Thinking of building a studio in a converted barn.

Hi everyone. This is my first post here, but I've been looking on this site for years now on and off. Be kind :D My reason for posting is I'm considering contructing a new studio in the upstairs of a converted barn/work unit out in the countryside in south east England. A good friend of mine owns the downstairs which he uses for storing cars and motorbikes, and has offered me to take up the lease of the upstairs space. I've been and had a look around and a quick measure up. It seems like a fairly decent space, Potentially a great live area, with big high ceilings and has all water/heating and telephone etc already up and running. Truthfully my knowledge of studio design is not vast, so i could be terribly wrong! The plan is for me to open a privately run commercial studio in this space (or another if it proves difficult). I currently run another studio a little while away that I've been at for about 5 years, but I've been thinking about starting up my own place sooner or later and this may be a good oppertunity. We would be using something like a Trident 80B console (or similar faily large format board) And a PT HD rig. Recording bands primarily, hopefully with enough space and capability to be able to record them live too, so Its important that the control room is well isolated from the other rooms especially. Theres no issue of sound bothering the neighbours, but Directly behind/underneith the proposed control room there is a privately owned garage where they do rev up car engines and I'd need to be able to keep that out of the control room too. I've had a really quick plan drawn up by a friend, I apologise if its abit poor. I'm going to try and draw my own up with Sketchup this evening. All the floor are wood floor boards and nearly all the walls are brick with a few plasterboard sections (the walls between the propsed deadroom and control room are stud/plasterboard walls). I'm interested to get some opinions and ideas on the space and some inspiration as what could be done with it. I've always been amazed by some of the designes people draw up here. Would it be best to work on the biulding's layout as it is or totally tear it down and start from the beginning? :D My construction budget is about £10,000 though even though it never really needs saying, I'd like to try and keep it down if i can. really look forward to hearing some ideas.. Thanks guys Nick

Hi Nick, and welcome!

Directly behind/underneith the proposed control room there is a privately owned garage where they do rev up car engines and I'd need to be able to keep that out of the control room too.

Ouch! That sounds like your number one public enemy right there! "Engines" are loud. They might be causing the entire building structure to vibrate: What kind of engines are we talking, and how loud do they get? Car? Truck? Motorbike? If they do something like Harley Davidson bikes, fore example, then you have abundant low frequencies in that characteristic "thumping roar" of the Harley, and I don't think I'd want those things revving loudly just a coupe of meters from my studio.... Even worse if they do work on heavy diesel truck engines. Apart from actual engine noise, to me "garage" also means heavy equipment, such as compressors, pneumatic tools, hydraulic lifts, drills, winches, pressure-washers, garage door mechanisms, and various other loud noises, such as hammering, dropped tools, doors slamming . . . Before you decide on how to treat, get out your sound level meter and measure the level in that garage, while they are working on something really noisy. Ask them to be as loud as they possibly can, use every tool and piece of equipment they have all at once, and measure the level. Measure with "C" weighting and on the "slow" setting. Make several measurements in different places, and note down the highest peaks. If your meter has a "peak hold" function, use it. Now go up to your proposed new studio space, and with all the doors and windows closed, measure again while they are making their same "worst possible noise" down in the garage. Once again, take several measurements at several places, and note down all the peaks. Also, while you are up there in your proposed studio, gently touch the walls, floor, and any exposed structural beams / joists with your fingertips: Can you feel them vibrating? Put your ear up against them: Can you hear them vibrating? Once you have those SPL numbers, post them here so the acoustic experts (I ain't one of them!) can figure out what it would take to get enough isolation to make that space into a usable control room. I can tell you one thing: you are talking about lots of mass here, and I dread saying this as I always say the exact opposite to everyone, but you might even have to commit the terrible, dastardly, wicked sin of floating your floor! (Gasp! Did I actually say that? Did I really suggest that somebody might need to float their floor? I must be going nuts...). Floating a floor on the second floor of a building is complex and expensive. . . . But before going any further at all, you need those real numbers. - Stuart -

