Help me decide on my studio layout...

Hi all, I am going to build a new studio. therefor i will build a rectangle block in my garden of 6m by 10m. Attached are 4 sketchup views of possible layouts. Which one do you prefer? layout 7 layout 8 layout 9 layout 10

Sorry guys, all 4 url's are pointing to the same picture. here are the correct ones... layout 1 layout 2 layout 3 layout 4

Hi Koenraad, and welcome. There is an announcement at the top of the forum about what to do to assure getting as many responses as possible. The announcement leads to this post. Actually, several people, who are experts on this forum, will not reply if you do not do what is written in the post. Many others who are very helpful, will not reply out of respect for the moderators' wishes. - Stuart -

Sorry Stuart. I'll give as much details as possible. We are talking about a new free-standing building of 6m by 10m with a height of 3m to 3.5m in my garden of where i live in Belgium. My nearest neighbour is 15 m away. For the soundproofed outside walle i thought of using the following scheme [brick|air|brick|air|metal stud with insulation|3 layer of gypsum] for a total of 0.5 m thickness. So netto inner space will be 5m by 9m and a height of minimum 2.65m. I don't now yet whether i will ramp the ceiling from let say 3m down to 2m65 or just leave it on 2m65... The separation internally will be made of a 21cm staggered studs wall with insulation and 2 layers of gypsum on both sides. Beside normal recording tasks, i will have rehearsal with my pop/rock/jazz band in the room. So soundproofing the outside walls is very important. I made 4 possible layouts with google sketchup and added them in my second post. I tried to embed the pictures but couldn't so i used the [url=... whatever]layout c[/url] thing. These pictures give a good idea about the layout and room dimensions of my (hopefully in the near future) studio. I'm still not convinced whether i should use a large control/recording space with a small drum/vocal booth (2 sketchup pictures) or having 2 separate control and recording spaces (2 sketchup pictures). Also, i did not play with the geometry of the room. I used mostly plain rectangles that will be threated with e.g. auralex acoustic material and some selfmade quadratic residu diffusers. Do i benefit when ramping the walls, ceiling? Or leave better rectangular? Hope this gives a bit more info... Koen

Hi Koen, That's a bit better, but it seems you still didn't read the "Don't post until you read this" thread completely! One key item tells me that.... :) Anyway, a couple of comments:

i thought of using the following scheme [brick|air|brick|air|metal stud with insulation|3 layer of gypsum] for a total of 0.5 m thickness.

That would make a three-leaf wall! Very bad idea. Try searching for "two leaf" and "three leaf" on this forum, and you will find out why. This forum is a HUGE library of information on the correct way to design and build studios. The information you need to avoid making bad mistakes (like the one you just mentioned) is all over this place. Just pick an interesting thread, and start reading. Follow the links to other threads, other web sites, etc. You really will find all of the information that you need, but it will take time. And you'll probably have to "un-learn" most of what you have heard about studio construction in other places. A lot of it is just plain wrong, as you'll discover here. But your basic wall construction concept of "brick - air - brick - air - gypsum" is a three-leaf wall, which means that you will have LESS isolation at low frequencies. Your kick drum, bass guitar, toms and other low frequency instruments will pass right through those walls. And so will low frequency noise on the outside, coming in, such as cars, trucks, buses, motorbikes, etc.

So soundproofing the outside walls is very important.

You cannot soundproof only your outside walls! The outer and inner leaves of a wall, plus the air gap and insulation in between, all act together as a single system. If you change any part of it, then you change the acoustic behavior of the entire structure. You have to think about and design the entire wall SYSTEM together, not as individual parts. It is not that you have two leaves of wall, one of which stops some sound, and the other stops more sound. It doesn't work like that. The two leaves work together as a "Mass-Spring-Mass" system.

threated with e.g. auralex acoustic material and some selfmade quadratic residu diffusers.

