Finally getting myself sorted out - could use some advice

Hi everyone, have been lurking for a while soaking up all the info I can while preparing for my build. In my first post I will just give a quickie overview of the room etc first then get onto the questions in a second post. I am attmpting to fit out a room under my house (an old Queenslander for any of the other Aussies reading this). I have included a sketch-up model of the room and those surrounding it including a bunch of dimensions etc. The room is a slightly odd shape and has a concrete Floor. My plan at the moment is the larger section will be for recording, the smaller for maintaining my collection of elderly guitars, effects and other general junk I seem to collect. The 'desk' such as I have will be at the junction of the two spaces. It will also house most of my guitars hung around the walls of this smaller area. I can include photo's of the room or specific elements if required. The walls are timber stud with fibro cement sheet on the outside and MDF on the inside. I am currently filling the stud wall with insulation to help drop the noise level outside, which is actaully pretty low at the volumes I usually record at, but I would like to have the option of making a bit more noise in future if I need to. I am planning on a single room build which will be used predominantly for tracking, I mostly record my own stuff but have been asked to work with a few local muso's to do cheap recordings for them as they are currently unable to afford the local 'real' studio's. As for the nasty 'B' word I don't have a set budget, I don't have heaps of money to spend but also don't actually have a set timeframe I just want to make this room sound as good as it possibly can. That said I would prefer to keep this build as cheap as is possible, if I really need to spend-up on something I will but would prefer to keep the expenditure down to the range of 1-5,000 type area if possible. I have included a lot of details on the sketch-up if anything doesn't make sense etc please let me know and I'll clarify. Thanks for your help and for this amazing resource, Nathan

Ok now to the questions. Problem 1- I am trying to deal with sound getting in and out of the studio. At the moment the windows are uncovered and the door at the front is an obvious weak point. My current plan is to make window plugs which will be removable to deal with the 3 windows (insulation/layer of thick ply/layer of thick MDF with a rubber seal of some kind around the edge). Does this sound viable? As I mentioend in my first post the sound leakage at the moment isn't a problem but I would like to improve it so I can go louder if I need to. I have no idea what to do with door, I need to be able to open and close it still but prevent sound getting in and out from there - would a combination of a large superchunk and diffuser panel which I can move be a possible solution? Problem 2- I haven't got any measurement mics or software as yet - hopefully soon. I think the room is ok but there seems to be a problem with bass so I was going to make some bass traps for the corners. But the bigger problem seems to be my drum kit it is producing a wierd high frequency thing almost like reverb (flutter echoes is the term I think) is there a way to deal with that and leaving the kit in a usable state? It is sitting in the corner where I have written 'possible drum riser location' on the sketch-up model is it possible that that location is the problem? I would appreciate any input criticisms and sarcasm on offer as I want to get this as close to the ideal as I can with what I have to work with. If you can see any problems that I haven't mentioned or I have left out any vital details please let me know and I'll fill in the blanks as best I can. Thanks for your help, Nathan

Hi Nathan, and welcome! A couple of questions and comments: 1) On your SketchUp model, you have TWO rooms: One is marked "Current studio" and has a wooden floor. The other is the strange non-rectangular shape, with green walls. Which room are you referring to with your post? 2) What are the interior dividing walls made from, and are they load-bearing (structural)? Particularly the one that is green on one side and red on the other side, and also the green one between the "possible drum riser location" and the "storage area", right next to the double door. The reason I ask is to figure out if they can be modified (such as changing the position of the door), or even removed completely and re-built in a different place. Maybe you can mark the construction details of each wall on your plan, so it is easier to figure out what can be changed, and what is fixed. 3) I think the area where the power points and air con are located is too small to be practical as a control room area. It is only 1.9 m wide, and 2.8 long, and has various pillars and posts all over the place! I don't see how you could turn that into a usable acoustic space. By the time you have your bass traps and other acoustic treatment in there, there won't be any space left for a desk equipment and you! 4) I am thinking along the lines of moving some of those walls around to give you much better use of space 5) How high is the ceiling, and what is above you? Is there another floor up there, or is that the roof? What is the ceiling made of? 6) You didn't mention anything about the purpose of this room, how loud you are, how quite you need to be outside, what type of external sounds you need to block, how loud those sounds are, how quite you need then to be inside, etc. It's hard for folks here to recommend ways to build and treat your room for what you want, when you don't give any information about what you want! :) - Stuart -

Thanks for the reply Soundman2020. Sorry I missed those details, could have sworn i put them in sorry my bad. The old studio room (red one) is where I had my gear previously, way too small for my needs and is needed for other purposes as my wife and I are both studying at the moment and require office space. The floor in there was concrete as well, not sure why I had timber as a flooring I think I was originally going to put in that fake timber flooring but decided against it based on less than stellar reviews from here and other places as well as the loss of headroom. The walls are timber stud with fibro cement sheet on the outside and MDF on the inside. I am currently filling the stud wall with insulation to help drop the noise level outside. Sadly the walls are structural and can't be moved as are the posts upstairs is the living areas of the house, the roof is bare floorboards and joists etc exposed. I plan to put in a layer of sheet-rock or similar against the floorboards and then insulate and add a ceiling of some kind (wife is less than excited by the fabric option) will look into that later. The roof is unfortunately quite low approximately 2.5m to base of joists which would be the new ceiling level. The room is principally for tracking and the sound level is generally not excessive and as I mentioned the level outside with the room only partly insulated is still fairly low. I want to make sure the level outside is kept low when I start trying to record drums etc as I hope to help some people around town who can't afford to use a real studio (very expensive around here sadly) by doing demo's etc for them etc. As for the control room I wanted a single room as often it is just me recording my own stuff so a control room is unnecessary for me. The join between the two spaces is where I have what passes for my desk (mostly in the box with a few pres etc) and with the smaller space being used for that stuff which I need but takes up room in the main space and isn't necessary all the time. I can put up a wall if necessary to divide the spaces if that would help? So I think I got everything this time, sorry again about the missing info in the first post. Nathan