Studio Design in Rotterdam, Netherlands

hi everyone First a quick introduction: (i'm jeroen, 24, live in holland, and study a music course here. Together with friends who organise some parties (house/minimal/tech-house & hiphop/etc) and produce we have a space in Rotterdam, The Netherlands (Holland). I also record my roommate (singer songwriter) and his band.) In Rotterdam, the group with wich I spend a lot of time producing, has a place where we can start doing some more serious things in music, that's why we have great plans with what to do with the 'studio' (the name is already there ;-)) Place Though it's in the harbor area, we do not have a lot of trouble with noise from the harbor, especcially not after working times. The boats or ships that come by and do make a lot of noise (once or twice a day) we take for granted. Of course we can make it as loud as we want since we're not bothering anyone at all. It's a building from 1972, then build as 2 livinghouses, 1 bigger, 1 smaller. The smaller part is now in use as house actually, by us. We can sleep, shower, drink, everything, and want to keep this, so we still can have several days in the studio without having to go home. This side of the building has a first and second floor. On the other side of the building (you enter the 2 house with same entrance),first floor, there is our office and a small kitchen. when we go up the stairs there is the place where the studio should come. Space it's an area of (without any walls) 10,73 x 5,96 meters (35.2 x 19.6 feet) but: there is an (build-in) balcony, a supporting wall going across, 2 windows on one side, 1 big one at the balcony, air exhaust for sewer going up, a toilet (downstairs too),and a heating boiler. and of course several pipes for that. Wishes what we want with it: we want a good control room, with the right dimensions for proper mixing AND mastering if possible. We want a tracking room in which we can record drums and other instruments like sax orso. Mainly to use it in hiphop and dance productions by ourselves and friends, but the singer/songwriter has to be able to perform with a drummer and a bass too. It would be great if a whole band could perform here too. great it would be, but there must also be a chill-out/trash room where we can chill and DJ en talk and stuff, without being near precious gear and stuff. unfort... What we did for our design was to find a way to have a controlroom and tracking room, which was really hard, especially the need to be big enough to have no great great modal issues, but to leave enough room for a third one. How It's pretty complex in what we are going to do now, so maybe you can help us. We are now going to put in a steal supporting beam (by engineer) so we don't have a supporting wall in the (upper)middle of the space. (The one next to the vocal booth and central heater will be there still.) Therefore also the exhaust for the sewer going up will be needing a relace too, so that it comes next to the other supporting wall (that stays in place). All the other inside walls are gone then. There will be build new walls. we have accounted now for 30 cm (11.8 inch) thick walls, but this isnt yet because of any calculations, just certainty for placing thick walls in the space. The walls will be double framed assemblies with a cavity and gypsumboard on both outsides of the assemblies. Assemblies will be filled with some mineral wool. Actually, I do all this walking with the book of Rod Gervais (Hi Rod!) in my hand practually. So then you know I guess how the build will be. Room dimensions The rooms dimensions are on the pics, the height is overall 2.40 meters (7.87 feet or 94.5 inch) so this kinda tells you wich room dimensions you can use. I dont want to make the ceiling lower, maybe a little if necessairy. Ratios will now be: Controlroom: 1 / 1.4 / 1.9 (meters: 2.42 / 3.40 / 4.61 feet: 7.94 / 11.2 / 15.1) Tracking room: 1 / 1.14 / 2.7 )meters: 2.28 / 2.60 / 5.96 feet: 7.48 / 8.53 / 19.60) Room treatment will be a later issue, though we watched the design closely to see what is possible and that it stays possible. Electricity All the electricity we need for chill-room and light will be on the old chain. We make 2 new groups; one for control room gear and one for recording room. these will be build in floor and/or ceiling. Budget For the money, there is a budget for about 20.000 to 40.000 euro (wide range but 40 is really the roof) for the total build, incl. isolation & acoustic treatments, excl. gear of course. The contractor wich will perform the job has not yet calculated it right, but said it will be around 30.000 euros to remove the supporting wall and add a steel frame to support the roof, install all the walls and doors, electricity, double glazing in outer windows, windows for control room and final touch to everything like plasterwork and painting. Pics Here are the pics. ( if anyone would like the sketch-up file, it's here Questions Now my questions are these: 1. How is this design? we made several others, but no other design uses all space as good as this one. 2. Do you see a cheaper or better way to divide to rooms? 3. Is the controlroon big enough in your opinion to mix and master properly? espaccially with the steel beam above the listening position 4. Is it a problem that the recording room has length but not much width? [b]5. Is it better if we build-in the monitor speakers? That was it for so far. Hope i gave you enough info and I hope to see replies soon. ;-) I already want to says thanks to everybody who helps me with this! THANKS! Jeroen Moor

anyone?

Hoi Jeroen! Just to make it easier, start with posting the CURRENT situation (pix) and tell us a bit about the building itself (floors, walls etc). Not too much info at first, I hate reading too much words. If I didn't I'd read ALL of Stuarts posts... ;) Don't worry, yet, about details.

design totally changed, so will be back with the new design. (Thread can be locked)

You can still use this thread. I'm curious about your new plan!