Diffusers in such a small control room are probably not going to do anything useful for you, and might make your stereo imaging worse. Diffusers need a lot of space between your head and them, in order for there to not be any lobing. I don't recall off hand, but I think the recommendation is for at least six meters of space from the back of your head to the surface of the diffuser. I do't think you have enough room to do that. And while purchased acoustic treatment will certainly work, you can get the same or better effect from making the treatment yourself. For example, building bass traps yourself is easy and cheap. Or you could buy them from Ethan, ready built. Check out his web site, which has another gold-mine of useful acoustic information and tips.

Do i benefit when ramping the walls, ceiling? Or leave better rectangular?

Start with a rectangle, and choose the dimensions of that rectangle from one of the set of good room ratios (search the forum for "room ratio" if you don't know what that means): The ratio refers to the inside dimensions of your finished inner-leaf walls. Once you have selected the ratio that you are going to work with, then you should angle your side walls away from each other, at least six degree for each side wall if you plan to have your speaker triangle intersecting at 60 degrees, or 11 degrees if you plan to have them intersecting at 90 degrees. This is called "splaying" your walls. Your ceiling can be angled too, at least 12 degrees, sloping upwards away from your speaker position. Especially if that would help to get a higher ceiling in some places. The average dimensions of your room-with-splayed-walls should still be the same as the room ratio that you chose. The above is for your control room. Your live room should have non-parallel walls, and can have diffusers if you need them. Regarding your layouts: Personally, I think #3 works best, but it all depends on what you need, and personal taste, too. Second choice would be #1. Forget #2 and #4: they are not symmetrical, and trying to mix in there would be impossible. - Stuart -

Stuart, Thanks for the really helpfull comments! I will browsing the forum to find out more about the 2 and 3 leaf walls. I made an alternative on my 2-the layout which had the one large recording and tracking room approach together with a small booth. You said that this layout 2 and 4 are useless because of the lack of symmetry. But if i place the mixing desk in the middle of the front wall? then i have more or less suymmetry and > 6 m to the back of the room. So i can benifit from diffusers then? Isn't it? Check out the picture isf you want? thanks... alternative on nr 2 Another thing i do not understand well is the 3 leaf wall ... the most used wall construction here in Belgium is brick, arspace brick plastered at one side. So what i wanted to do is to add an extra double or tripple gypsum stud wall at 7 cm distance of the existing outside brick air brick wall being part of the box in box concept. Is this a 3 leaf wall then just because there is a double brick wall actually just as the outside wall? So is it better then to have just one brick with a large 25cm air space and than the gypsum stud wall part of the box in box? I don't know if i am clear but i will try to make some drawings about what i really mean later this week. Regards, Koen

Koen, waar woont je huis? (what location do you live @)

Ro wrote:

Koen, waar woont je huis? (what location do you live @)

I live in Oudenaarde, Belgium...

well, hello from the Netherlands :) So, could you please update your profile here on the forum and add, at least, you location? It's just one of those, silly, things we want here... :blah:

Sorry, i was totally forgotten. So i updated my profile... Koen

GREAT! Another thing; could you, instead of linking, upload them pix to this board? (at the bottom of the reply page you can upload pix, cool eh!) like this: Is that room totally empty or are there already walls up? Could you post an EMPTY room with exact dimensions? (might also be a sketch-up file) Or is this not ready build yet?

Hi Ro, Thanks for the fast reply!. No, actually, nothing has been build yet. Everything has to be build from scratch. Ground fundaments, walls, everything. I'm totally free as long as i do not exceed 60 m². If it is a bit over, ok so it be... I thought of starting with a 6mx10m rectangle (in brick outside walls) with a ramped roof from 3.5m ramp down to 3m, outside dimensions.... That is the least expensive... K

GREAT! Building from scratch can be the best situation. That also means you have to study, get in the known and learn all about construction of soundrooms. First thing's first: get a copy of Rod Gervais's book. Really. It'll be an eye-opener and you'll be building a "good" room in no-time. Don't rush this one, you got the opportunity to make it happen. Planning is everything. Don't even think about poring a slab before your plan has been passed by: yourself, us, inspectors and your spouse ;) Read and learn, it's gonna rock!

