sugarnutz question

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).

Mate - I'd suggest you take a viagra look (long and hard) at Sonar Studios in Ireland at the studios under construction site. http://johnlsayers.com/Studio/index.htm It's 4.9m x 12.6m which is 16.07' x 41.3' in your money. The control room could be squeezed down to fit into your 32ft with two equal sized booth either side. cheers john

Thanx John. Yeah the Sonar looks good, I had already looked at it a couple of times. I might be able to do something along those lines, I only need to cut live drums in the main room and a vocal in the other. I might can squeeze a small "closet" on the drum room side to set a small guitar amp in. My needs are pretty standard as I don't really plan on renting the room out, only for my own productions (my therapy). I had a fairly large Neve/MCI room in Memphis, TN back in the 80's that I pretty much built myself and we cut some good recordings in there. I just got burned out in 1990 and got real day gig, married, had a kid, got a mortgage, car, dog & half a cat. I've been having the urge to slip back into the business in such a way as not to be intrusive to my family. The cool thing is I'm working as a supervisor at a nearby casino and it seems all the musicians I used to work with are playing there and I'm starting to talk with some of them about producing/engineering them again. I'm on a strict budget with this project as I already have a small Protools rig and some gear left over from before, so all I need is a functional place to put it all. I am finding a lot of useful ideas on this forum and I appreciate your help/input.

Well it's been almost six years since I posted to this thread and John moved it. 2 days after the post my house burned, total loss, luckily my family made it out with the only causality being my dog who went the wrong way towards the back of the house. It took over three years to rebuild the house due to the fact that we did it ourselves and paid as we went. In the last two years I've acquired degenerative arthritis in my spine which has slowed me a bit, but actually I'm doing fine. LOL Due to my situation with my back it has become apparent that my working days are going to become limited in the next couple of years and I need to get back to engineering as I can do that from a chair. I've pretty much rebuilt my Rolodex from Facebook which to me is amazing. I've gotten back in touch with bands, songwriters and producers whom I worked with 20+ years ago and most all want want to know if I'm getting back in the business. As a business I have been out for the last 20 years raising a family, but I have kept abreast of technology keeping a DAW around and actually doing some PT work for a few producers in Nashville a couple of times a year. Last week I hired a couple of guys to clear/remove two outbuildings that have been neglected since the fire, remove all the vegetation in that general area (I have almost 7 acres here) and get the area ready to build, again. The current plan is to build a control room first with the dimensions of 19 ft x 16 ft & a 10 ft ceiling, concrete slab, timber stud construction followed later by a studio with the dimensions of 19 ft x 28 ft and a 12 ft ceiling, but a conventional crawlspace foundation. I'm doing the design & budgeting now and will put a sketch-up later as I have the time. My main concern now in the design is that I intend to have as much mass as possible in these walls and am considering 6" studs with 3/4" MDF sheathing followed by 2 layers of 1/2" sheetrock. The ceiling is getting my attention at the moment as I intend to use 2" x 10" ceiling joists running across the 16 ft dimension and then using a generous amount of construction adhesive & 3 1/2" # 8 or # 10 screws to affix the MDF. With the additional 2 layers of sheetrock I am worried about the weight as I don't want this coming down on my or anyone else's head. Any suggestions about this would be greatly appreciated. Thanx in advance.

you are talking about a room within a room correct? The ceiling joist will not also be rafters carrting snow load....... if this is correct - then 2x10 Doug Fir Larch, 2x10 #2 or better @ 24" on center ill be more than adequate for your needs. Rod

You are correct in that the the ceiling is NOT going to support any load other than mentioned above. While I had originally planned 16" centers, I have been talking to an engineer buddy in Nashville and along with your post came up 24" centers. He also turned me on the QuietRock, but that stuff is expensive. The one thing I did come up with was that 2 pieces of 5/8" drywall on 24" centers with 2 tubes of GreenGlue have almost the STC of the QuietRock. My last studio I constructed was a double wall with 1 layer 1/2" plywood and 2 layers of 1/2 drywall on 16" centers, no corresponding seams among the 3, worked very well. I am in a rural area now with the closest noise source a interstate highway roughly 1800 ft away. You can here a little of the traffic from here at night when all else is quiet, but not really that much. Thanks for the suggestions so far.