new studio

First off, i'm a new member and this is the best forum i have visited. OK. I have a grannyflat approx 12x20 with 8 foot ceiling. I paln on building a small room for mixer and cpu in this space. Is this enough space for a decent studio? i would mostly like to do live stuff. do i need a vocal booth. do the drums need a raised or wood floor. and also placement of bass traps and slot resonators and speakers. its a square room btw. thanks alot people. :D

A square room that's 12'x20'? Or did you mean the walls are all paralell? The parallel wall thing is easy to fix, especially if you're planning on building a room-within-a-room. I'd recommend it. Are the ceiling joists/trusses exposed? As far as the layout, you could split it down into 2 rooms and use one for tracking, but if you want to get a whole band playing all at once, it may not be a bad idea to make the whole space into one room and use gobos for separation. I personally would prefer a larger, all-in-one space over a pair of rooms that were both too small to do what I need. There's plenty of designs around the board that'll give you ideas for room shapes. If you need more help, give us a sketch of what the existing space floor plan looks like, and we'll come up with something. With the info you've given us, there's not much we can do... Good luck! Kase www.minemusic.net

Go to this site site and look up plans. The garage studios 1 and 2 could both be modified for your needs. http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html read up on acoustics while you are there ;) cheers john

thanks alot guys. those studio plans helpred out alot. great site. one more thing. heard of studio in a box? by a company called rpg or something? you can treat a room 14x10x8 for 500 bucks. was wondering if thats a sweet deal or just go to my local foam\plastics dealer for generic crap. thanks again for all the help. sick

John Sayers wrote:

Go to this site site and look up plans. The garage studios 1 and 2 could both be modified for your needs. http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html read up on acoustics while you are there ;) cheers john

I am also starting construction on a new room. Waiting for the infamous IRS return to come in in the next week which will give me the funds to pour my slab. The "GARAGE STUDIO 1" layout is exactly what I was looking for. I have several requirments/options available to me though, none are set in stone. I was trying to keep the total area to 400 sq. ft. as local building codes require less in the way of inspections/permits for an out-building of this size. I feel the need to keep the lesser dimension of this building to 16 ft. as my friends and I will be pouring the concrete ourselves (we have some experience at this) and it will be easier to work/smooth at this dimension and it will keep cieling joists down to a mangable length using 2x10 or 2x12 lumber.. These specifications yeild a total area of 16x25 ft., I don't think that I will have enough room to lay "GARAGE STUDIO 1" out properly in this size area and maintain proper acoustic dimentions for the control room and a usable area for the studio floor and/or vocal booth. My original intent was only to contruct a control room of 19x14x10 in this space with a small toilet/kitchen area behind the control room and then build a 16x24x12 studio addition afterwards. This would probably be the best solution, but I'm getting too old, tired and broke (my wife tends to interfere with my spending abilities) to do this, I have decided to do it all in one building. I live on 7 acres out in the country so I'm not worried about the neighbors and since it's new construction I have some leeway on cielling height. Any suggestions on trying to do this including taking the foundation area up to say 16x30 or 16x32 would be appreciated. I have been working on a design for a custom pair of monitors to use in this room for the last 2 weeks using some ideas taken from this site and that is starting to look good. Thanks guys (and gals).

sickyboy -may I put it this way - If someone says they can treat your room for $500, that means they can make a profit doing it. You should ask - can I keep the profit and do it myself for cheaper and, more importantly, what do they mean by treatment? Sugarnutz - I'm going to move your question to it's own thread - this is sickyboy's :):) cheers john

good point. that auralex isnt cheap either. in fact, i think it should be called robalex. so i called a local foam and plastics supply and i can get 2'x4'x2 inches thick for like 10 bucks, way cheap. but is it the same or close to the same stuff? those guys got to get there stuff from somewhere. once again, thanks so much. sick

sickyboy - unfortunately that foam is NOT the same as Auralex. Don't go buying standard foam for this application. as well as not being acoustically similar it is dangerous to use as it is a fire hazard and burns creating a lethal smoke. The alternative to auralex acoustic foam is to use semi rigid insulation like owens corning's 703 or John Manvilles spinglas. Do a search for these two products on this site and you will see what I mean.;) cheers john

ok. so go with the 703 its just as good as the auralex. ok one more thing. in the live room. slot resonators behind the drummer? absortion in front and sides? or is it just trial and error as far as instrument placement. once again many thanks. sick btw those plans at sae show wall treatment but not drum placement or amp placement within that room.

Use the slots to breakup the parallels and balance the area against the 703 to bring the verb time down evenly. cheers john

i'm sorry. i cant quite understand. the breakup of the parallels. i think you mean the long walls of the room. put them on those walls. not the whole wall just part of it. maybe 20 or 30 percent. thanks again. thanks again for all the help. i got like one shot at this. i got to make it right. sick.

Mate - go and look at Sonar studios. http://johnlsayers.com/Studio/index.htm cheers JOhn

thanks alot fot all the help. this forum is essentail to any studio builder, first timer or pro. when i am a rock star and receive my grammy i will be sure to mention you. cheers sick btw i got to play beach volleyball with one of the top player in austrailia. this was 10 years ago though. he was from perth.

i can get john mannsville 2 inch rigid insulation at my home depot. is that just as good as the 700 series by owens corning? thanks again. sick

Yes the Manville rigid is fine - it has geat absorption specs. cheers john

hey john thanks for the reply. i went to the manville site and there were no accoustic specs for this 2'' rigid. although i saw some that did. i bought 5 sheets of AP foil faced foam sheeting. now R value is heat not sound, correct? thank you so much. sick