Houston, TX Studio

Hey everyone, I've been reading here for a while but just signed up so I could show everyone the studio I have been designing. It's in a small strip center but they are cool with a recording studio being built there. The space is about 22' x 45' with a 9' ceiling and although I plan on isolating the sound, most of the surrounding stores in the strip center close by 5pm. Very nice. Plus, it is across the street from my old high school (one of the richer public schools in the nation, so I am hoping they can afford it) so I am gonna be advertising to a lot of the students there, as well as the 5 nearby high schools (all 15 minutes away). Here's some of the equipment I already own: Hardware: Behringer 32 Channel Analog Mixer Digi001 Rack Interface Behringer PowerPlay 8 Channel Headphone Amp Line 6 Gear Box Guitar Interface Sabine Chromatic Tuner Fender Power Chorus Guitar Amp Crate Guitar Amp Fender Frontman Bass Amp Crate Electra Electric Guitar Accutune Electric Guitar Ibanez Electric Bass Guitar Rogue Acoustic Guitar Rogue Mandolin Premiere 5 Piece Drum Set Pearl 5 Piece Drum Set Shalloch Congas/Bongos Set M-Audio KeyStation 49 MIDI Controller CAD 7 Piece Drum Microphone Set Four Shure SM57 Microphones Three Shure SM58 Microphones MXL 200 High Condenser Microphone M-Audio Condenser USB Microphone Gateway PC: 2.20 GHz Quad-Core Processor, 8 BM RAM, 1.5 TB of Storage, 19” Monitor, 42” Monitor Software: Pro Tools Reason Cubase FLStudio Adobe Audition Sony Acid Music Studio Sony Sound Forge Sony CD Architect Sony Vegas Sony DVD Architect Adobe Photoshop Adobe Premiere Adobe After Effects Plug-ins: Waves Diamond Antares Auto-Tune Evo Antares Microphone Modeler Antares AVOX Amplitube 2 Line 6 Guitar Rig Line 6 POD Farm EDIROL Orchestra Garritan Personal Orchestra Garritan Big Band and Jazz Miroslav Philharmonik (Plus way too many free ones) A few things I am purchasing for the studio: Apple iMac (I'd like to save up and pick up a Mac Pro a couple months after opening. Also, I'd use my PC for recording but Pro Tools seems to not like Vista, plus I dont wanna deal with all the usual PC problems during tracking.) M-Audio ProjectMix with Pro Tools Blue BlueBird Microphone (Any suggestions for a better mic in the same price range? $299.99) Behringer Truth B2031A Active Monitors 3 Primacoustics 12A packages I tried uploading the SKP file but it's way too big. Here are some pictures.

You had a question?

Haha, not really any questions, just seeing what people think of the design and if anyone has any suggestions.

Well, to what standards have you designed this area? Me, I would twist the control room 90 degrees one way or the other, and figure out what I am trying to achieve in the control room with those 10 walls :) Then I would check the room(s) that I am considering to build and check those room variables, maybe consider larger rooms over more and smaller rooms. One of the main two places that people overlook: The floor and the ceiling/roof. It is as important as the walls, ceiling roof especially because it will have the HVAC as part of the space in the one and possible cable routing in the other.

I've never liked designs where the control room didn't face the live rooms. And the back two corners have slot resonators in them. I haven't seen corner resonators here before but I thought it might be a good idea. If anyone thinks it would be disasterous, please let me know now. haha. As for the rooms I am actually building, the three back rooms (a bathroom and storage area) are already there, so I would be building everything else. And I guess the two things I'm here for advice on would be the ceilings and floors. I have read a lot on here but it's still good to actually talk to people about it. The building has the hanging ceiling tiles and they are nine feet high. I figure I'll have to replace most, if not all of it. That's what I am working on right now.

"I haven't seen corner resonators here before but I thought it might be a good idea." I wonder why you think it is a good idea? You admit that you have not seen any here, I doubt you will see them anywhere else or read about them. Resonators are often used as a means of eliminating an undesirable frequency in an acoustical system. Aimed at a particular frequency range, as it were. Never mind, you might be able to hack something like this together without ever even knowing what frequency range you are even in need of controlling.

"I wonder why you think it is a good idea?" "Resonators are often used as a means of eliminating an undesirable frequency in an acoustical system." That about sums it up. I started off with bass traps in the corners, and slot resonators on the walls, but after seeing some studios with them on the side and rear walls, I figured I could make corner bass traps and add the slots with some boards like a slot resonator box. If that's a bad idea then just tell me, don't be a tool and allude to it.

How about this for a tool. Learn what it is the components are, what they do, if they are interchangeable and if so is it to the advantage or detriment of the acoustic environment. The thing in a small nutshell is like this. You do not have a room yet. Until you have a room you do not know if you have any frequencies that are giving you a problem. [that one usually gets the light to blink in your minds eye] Until you know what the problems are you cannot explain how to correct them and in order to correct them you must know what the components are, are they interchangeable and if so is it to the advantage or detriment of the acoustic environment. >Resonators are often used as a means of eliminating an undesirable frequency in an acoustical system.< Do you see how these is not helpful to you in any way? It would be a lot of work for you to purposefully design and build an acoustic environment that actually >focuses< on the frequencies that your purpose built resonator will attempt to eliminate. And boss, you nor five people like you just are not that mathematically inclined. So if I were wanting to build a nice recording studio, if I were in your position, it would be my first order of business to make certain that I know more about what I am saying then whoever it is that is about to sale me whatever product it is. Because this road you are on is paved in money, and it is your money. So you can make up shit all day long if you want to sound kewl to those around that do not know or do not care... If you want to do it correctly with the least amount of cost to YOU and the least amount of effort to YOU or anyone that works on it, then you have much learning in front of you. Question: Have you ever built, all by yourself, a whole house?

Depending on what you want to do (which you didn't really say much about), there are probably many ways that your design could be improved. The equipment list doesn't really mean much at all here, and won't have any real impact on how your studio turns out acoustically. Except maybe for your speakers, which I didn't even see on the list. The guitars, amps and mics that you have will not have any effect at all on the acoustics of your room. And if you ask me, I'll prefer to record with mediocre mics on a lousy console but in a great room, over great mics and fantastic console, but in a lousy room, any day of the week! If you have a lousy room, then no amount of equipment n the world is going to make your recordings sound good. Put a U47 on an SSL and try to record vocals inside a concrete pipe.... ? Never going to work. But give me a cheap Behringer mic on a lousy Roxy console at Abbey Road, .... Hmmmmm... It think that will work a bit better! My point is that your equipment list has no bearing at all on your room design. Posting your equipment list here is pointless. It's also way too early to be worrying about redesigning slot resonators for corners and bass traps for walls, I think. Like xSpace said (in his own way!), it's not a good idea to try playing around with acoustic treatment if you don0t understand the underlying concepts, and just think it might sound good. If you haven't seen your ideas for treatment used on any successful studios, and you can't find any references to anyone ever having used your way successfully in a prestigious studio, then that should be a major red flag already! There most likely is a very good reason why nobody else did it. Probably because it doesn't work well. Just like I might think it is a great idea to design a car made of paper that has seven wheels and the seats facing sideways, but when I look around I don't see anything like that at all on the streets, I should start suspecting that I'm probably not smarter than all the guys who have designed cars over the past several decades. So if none of them built one like that, then I should probably suspect that it just isn't a good design for a car. If it was, then someone most likely would have built one like that already. So if I wanted to design a car, I think I'd look around at existing successful car designs, and base my design on those. Maybe a seven-wheeled, side-seated paper car really would be a wonderful vehicle, but I'd be all on my own trying to make it work. So if you want to design your studio around untried principles that you think might work, then there's no reason why you shouldn't do that (and it might even work out great), but you do have to realize that you'll be on your own. You could make your room pyramid-shaped, put spherical bass trapps in the center of the room, speakers in the ceiling and slot resonators on the floor, and maybe that would work fantastic. But you'd have to figure out all the new acoustic theory for that yourself, and do your own experiments on your own lab, because nobody build studios like that. So there is no expertise and no research in that area. OK, so I'm exaggerating a lot, compared with what you are talking about, but you get the point. So from my point of view, unless you are an ace acoustic designer already, it is far better to stick close to designs that other people have already worked through theoretically and practically, people who do understand the theory, and rooms they actually have built and found to be successful. It makes sense to do what the experts are doing, since they know what they are doing, and don't have to guess. The rest of us who don't know too much can be sure that our rooms will work if we just get a good solid understanding of the basics, and stick to proven design concepts. Trying out stuff without understanding the theory, in the hope that it might work, doesn't seem like an effective way of building a studio. So from my point of view: bass traps go in corners, slot resonators go on the walls, speakers get flush mounted in infinite baffles at 60° and 1.2m, ceilings and walls splay away from speakers at 12°, mix positions go roughly at the 38% mark, ceilings are soft, floors are hard, and first reflection points get absorbers. Why? Because that works! Because the theory behind it all is relatively well understood, stacks of published research on it is out there, and the concepts are not too hard for the average non-acoustician home-studio builder to get his head around. But that's just my opinion. Others might disagree. - Stuart -

Hey someone can respond in a nice manner! Thanks, and yea, the acoustic treatment that are in there are just thrown in on the design. I have a model with none of it in there, which is what I plan on building, and then testing it out and applying the treatment where needed. But as for the basic layout of it, look good? I'm with you on okay equipment in a great studio space over great equipment in an okay space. I'd love to upgrade my equipment, but I need the space first so that's what I am focusing on. And I listed my equipment because the posting rules for this forum said it would be better to include my gear. Also, I wasn't planning on soffit mounted speakers. I know that it can drastically improve the sound so I would love to, but the monitors I am getting well be replaced within the first three months so I didn't want to build my walls for the speakers I won't be using. Although I have resigned my corner traps a bit in my model, when I am actually building, I plan on just using bass traps in the corners and slots on the sides, but the corner traps I am designing I do think will have a great sound to them so I will let y'all know who they turn out. And no, in my 22 years I have not built a house by myself. I have however, won three best in state awards for residential and commercial architectural drawings, and have helped my father and his 5 contractor brothers build all of their self designed homes as well as many of the homes in the neighborhoods they have designed and built.

I see. When you get your feet cleaned off from all the BS we are in, you also want to get rid of at least three of the doors you have in the live room and three of the windows in that same room. As a matter of "this is a lot harder then learning sketchup" I would slim the whole project down to just ONE(1) door and ONE(1) window per room.

Thanks, and yea, the acoustic treatment that are in there are just thrown in on the design.

OK. So I'd suggest that maybe it would be an idea to leave out that stuff, and re-design the interior more along proven styles that are known to work. Yes, you really should wait until the room is finished to actually measure it before deciding on the final details of the treatment, but there are many rules-of-thumb that you can already include in the basic design. Things that you DON'T need to wait for until the room is built. This would be my approach to re-designing your studio: For example, you mentioned your doubts about floors and ceilings... General rules of thumb: 1) hard floor, soft ceiling. 2) High ceilings are good, low ceilings are bad. 3) "Acoustic" tile isn't. 4) Isolation between rooms is important. 5) MSM ceiling construction is a good way to get isolation at low cost. So that would imply ripping out as much as you possibly can of the existing ceiling until all that you have is bare roof above you, to get as much height as you can. Then build a new MSM ceiling at least 4" below the existing roof. And since you want good isolation between rooms, that new "inner-leaf" MSM ceiling will have to rest on new matching inner-leaf MSM walls that are totally decoupled form the existing outer-leaf walls. To maximize height while also optimizing acoustics, that new ceiling could be built inside out, sloped at a 12° angle, and filled with wool. There you have your high, soft, acoustic, and isolating MSM ceiling. Or you could make it straight (not sloped) for even more height, and hang clouds under it. That too would work. Pro's and con's either way. The floor is a no-brainer: if you have a soft ceiling, then you want a hard floor. So bare concrete, or maybe laminate-wood. Done deal. For the shape of the room, figure out the best possible room ratio that you can get within the dimensions of the space available to you, and what you actually plan to do with the studio. Now figure out what speakers you will be using for that shape/size of space and that purpose. Now figure out the correct room geometry for those speakers in that space, to get a wide, clean, symmetrical RFZ at your mix position with tight bass and perfect stereo imaging. That will dictate the angles and locations of walls, doors windows, etc. (Or at least, it will dictate where some things can and cannot go.). Now consider other major systems, like HVAC and electrics. You need cool fresh air coming in, warm stale air going out, lighting, power to run it all, ducts for all of this, insulation to retain isolation.... Now consider your budget and building skills. Putting lots of doors and windows in a studio might look cool aesthetically and architecturally, but it is going to cost you a fortune, is going to be really hard to implement, and is going to be an acoustic nightmare. Acoustic doors are thick, heavy, massive, double-and-triple sealed monsters: = expensive. Windows are thick, heavy, massive, laminate glass, double-sealed monsters: = expensive. Glass is reflective, acoustically, and you don't want any more reflections than you already have in a small room. Doors take up space, and usually the only place you can put them is the best place for treatment. So, Like xSpace said, minimize the glass and doors, unless you have huge bundles of dough to splash out on it, and stacks more to spend on treating the acoustic issues that they will create. Do you see where I'm going with this? There is a method that you can use, based on proven principles, that will practically get the room, to design itself. Not much experimentation or wondering "will that work?" is needed. The concepts for this method of design are well understood, and you'll find them all over this forum, as well as extensively covered in numerous good books on the subject, such as Rod's book, and the MHoA. Like I said, that would be my approach to designing and building your studio, if I were you. This isn't the ONLY way of designing a studio, of course. But it IS a way that works, and is relatively easy for those of us who aren't acoustic engineers to follow. You don't have to be an expert acoustic engineer to design a studio like this, since the expert acoustic engineers here have already figured out all the hard stuff, and laid out the basic rules for us dummies to follow. Learn the basics, do what they say, build it carefully and with understanding, and you are practically guaranteed that your studio will work. Or ignore what they say, try to do it your own way that you think maybe, possibly, could be, perhaps, might sound cool or look spiffy, and chance are it wont work. - Stuart -

So go with a more basic design with say a control room, a live room, and a vocal booth, work it into the space I'm leasing, and take care of basic acoustic needs. As for windows and doors, I tried to make the rooms I wanted (control room, live room, amp booth, vocal booth, hallway, lobby, and office/video editing room) with the least number of easy to build walls, windows, and doors as possible while maintaining a nice flow throughout the rooms as well as a line a sight between most rooms. I know having the split window in the control room, live room, and vocal booth is a little odd but I think that could work out well. Any thoughts? I could consolidate the two doors and windows for the amp and vocal booths into two sliding glass doors but how much money and labor would I really save doing that? Idealistically, I'd like to use a layout similarnto mine for the control and tracking rooms and adjust the walls to some standard angles for a great sound. I'd like to do the ceiling like you said, tearing out what's up there for height, adding the right insulation, running my HVAC as well as any cables I need to run through, making a soft ceiling in contrast to laminate wood floors, and hanging acoustic panels from the ceiling. I'd like to use track lighting in most of the rooms, but would consider recessed lighting. I guess I should let y'all know what I'm going to be doing there exactly. In the field of music, I'd be a producer. I love creating music but I love working with a band to get it to sound just right, the way they envision it. So although I do love arhitectural design, my passion lies in the studio, not building it, bu designing and building it still excites me. Like I said earlier, the studio will be across from my old high school, with has about 5000 students. A lot of the students there are in bands that play at many of the local venues. This spot in right in the middle of the district so all the other schools (about 2500-4000 students per school) are about 15-20 minutes away. Given this, I planning on trying to capture these clients which vary in genre, but there is also a lot of vocal and lyrical hip hop talent here and being that I having been producing original music for about 8 years, I want to bring in these artists as well. Of course I woul love to get business from many of the older bands as well, and that's just a matter of marketing. When it comes to rates, it starts at $25 an hour for recording, editing, and mixing. I think for having a large high school demographic, the lower than average rate will do more good than harm. Besides the recoring studio aspect, I also do graphic design and photography, as well as filming and editing, so I plan on advertising these aspects as well to bring In additional business. So do y'all think I should change up some windows and doors and adjust the walls to better angles, or should I scrap it and go with a new design? The design now has four-sided rooms with straight walls at these sizes: Control room 13.5' x 15' Live room 14' x 16' Amp booth 6' x 10' Vocal booth 6' x 6' I'd love to keep the rooms where they are and adjust the walls to the right angles for the best sound as well as consolidating the doors and windows..

"but would consider recessed lighting." A primary question that has not been addressed is how much money are we talking about? So many things still to be addressed. What is the existing building, how is it made, of what products? I love youth and how it jumps in and cares little about all the detail. It wasn't that long ago that I was considered part of the young establishment. But you are up against hard questions with hard answers. Like your Algebra class that you always had problems with...it's the same class but this time no one has to tell you if you passed or if you did not pass. It's a free course. And free means, "you get what you pay for". A potential project like you are suggesting is at a commercial level but you are treating it as though you and Stuart and I can walk you through it and a few hundred dollars and we have a completed job. Not gonna happen. I have one four letter phrase that will screw your whole project up. HVAC.

I'm not looking to be walked through anything, but I wanna communicate with people who have such knowledge in order to learn a little bit more. I thought I mentioned the budget in the first post but guess not. $22,000. And it seems you like to use age as a verbal weapon and normally, that shows lack in maturity and confidence, so if you need to devote half of a recording studio forum post to making yourself feel better by commenting on age, then please use a forum that does not encourage it's users to stay on topic. Thank you.

"age as a verbal weapon" Wrong again. Here is one of two things you can do to get me out of this thread: Ask me to leave or admit that you are are an idiot and have no idea what you are talking about. This is what you should have represented yourself as in the first place. But you come here with some bull shit like you know what you are doing? You are lucky I spent even a little bit of time with you brother...because if any one in this thread needs help, it is you.

So when you read a post and think someone is an idiot, you post insults rather than information? You just sound like the coolest guy ever. I'm not sure how I made my post sound like I thought I knew it all (if I thought I knew it all I would most definitely not be posting on a forum for advice) but if I come off that way it's probably because I spend my posts talking about what I am capable of and seeing if anyone has advice, not spend them insulting members who come out and say they are new in the first post. If you are here to just sound like a douche and not offer sound advice, then yes, please leave the tread about my studio. I'd rather have informative, positive minded people who are willing to help. Have a nice day. Now back to the studio! Like I said, I am working with a $22,000 budget, and I've tried talking to my father about the contruction budget, but seeing as how he is a general contractor and doesn't build recording studios, he doesn't know all the prices for what I need to accomplish. I've been looking up different materials and prices online but I've trying to find things I can go and buy so I don't have to pay shipping. Any guesstimates at how much y'all think the studio I have designed would cost to build? Not including equipment. Especially with all the doors and windows.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of what it would cost per square foot to build an executive type residential structure.

I like how you say that assuming I know how much that costs. Haha. Just kidding. Thanks.

Oh boys,,,, Play nice now :cop:

" If that's a bad idea then just tell me, don't be a tool and allude to it." He started it.... :twisted:

By calling you out on being a tool? Nice one. It's cool though, can we just stay on topic though? Would anyone like to tell me if a sliding glass door is really better than a door and a separate window when it comes to price and sound?

ABM Recording Studio wrote:

By calling you out on being a tool? Nice one.

By calling me or anyone a name in general is what gets you on my short list. You have no idea what you are up against or who you are talking to, but in your opinion you can call people names just because you are another faceless poster in a sea of faceless posters. I was adding viable information to your thread, actually I haven't said anything yet that has not been useful. Problem is, you like many of your area, have issues with entitlement, and thinking that the world owes you. Now I'm being a tool. I wasn't before, I was being helpful, very helpful, there are not many others around as helpful as I, if I DO say so myself. You might think this as being thin skinned, You would be wrong, again. And then, when after calling someone who deserves far more respect then you have showed me yet, a tool, you regressed to expanding the actual abilities of yourself and your entire family to a level that is almost celebratory. Strike Two:

buying a timber sliding door with very thick glass is a lot easier than trying to build a window and door correctly. prob cheaper?? But a well made door and window might have better STC. depends on the materials and seals. your not giving us much info. I don't like your design yet, why don't you draw up another. Show us your skills

Actual, I didn't call you a tool, just told you not to be one. And no, over half of everything you said in this thread was not useful and only showed how useless you are. Telling me something costs as much as something else just shows that you actually don't know what it costs and that you just ballpark things. Now, you told me you would leave my thread if I asked you to and I have already asked you to once. So again, I am asking you to leave. If you want to prove you are a tool, then go back on your word and post some more. Anyways, I am already working on a new design, I will post it when I get home (posting from my phone right now).