New build studio in UK

Hi Everyone, First post here and would really appreciate some advice on a new studio build. I've spent the last 3 months browsing the forum (fantasitic info), I've read Rods book (among others) and I'm at the stage where I'm almost ready to go. Background I've been recording and playing music as a hobby for the past 15 years and built my first dedicated studio 5 years ago in our small UK garage. Lots of mistakes and lots of lessons learned :o . We are currently in the process of buying a new house and I'll hopefully be spending the summer building the new studio. I'll document the build on this forum. I am currently at the design phase - no work has started and I'm hoping to start building at the beginning of August. Studio purpose For the next few years the studio will be used solely for my band to record (Rock & pop - acoustic drums, elec / acoustic guitar, Bass & Vox). After that I'm hoping to record local bands & solo artists. This won't be my only source of income, but I do want the studio to be as professional as possible. Studio location The house is situated in a quiet road with the rear garden backing onto open farmland. The studio will be built at the bottom of the garden and will be 80ft away from the nearest neighbour. Recording will be during daylight hours and generally at weekends so isolation requirements shouldn't be too demanding. Studio design & constraints. At the moment there is nothing but lawn so this is a complete new build (inc the outer shell). I want to construct a 2 room design (control / Live) and plan to use 100mm concrete blocks for the outer shell, with either a render finish or wood cladding on concrete strip foundations. The floor will be a reinforced slab, isolated from the exterior walls. To maximise internal space I plan for the inner walls to be of the "inside out" design using 4"*2" timberframes, 2 layers of 18mm plasterboard with greenglue, fluffy insulation in the airgap and 703 behind acoustic cloth. Inner celing will also be inside out - similar construction to the walls. I'll work on treatment after testing the basic shell. The most important elements of the design are: 1. A good Control room. I currently struggle mixing the bottom end due to room modes and poor design. 2. A Live area that will fit a drummer, 2 guitarists and a bass player. Guide vox can be done in the control room if necessary. Size: The plot of land available is 5.5m wide and 8m long. Constraints: The external building must not be greater than 30 square meters. The roof height will be 2.5m to the eaves. Internal celing height (room within room) will be around 2.4m. If the studio width is greater than 4.5m wide the only access will be at the front (short edge). There will be no room to access the sides. If the width is less than 4.5m I will be able to gain access via one side as well as the front. There will be no access from the other side or the rear. Budget I have a few friends who are builders so I hope to pull in all outstanding favours and complete the studio for 10 - 15K GBP I have come up with 3 designs and I'd appreciate some advice on which is best and how I could improve the design. None of the designs use soffits for speaker mounting. I've read pros and cons of soffit mounting and I've decided to stick with good speaker stands for my Event ASP6 monitors. The triangle in each design shows proposed speaker placement (60degs approx 1.5m apart). As this is in the UK I am not planning on HVAC, however I will need to provide general ventilation (more questions on this later) My sketchup skills are basic at the moment and I have only managed to create 2D floorplans but they are attached. For all 3 designs: Gray = Concrete Yellow = insulation White = 2 layers of plasterboard with greenglue Green = 4*2 Framing with 703 - covered in Cloth. Red = Basstrap Design 1 Pro's Largest control room and good size live room. Con's: Neither rooms are based on known ratios so hard to predict modes. Lack of airlock between control room and live room will degrade internal isolation. Single doorway into live area will degrade isolation to the outside world. Window between live and control rooms is small. I'm guessing Guessing control rm will suffer bass buildup in rear corner. Design 2 Pro's: Control room based on known ratio 1:1.14:1.39 (HWL 2.46*2.8*3.4) Airlock improves isolation both internally and externally Airlock doubles as vocal booth if needed (probably used for guide vox only) Cons: Smallest control room Design 3 Pro's Airlock improves isolation both internally and externally Con's Neither rooms are based on known ratios so hard to predict modes. I'm guessing control rm will suffer bass buildup in rear corner. Questions: I'm sure I'll have more detailed questions as I go along but for now the main questions are: Which design would you concider to be the best ? Is there something better ? Is having all walls and celing "inside out" a good one ? Is it likely to sound too dead and unnatuaral ? Looking forward to your replies. Cheers guys.

Room ratio's kind of go out the window when you start talking about corner designs. So I wouldn't worry about that aspect. Do you want more space in the control room or live room the choice is yours. Is it a musicians studio or an engineer's studio. IMO i wouldn't go with a sound lock as you have limited space. It's a pretty common size that would suit many of the posted "small studio" designs. Why not just build a pre-existing design. lil

Hi Lilith, thanks for the rely - much appreciated.

lilith_envy wrote:

Do you want more space in the control room or live room the choice is yours. Is it a musicians studio or an engineer's studio. IMO i wouldn't go with a sound lock as you have limited space. lil

The answer is to your first question is both. I expect 60% of the time it will be an engineers studio and 40% musicians, so I'm wanting the best of both worlds.... I'm interested in other opinions on the soundlock. Is it really needed ? I want to make sure I've got good isolation between control room and the live area particularly for drum recording. Design 3 is an adaption of the one in Rod's book which I'm leaning towards at the moment. Thanks

A sound lock won't help isolation during recording. Mass helps isolation. Unless your neighbours are that anal, that the 6 sec it takes to walk through the door while the drummer is still jamming, makes them ring the cops? And even then the lock only has to be big enough for 1-2 standing people. ( and local laws :blah: )