Start of a brand new studio (Now with sketchup)

I'm planning to build a new studio in The Netherlands, at the moment i'm looking at all the different designs on the internet and i'm making some raw sketches. The room in which i'm going to build the studio is a rectangler room with the measures of 15 x 6.75 x 2.4 m (36' x 22,14' x 7,87') In this room there are several existing doors and windows (see outside walls image). In the raw sketch image there is a sketch of the layout i've in mind at this time. The plan is to make a controlroom, liveroom, vocalbooth, a place where artists can relax/wait and there must be a place for our live equipment storage. I'm planning to do the communication between controlroom and the other rooms with big LCD TV's and camera's. This for optimal audio isolation between controlroom and liveroom. This has some disadvantages, because now you're not facing the liveroom when you're working in the controlroom, but on the otherhand the walkingdistance to the liveroom is very short, and for lazy people like me, this is perfect. :D (it's not a bug, it's a feature) :lol: Please tell me what you think of this raw sketch and please let me now how to improve or how you would plan the layout if you had the same room. This is my first studio i'm building, so every advise is more then welcome. Thanks in advance, Jeroen

The control room should be bigger,, its width his way too small.

lounge and storage are eating up 40+ percent of your floorspace!!!

The room storage is indeed eating up a large space of the room, this is necessary because we need to store our PA equipment for our live jobs. Maybe in future we can use the storage room as 2nd live room when we have another building to store our equipment, but for now,... to bad, we need the space. The lounge could be smaller I agree. The width of the studio is indeed not that big, maybe I should take a look at that. What is the minimum for a acceptable control room? The biggest problem are the windows on the bottom of the picture. To clean the windows you need space free from the windows, so I can't build directly against the window.

hai there fellow Dutchman :) Sure you can build against them windows, just close them up if you need to. Why's there a hall between the CR and rec rooms and why's your desk faced backwards? are you plannning on using cameras to view the rooms? Figure out the ratios which work best for the CR and adjust your width to those.

Tanks for the reactions so far, if you have any sugestions on the layouts, please let me know. Design Nr2: This is a raw sketch I made today after reading lot's of topics on the forum. Explanaition: - Computer Room: room where computers and noisy equipment goes. - Control Room:... - Lounge: place where muscisians can take a cup of coffee and relax. - Live room:.... - Vocal booth:... - Hall: Soundlock, this room can also be used as gituar amp room - Equipment storage: Here we store our equipment for live usage. PA, Mixers, Lightning stuf etc. And finaly good news, if Mr. Postmen is on time today, the book "building studios like the pro's" will be here and i'll probably change the design again after reading. :lol:

Don't you want your CR to be near your Live Room ? Move the control room more to the right.

OP said: "I'm planning to do the communication between controlroom and the other rooms with big LCD TV's and camera's. "

After a whole day of reading in the great book "Home Recording Studio, build it like the pro's", i've made a few drawings/sketches of the studio layout. Which of these do you guys, prefer? Or do you have other idea's

007 and 006 and 002 - room width to small 005 - symmetry is not achieved in the room 004 - best design BUT live room is too small. Yet I'm not really convinced on that design and placing a bass trap at the rear but nothing at the sides feels a bit odd. Since I have never experienced such a room myself I cannot comment much more than that. My main point is you can even have a SQUARE room and if the room is big enough it will literally kill all other small options (an absurd example is Peter's Gabriel control room , a 14 per 14 m room which is also used for live recording!!).

andrebrito wrote:

007 and 006 and 002 - room width to small

I've designed this controlroom using the ratio: 1:1.60:2.33 this is the 3rd best room ratio from L. W. Sepmeyer According to the build it like the pro book. So if the ratio is allright, why is the room width to small? Or do you mean the the other rooms? About the ratio,... I calculated the ratio from most outside points of the drawing so draw a square box around the room, is this correct? Or can't you use room ratio's for a non square room?