Hi Stuart, many thanks for your thoughts, definately brought up some things i had not taken into consideration yet! I spoke to the guys in the garage and had a look in when i had a measure up. It's a tiny non-commercial garage, they basically have a few kit cars in there they build in the evenings, no heavy machinery or giant engines, just small cars luckily, but I'm definately going to do as you suggested. From what I could hear while I was there I'm optermistic about it not being a major issue. I'm going to go back at the weekend when they are in to record some levels to put up here. Do you think it might be a good idea to bring a kick and snare drum down there and see what sort of bleed there is currently between the live area and the other rooms too? thanks again! Nick

Do you think it might be a good idea to bring a kick and snare drum down there and see what sort of bleed there is currently between the live area and the other rooms too?

Sure! The more data you can gather, the better! In fact, why not take a good speaker, a good microphone, and a laptop with some type of spectrum analyzer software. Play pink noise loudly in your future control room, and test in several locations in each of the other future rooms. That will give you full bandwidth graphs of where your issues are. - Stuart -

A couple of other points, Nick. How is the structure around/underneath where you plan to build your rooms? You are going to need to add several TONS of mass to get decent isolation (even assuming that the downstairs garage only deals with model airplane engines, and perhaps much more, depending on your SPL readings). Is the structure up to that? You might want to get a structural engineer in to look at it. Tell him that you need to store hundreds of sheets of drywall up there, and dozens of bags of cement, plus a small truck! That will give him an idea of the amount of weight you plan to have up there. (OK, it's not actually THAT much! I'm exaggerating a bit, for effect. But if you just tell him "I'm going to build a studio" he might not understand the weighty issues that are involved in the kind of isolation you are going to need, plus people and equipment.) Regarding your rough plan sketch: Does that show the current layout of the rooms? OR is that the idea of how you would like to lay them out? Are there any load-bearing walls there, or walls that cannot be moved for whatever reason, or other structures that you should be telling us about? Such as columns, pillars, staircases, chimneys, ducts, bracing, etc. Anything that can't be touched and might get in the way. - Stuart -

Excellent! I've got plenty to do when I'm there next, should be interesting. The building is very sturdy. Before it was available it was a printing facility for a local publishers and before that it was used to store huge diesel power generators, so it can take alot of weight! The rough plan on here is of the current layout as it is right now. All the walls are largely stud walls that can pretty easily be removed. The only part of the wall that appears to be supporting is the wall that seperates the proposed live area from the control and dead room spaces. It may not be at all though, as the ceiling is supported by a wooden arch/frame that runs across the building which seems to keep it all up. I'll have to post some pics to explain i think, my structural engineering knowledge is fairly limited :oops: I've also considered the thought of only making use of half the building for liveroom and control room, maybe building the control room within the live space that's drawn in that plan and removing the WC/Kitchen part out of that area and into the part of the building where the ceiling is much lower. It's all very open to suggestion i suppose. I'll do my spl recordings at the weekend and examine the dividing(potentially supporting) wall some more. I'll maybe try get some pics for you to see what I'm dealing with. Really appreciate all your input so far mate, you've been a great help! Nick

I'll maybe try get some pics for you to see what I'm dealing with. Really appreciate all your input so far mate, you've been a great help!

Yeah! Pictures would be great. Like they say here: no pics means it didn't happen. Also, an accurate SketchUp model would be excellent, especially if you can show the location of the "revving-engines" and the structure of the existing building. Include all major structural members of the building, and be accurate with your measurements. Yeah, it will take you a while to make that model, but you'll thank me later, when you start playing around with layouts, and ask yourself "What if I move this door over there, and rotate that room around here?". I know I baulked when they first told me to do a sketchup model here of my room, and I almost quit when I saw that the learning curve is a bit steep to start with, but once you get the hang of it, it is really powerful, albeit quirky. It's a great tool for design. Have a fun weekend! - Stuart -