Olalla Bay Studio... my brain hurts!

Hi, I've been studying John's info and the forum for several months now... and I'm in the first phase of designing a studio to be built in my detatched garage. I'm in Olalla Washington. The external dimensions are 24 x 30 ft. Part of the interior is in use as utilities, stairwell (to apartment above), and a bathroom. The ceilings are currently a bit over 9'. I'm a novice with sketchup (it took me hours to produce the simple drawings I have)... but was able to make a couple of drawings. None of the walls on the interior have been framed. Any suggestions on how to proceed with the design are welcome! Thanks! Michael Some details: I live in the country... annoying sounds might be dogs barking or airplanes going overhead or a "mid-life crisis" motorcycle going by on the road that is about 500 feet away. Exterior walls are insulated 2x4 with 1/2" sheathing & beveled siding, and 5/8" sheetrock on inside. There is a beam down the center of the room that supports the floor joists of the studio guest apartment above the garage. Along the edge of the beam are some plumbing pipes that serve the apartment above (so I will have to 'soffit' those). The building is on a 3.5" concrete slab. Stem walls are 8" thick and the existing bottom plate is 2x6 p.t. I plan to cut some 4" wide channels in the concrete and dig down into the dirt a few inches to run power cables in conduit, as well as separate conduits for the audio cables. My goal is to have no openings in walls at all... everything surface mounted (lights, plugs, patch bays, etc.) We are going to use clips and hat channel and 2 layers of sheet rock with green glue on walls and ceiling. We have hundreds of feet of solid alder to make doors, floor, cabinets/furninture, slot walls, etc.

I've tried to upload the studio idea in sketchup but cannot (the file seems quite large... 2.31 Mb)... Any suggestions? Michael

here are some screen shots. Michael

Michael - get rid of all the unnecessary object (toilet etc) and go to Window/model info/statistics/ purge unused then save the file. In sketchup everytime you drag an object into the model it stores it.

Thanks, John... OK here's the 188kb sketchup file so far. I'm thinking that since there are no walls framed yet, I'm completely open to maximizing the space in a different combination. control room, live room, iso booth.

OK... construction has begun for just the basic room. The design up front where the slot resonator walls and speaker soffits are was taken from Bryan Giles Studio because of the very similar room dimensions there. I'm a bit concerned now regarding the soffits because we use the active Mackie HR824 monitors... the manufacturer recommends NO soffits because of the rear porting on the speakers. Soooo.... the question is... if I leave the monitors in the room, what should I do with the wall behind them?

i'm pretty sure Bryan soffit mounted his 824's and as long as the venting it good it should be OK. if you decide to use then on stands behind the desk and just use the soffits as bass traps, that should be fine. you would want to close the speaker openings.