerce area, these things will be a daily occurrence. But even if you choose not to be involved with this simple procedure for your own benefit, Minimum, detach your proposed walls and slab/ceiling, etc. from the rest of the building...maybe get your Civil engineer friend to help you with that? Lou: I'm just a dude impressed with the usefullness of concrete and the amazing ability of it to move sound to places you didn't know it could get to :)

jlemon wrote:

AVare wrote:

Another thing to keep in mind is that you will require greater LF absorption in the rooms because concrete walls do not absorb LF like drywall walls, which most treatments you read about here are based on.

Thank you very much for your advice Andre, much appreshiated. As little as I know of construction materials and techniques used to implement an isolated enviroment, I know that a 30cm (about 1 feet) concrete surrounding 3/4 of the studio's perimeter without proper treatment will do little to prevent in and out LF transmitiions.

I am writing about room acoustics, ot sound isolation.

As I said to Brien, that's not my primary consern right now. My first priority right now is to come up with a proper plan for the studio rooms, considering the difficulty of the space allocated.

LF absorption requires thicker material. Hence more space is required. What you are working right now in your design. Buy The Book and Everest's Master Handbook of Acoustics. Andre

Brien and Andre, thank you for your wisdom, I know, you are right... I've skipped a project phase! (and I'm a software engineer, I should know about project planning... :roll: ). First you find the location, then you check the location, from those results you determine the kind of isolation you need AND THEN design the rooms' placement according to the isolation you're going to use! Right, so I'm actually asking the wrong question... I should be asking about what kind of isolation would you recommend for that kind of enviroment. But I'm not going to because I haven't studied properly this subject. Heavy duty LF absorbers, got that already... :wink: I'll do my research and I'll share my results with you, if that's ok. Now, I just had a thought... In two weeks, we start construction (not of the studio, of the building) and eventually I have to tell my brother (another civil engineer) where the kitchen sink and the toilet will be in the studio (for pluming purposes). In order to do that I have to have a final plan... :shock:

After knocking my head on the wall for days, I came up with the following design. I tried to allocate all the rooms specified above, however, the vocals room had to go... :( I assume that the walls' thickness would be about 30cm (1 feet) with 5cm space between the wall and the concrete wall for separation from the building's concrete structure. If the floor and ceiling would rise and fall respectively at about 30cm, the real height of the rooms would be about 2,3m (7,5 feet). Walls are shown untreated as this would be the subject of my next research, walls' construction and treatment. Please, check my .skp design that you'll find here (for the compressed .rar file, you can click here) and feel free to post any comments/suggestions/corrections. Thanks again for all the feedback. Cheers, John

That isn't a .skp in the link above, it is a .rar I can do .skp but would have to look for something to do .rar

X, ye kiddin' ? .RAR is a (or THE) data compressor (just like ZIP is)....

Not kidding Ro. I know what it is and what it takes to open it...but it says ".skp" which will open directly with Sketchup. But the compressed ".rar" adds another step. Not everyone is as sharp as you and I Ro ;) AND...I really have nothing that will open this file format and have no desire to go and find something that will. It's like losing a sale because ye make it too hard for the buyer?

dude, RAR is my first app I install with a fresh copy of WinXP :) How can you live without it 8) :shock: beer? :snack:

xSpace wrote:

Not kidding Ro. I know what it is and what it takes to open it...but it says ".skp" which will open directly with Sketchup. But the compressed ".rar" adds another step. Not everyone is as sharp as you and I Ro ;) AND...I really have nothing that will open this file format and have no desire to go and find something that will. It's like losing a sale because ye make it too hard for the buyer?

Actually, if you spend 1 minute of your precious time downloading and installing winrar or whatever un/compression software you find available, you'll save hundreds of minutes you need to download uncompressed files. It's all about ratios, just like designing a studio... :wink: I haven't thought that this was a seller-buyer situation... Anyway, the client is always right as they say, so, I just updated my post with an extra link for the .skp design file. Thanks, John

"your precious time"/quote Thank you sir, from me and the hundreds, possibly thousands over the months and years, that will surely follow and say "wtf is a .RAR? :roll:

Brien, I wasn't ironic when I said "precious time", I really mean it! Our time is so precious to be wasted on waiting for an 5MB uncompressed file (and I'm talking about my .skp file), when we could wait 1/3 of the time for a 1,7MB compressed (.zip, .rar, .tar, whatever) file. I have heard so many times in the past that "Google is your friend". Hundreds and thousands and millions of internet users use Google. They see a .rar extension on a file and they don't know what's it for, they just "google" it... In 5 minutes they'll start getting that precious time back... They'll be happy... :wink: Anyway, I think we are off topic here... Again, I wasn't trying to be sarcastic or ironic if that's what you thought I was, that's definately not my style, I'm just trying to get some help for my life's dream project, I'm serious about this... any suggestions would be much appreciated. Cheers, John

John - that layout you posted is what I would have recommended. It should work well. cheers john

Mr Sayers, John if I may, it is an honour to get a helping hand from you, especially after your recent life's adventure. I wish you a quick recovery and a healthy, fullfeelling life, providing thousands of people with one of the greatest gifts... music... recorded and mixed perfectly, as music is supposed to be heard... My design is based on one of yours, although I tried to include a fourth room for vocals but I failed to do it without sacrificing vital space from the other three rooms. I can always, depending on the situation, record the drums in the live room and use the drum room for vocals... Just one quick question before I start my research for wall construction and treatment. Do you think that the south (as you look at the picture) wall in the live and drums rooms should be at 90 degrees angled? I was thinking of 84 degrees, same as the north wall in the live room and 96 degrees, same as the north wall in the drums room... maybe?