east yorkshire recording studio - my first build

hi im building a studio in east yorkshire these are the rough plans , luckily im able to build this at least 5 mtrs away from my house so i only have to comply with uk building regs, the studio will be 9.5 mtrs by 7.mtrs and 4m tall, inside will be 2.4mtrs high but where my false roof is it will only be 2.25mtrs. All i would like is some advice on how im using the space and could it be used more efficiently than i have drawn ?? the first pic shows the outline of the building which is built out of brick with an 85mm cavity 100mm thick blocks , the internal walls on the picture are made out of 100mm thick blocks , the second picture shows my stud walls which are 600mm centres filled with 100mm thick 60kg acoustic mineral wool and a layer of acoustic plasterboard on one side. the third picture shows a cut through of the way i plan on insulating the roof by putting a false roof on top of the stud interior walls so there will be a 50mm airgap all the way around . i would appreciate any advice on weather this is the best way to build and soundproof it as my nearest neighbors are 5 mtrs away.

I was just looking at your layout, and noticed a couple of problems. First, the door into your control room (CR) is right in the corner, exactly where you need your bass trapping. Second, you seem to be wasting floor space where the doors open at the rear, so you cannot get the couch against the rear wall. Third, you can't see into the vocal booth. So I took the liberty of re-arranging your rooms, basically swapping the control room and the vocal booth, as below. Now you can get the couch against the rear wall, and you have space for bass trapping in the rear corners. You also have sight lines to to the vocal booth through the window (if you want it). I think it makes better use of space. Regarding your ceiling construction: It looks like you might have three leaves there: The roof, the existing ceiling, and the new ceiling. If so, you should think about fixing that. - Stuart -

I also just noticed that your mix position seems to be off. It does not seem to be at the sweet spot.

Hi AMallion, You are going to spend a fortune on double doors and seals :) You could situate the back of the control room in the top right corner. Similar to this pix from SAE:

thanks for your replys sorry i have not been back on sooner but my net went off only just got it back on lol, soundman2020 ur layout was like my first idea but i changed it because i didnt think having a door in the corner of the live room was the best way of getting the room to sound right, about the roof my idea of building another ceiling up was to try and get more soundproof`t better if you understand me in stead of just having 100mm in the roof you get an extra 100mm and a air gap just like a wall. XSPACE how did you get all that into 9.5m x 7m? it looks like a very usable idea the only hting missing is a wc as i was wanting to make some money using it and didnt want people using my house one but i can work round it, one other thing do i realy need a vocal booth?

The design is one of John Sayers. The picture was just to show you that you could orient the control room in the corner. It is the only important part, in this instance.

AMallion wrote:

soundman2020 ur layout was like my first idea but i changed it because i didnt think having a door in the corner of the live room was the best way of getting the room to sound right,

I don't think it matters much in the live room. It would be a bad idea in the control room, of course, but it can be incorporated into your live room acoustically, I think, without too much of a problem. It is far more important to solve the issues with your control room.

about the roof my idea of building another ceiling up was to try and get more soundproof`t better if you understand me in stead of just having 100mm in the roof you get an extra 100mm and a air gap just like a wall.

That's a common misconception, and shows that you don't understand the concept of two-leaf isolation, exactly like I didn't understand it a couple of months back!!! I understand where you are, because that's where I was. So I'll save you some effort, and tell you what you need to do, and what I did: You need to research all over this forum (use the "search" button), and grasp the concepts of "2-leaf" and "3-leaf" and "MAM" (or "MSM"). But the sad truth is that adding a third leaf to your ceiling will make the isolation WORSE, not better, at some frequencies. It's not intuitive, and doesn't make logical sense until you understand how sound works and how resonant cavities react to sound. So you need to learn the concept, and re-design your ceiling to make it two-leaf, not three-leaf. - Stuart -

Just a quick comment:

the third picture shows a cut through of the way i plan on insulating the roof by putting a false roof on top of the stud interior walls so there will be a 50mm airgap all the way around . i would appreciate any advice on weather this is the best way to build and soundproof it as my nearest neighbors are 5 mtrs away.

In case of a 5cm airgap all the way AROUND you need to add firestops. There's plenty of info on that on this forum if yer confused. Nearest neighbors are 5m away... that's awful close. You'll need good isolation my friend.

I really liked Stuart's version - much better control room rear layout, better visual to vox booth, still retains visual to studio. Cool IMO. :)