Basement Studio in Cyprus

Hi there, Firstly I'd like to thank John, Steve and the rest of your team for making such a great resource available. I only recently found your website, and the information available here and support is exceptional. My name is Tony. I'm based in Nicosia, Cyprus and I'm a DJ and music producer who's spent most of his career in and out of bedroom studios. Recently a friend and I have decided to pool our resources together and build a studio in a basement below a two storey building. Our plan is to have a live/rehearsal room and a control room. Budget at the moment is 2500/3000 Euro max. We want to keep it low-key for now. Our goal is to make the space functional, get the ball rolling with the rehearsal space and studio as an initial trial run, and if all goes well develop a more professional facility in the future. Attached is an overview of the basement. I'm struggling with SketchUp at the moment, but hopefully I'll have some 3D images up this weekend. As you can see its quite a big area with a high ceiling - there's about 3 to 4 seconds reverb time in there; painted concrete walls and ceiling, marble floor tiles and 2 columns standing in the middle of the room. On the right hand side there's a couple of concrete blocks that were built as a structural precaution. I forgot to take measurements of their height but they stand approx 2 meters high, with a gap between their top and the ceiling. I'll get the exact height and make sure to include this in the 3D plan. The basement was dug out in the ground so behind the reinforced concrete walls its just earth. So far I've had a couple of ideas about what to do with the space. One thought was to just close off a control room and keep the rest of the space open as a live/rehearsal room, but I imagine it'll be a challenge to control the sound this way as the remaining space would be quite big and booming. The other thought was to use less space and close off two rooms, but that would of course mean extra costs. The bands that'll be rehearsing in the space are mostly rock and dance music acts. I don't have a sound level meter at the moment but I imagine it'll get quite loud. Being located in an industrial estate and underground there's no problem with neighbors though - except one thing - directly above us is a TV studio! Thankfully they only broadcast 4 hours a week on weekends, but weekends will be when the rehearsal space in demand the most. The TV studio shares exactly the same structure and layout as the basement and I'm worried the sound will travel through the concrete columns into the TV studio. If that's the case, I'm hoping something can be done with columns; soundproofing treatment? Has anyone had any experience with a similar scenario? It seems the floor/ceiling separating the TV studio from the basement is quite solid. I'll try get more info on this. I'll post more images of the space soon and I'd appreciate any feedback and thoughts on what could be done in a space this size with our kind of aims and budget. Cheers, Tony

Here's some 3D images of the basement. Any suggestions/ideas for designs would be greatly appreciated. Cheers