Hi Ro, I have the rod Gervais book for 3 years already... Great book! Problem is that the book uses a lot of US type building, mostly using stud walls everywhere. Here in Europe, we use to build outside walls with a facing brick, ainsulated airgap and again a layer of brick. I could build simpler using only 1 outside wall plastered brick. Anyhow, i'm still wondering what i should do for the rough building construction... Because, anyhow, i'll have a box in a box construction that will add a thirth wall if building two brick layer wall... Not a lot of this is in Rod's book. What i need is info about stc values using facing brick - air - brick - air - box in box wall OR plastered brick - air - box in box stud wall rgrds, Koen

Also lots of references to materials we cannot buy here in Rod's book... But it is still a great book!!

aaaah, fantastic. Yes, it might be a bit different, construction wise, than we're used to here in Belgium/Netherlands. Most materials we CAN get, or any alternatives for that matter. Building a box-in-box with bricks isn't a bad idea. It's 2 planes of mass. Plaster it and yer done. No need for gypsum, or atleast not for adding another leaf. If you attach it directly to the inner wall, for whatever purpose, it'll do the job just fine. Bricks: check wool: check (the 703, for example, is just an example in Rod's book. Isover, Rockwool etc carry great wool too.) accoustic sealant: a bit harder. Auralex carries them, but are expensive. Plain acrylic kit will do. Check. metalstuds (innerwalls): check gypsum (innerwalls, finishing): check. It's all there.. I could go on and on. You might wanna start with a good floor-design and go from there. You can poor your slab(s) according to rooms. So, let's get into designing!!

Hi, I made a sketch of the common wall structure consisting of a facing brick | air | brick AND then the construction of my inner (box in box) sound insulating wall structure. 1/ Is this a 3 leaf or a 2 leaf wall? So, if this is a 3 leaf wall, the it is actually worser then a 2 leaf? And does that mean i can leave out the middle brick wall? Ooops, then i need another construction because the facing brick wall is not meant to carry the ceiling structure... 2/ I don't think i need the floating floor in the "box in box" structure because the concrete slab is thick enough sitting directly in the earth on ground level and not connected to any surrounding living place or houses (it is a separate building)...

If leafs are not connected, then yes it's a 3 leaf. Concret floor, tell us more about that. Beware of the heavy load it will carry. And yes, you should not elevate the floor on that slab. Mights as well, depending on your floor plan, seperate slabs according to rooms. But you need a floorplan at least.....

Ro, The concrete slab will be part of the fundaments of the building. The weak facing brick wall is always anchored via metal pieces with the inner carrying brick wall... So is that still a 3 leaf or in that case a 2 leaf wall? See picture of a typical inner-outher wall construction... You can see the insulation plate in the air gap and also the anchoring...

Is this gonna be a pre-build construction? Is it part of a bigger plan? Who's gonna build it? Do you have anything to say about it? Contractor? Architect? Is it a 2 leaf already? I say "yeah, it is". We'd have to ask Rod about this one, he's got tons experience with all kind of constructions. Rod, what do you make of this?

Ro wrote:

Is this gonna be a pre-build construction? Is it part of a bigger plan?

No, this is build up stone by stone... these pictures are taken from another building just by means of illustrating the kind of outside construction wall... anyhow, it is not a must in my case to build like that. But this is the most common outside wall construction that most of the contractors here know about. Also, in many cases, build-rules oblige you to construct like that...

Ro wrote:

Who's gonna build it? Do you have anything to say about it? Contractor? Architect?

I will use a contractor and of course an architect...

Ro wrote:

Is it a 2 leaf already? I say "yeah, it is". We'd have to ask Rod about this one, he's got tons experience with all kind of constructions. Rod, what do you make of this?

I really curious what an expert like Rod will tell about this... Let say here in Belgium i think 5more then 50% of all properties have wall constructions like that... the rest covers wood skelet, concrete, and all other buildind construction techniques.