005 - symmetry is not achieved in the room

This is correct, i forgot to draw one line, the layout in this design is the same as the design in a few posts above, but then with a separate room for recording drums.

004 - best design BUT live room is too small. Yet I'm not really convinced on that design and placing a bass trap at the rear but nothing at the sides feels a bit odd. Since I have never experienced such a room myself I cannot comment much more than that.

What do you mean with: "but nothing at the sides feels a bit odd"?

My main point is you can even have a SQUARE room and if the room is big enough it will literally kill all other small options (an absurd example is Peter's Gabriel control room , a 14 per 14 m room which is also used for live recording!!).

To bad i dont have 14x14 m for only a controlroom, would be nice though :D A problem I also have to deal with is the room height which is only 2,4 m (7.87 feet) So to stick to the ideal room ratio's i'll can't go any bigger then this, with the controlroom. Or can I ???

a quick look tells me to go for no. 4

After a good night of sleep, a large cup of coffee and starting on a brand new piece of paper to make my drawings on, I came with this design. I think it's the best design until now. It has a big live room and a seperate vocal booth. The only thing i'm in doubt of, is to make a seperate drumbooth or to make a raised floor? And use some sort of standing slot resonaters to create the right drum sound while recording. What are your thoughts about this plan?

Is there anyone who wants to take a look at the last post, I think i'm going with this layout. But I would like to know the pro's and cons of this layout. Thanks in advance!

So, Gulffo's enjoying a well deserved holiday? I'm not great at designing a room. sorry.

Hi Jeroenmuller, I can't help you at all! :D But I'd love to know what software you used to design your layouts. I'm about to start working on one. thanks!

very very very VERY rough idea, but it gives you my point Maybe machine room is far, you can find a solution for that, but this way you have bigger room and lots of visual among spaces cheers

very very very VERY rough idea, but it gives you my point Maybe machine room is far, you can find a solution for that, but this way you have bigger room and lots of visual among spaces cheers

Thanks for all the reactions. @BellAirStudios: Thanks for drawing the layout. I also had a few thoughts about designing in this construction to have more visual contact between controlroom and studio. But the choice for going totally camera/tv screen is better in my situation. The latest design (and probably the final design) is in the attachment. The problem with the latest design i showed you guys was that the live room was a perfect square. (and that is something we won't want). So I made a little change and made the drumbooth at the top right corner. Tell me what you think of this one.

You put a lot of thought into this !

I'm not sure, there can be far better solutions. I like the belair setup much better for example. GUUUULLFFFOOOOOO where the heck are ye?

out of interest, how much room do you actually need for 'live storage'? all your designs have given a fair amount of space to this, just wondering if you really need that much. Also this is the room least used, or rather least useful, so maybe nice and square with lots of well worked racking. Iain

Thanks for all the help so far, I've been thinking for a good design every day now. It looks so easy but there are a few problems in the existing room which i have to take into account when making the design layout. These are: - Main entrance is fixed at the left wall - Instrument entrance is fixed at the top wall - emergency exit is fixed at the left bottom corner - At the whole bottom there are windows (may be covered up) - The live equipment storage must be a minimum of 20m2 Things which make it easier: - I don't mind working with camera/large lcd screens for communication - The door on the top left may be covered up - The window on the top right will be removed Well, that's about it. So when I look at the design of belair, when you come inside, you'll directly step into the Control Room. I don't think this is the best idea. Also in the same layout the room for hall lounge is fairly large. This is nice, but i'd rather use the space for an extra drumbooth or something. And the emergency exit is now behind the vocalbooth.

A step further in making the layout. Today I made a 3d sketch in Sketchup. It's my first sketchup drawing, so if it isn't precise enough, sorry. I would appreciate it if you take a look at the images and tell me what i can do different to improve it. Thanks in advance ps: The roof was the most difficult, so I partly let the roof of, so you can see what's going on..

Anybody wants to give some advice? I can't imagine that you all look at it and think, wow this is so good, i don't have to write it down in a post. :wink: