Studio Walls . . . Sheet Rock or Wood

Thank you Stewart . . . these are the kind of observations I was seeking. We will continue to tweak it. I want to use Sketch Up but I found it difficult to learn quickly and went back to what we'd been using already. It is very cool though, and things are going so slowly, that I may learn it yet!! Thanks again though . . .We're making progress. -J EDITS . . . I have a few questions as far as possible solutions. 1. Since my side "booths" are somewhat "box-ish", could I add a bit of a "hallway" wall put in between them? Could that serve the purpose? 2. I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that having a bathroom directly or indirectly off of the control room was better than having it closer to the "sound rooms" where audio has microphones on it. I am not working with an infinite budget or space (due to the stupid rules of the local building inspector concerning the studio being 1/3rd the size of my main dwelling) I could turn the bathroom 90 degrees so it's on the top side, where the kitchen-ish area was located. I'm trying to fit all these "possible needs" into one space and as you know, it's a bitch. 3. I am going to try and re-structure the space so that the room is more narrow than it is wide and use that space somehow to contain the bathroom/kitchen stuff. As I said, I'm trying to have a free-standing building that we can spend the day in, eat in and whatnot, and there's a learning curve . . . all uphill!! :horse: I'm trying to not be this guy.

A few comments - first and foremost - i stated in my book why I could not discuss in detail the wall designs you see in the Power Station photos - and that is because exactly what takes place behind the slats is part of Tony Bongiovi's original design - and is proprietary information - and I would be a snake to reveal those details. I hold fast to my commitment to Tony - his design is his alone. Now - That having been said - I have looked over your designs - and feel John addressed your original just fine - I have nothing to add - as to the revised - you missed some things in my book that i tried to make clear. In control rooms you are looking for perfect symmetry - in tracking rooms you are loking for perfect asymmetry, I would look over the tracking areas again with that in mind - I also believe (as aleady mentioned) if you can make the control room deeper rather than wider, you will be much better off. Rod

First, thanks Rod for answering my post. I have found the book difficult to grasp "all at once" so I find myself reading it in sections as I develop questions . . . I am probably missing a great many points as you have laid them out. This all comes from attempting to meet a deadline. I have missed the deadline. I understand the Bongiovi issue and that makes sense. It looked great and I was just trying to get a general sense of it. There's a whole bunch of science behind these decisions that I have no comprehension of. I mean, a design like that is "The Best of the Best", which is far outside of our price range. We would like to ask more questions about this John Sayers design here . . . known as "The Big Facility". http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Titles/Plans.htm Applying the "make the control room deeper rather than wider" concept makes me wonder how DEEP is the control room in John's design? We would like to use John's example here to build something MUSICAL rather than continue struggling with my various concepts when there's a perfectly amazing design right there to go with. A few questions from my builder: "One thing I would like answered is how they control the sound with those sliding glass doors? Where do they get doors like that? Are they some kind of special acoustic treated doors? That is the only thing that would scare me about that design...those things might be 2 grand a pop." Both of you, Stewart and Rod are just great for taking time to observe my attempts at design and I really do appreciate everyone's input. I do think that a man's gotta know when he's outside of his element and get a professional design going. -Jhon

Applying the "make the control room deeper rather than wider" concept makes me wonder how DEEP is the control room in John's design? We would like to use John's example here to build something MUSICAL rather than continue struggling with my various concepts when there's a perfectly amazing design right there to go with.

Maybe you need to take a look at room ratios, rather than "how deep / wide". You might know this already, but I have some free time, so I don't mind putting it in words: The ratio is all about the proportion of the width and length to the height, and is expressed as 1:W:H (usually). There are a number of know "good" ratios that have been worked out over the decades (Sepmeyer, Louden, etc. Go with one of those for your CR, and you'll be fine "musically". There are also some ratios that you absolutely should stay away from, such as whole number multiples, like 1:1:2, or 1:2:3. Bad idea! I didn't check John's design, but I'll bet you find that it is fairly close to one of the good ratios, and a long way away from all of the bad ones! The easiest way to do this is to use one of the room ratio calculators here on the forum, or elsewhere on the internet. Start with your ceiling height, plug in whichever other dimension is a limiting factor for you, and out will pop the remaining dimension.

"One thing I would like answered is how they control the sound with those sliding glass doors? Where do they get doors like that? Are they some kind of special acoustic treated doors? That is the only thing that would scare me about that design...those things might be 2 grand a pop."

Yup, that sounds about right! Not quite sure how expensive they might be in your neck of the woods, but when I looked into them here, they were way out of my price range, so I erased them from my design, and replaced them with more traditional very massive solid-core doors, with double seals. Those sliding glass things are great, if you have the budget, but for the rest of us beefed-up thick heavy wood is the only option, with smaller fixed glass windows in the walls. - Stuart -

Jhon, my best advice to you would be to consider hiring a professional to do your design - there is a lot more to this than simply the layout - believe me. I would never hesitate to recommend John Sayers for this purpose - I have had the pleasure of consulting on one of the projects he designed - and it was absolutely a pleasure to see how he puts it all together.... Rod