just got a big live room to add to our studio - HELP!

Hi there, been running round here for a few months now and love this site, full of excellent info. i have a small studio which originated as a rehearsal space and teaching studio and then morphed into a recording studio. as a result the layout of the original space was not intended for, nor is it ideal for recording. Square booths and odd shaped control room area (as also used for rehearsal). Anyway, we are taking over the big room next door to us which was a joinery workshop for a live room/rehearsal space and re modeling our existing space to better suit studio use. image 'current fusebox' shows are current setup. as we are already starting the conversion of the workshop next door i'd like some of your suggestions as to what to do with the walls in this space. we have the area cleared and are building up openings/fitting new external doors/strengthening roof purlins at this stage. image 'live room bare floor' is what we'll be starting from image 'live room section 1 NB' shows a section through the building. all walls are currently 100 mm bare concrete block and i intend to come out off the walls 100mm and stud the entire room free from the outside walls. this building is located in a rural setting. sound proofing is not that important as no neighbors very close. i read on here that soundproofing when unnecessary only makes internal room treatment more challenging so i was thinking of pump filling the studs and the cavity to outside wall with cavity insulation beads. (have yet to find out the accoustic value of these beads, but should provide 200mm of solid polystyrene beads. this is a very quick easy way to insulate but not sure if practical for sound?) the only exception is the 'top'wall on the floorplan which is about 3m off a road which although not busy does have a lot of agricultural traffic at certain times of year. the current drum booth also shares this wall (the sofa is against it in the pic) and it only has an insulated plasterboard skin (12.5mm board on 30mm rigid polyurethane) on batons fixed to the exterior block wall, thus far we havn't had any major issues with road noise when recording drums in there. i read on hear that a stone wall is a great thing to have and i have in our yard (i'm also a builder, and as such will be getting all the labour free and materials at a big discount.) a load of sandstone. i was planning on cladding the stud wall on the right hand side of the new live room in split sandstone both for looks and to give the wall a rough texture and a good dense surface. i plan to fill the room corners with those solid bass traps i've seen on here and the ceiling corners, mid ceiling and walls will have some absorber panels fixed out off the wall to help the sound. so, questions for the collective brain: 1. will the stone clad wall be a good addition sound wise? will the rough stone finish be enough to help reduce reflections or should the wall be angled too? 2. similarly is it enough to angle the absorber panels on the walls or should i angle the walls and fix the panels parallel with the walls? 3. i plan to simply paint the exposed steel bean as a feature, is it likely to cause any strange sound reflections, or am i over thinking? as far as budget goes, mostly all i need is materials as i'll be getting the labour for free but i'm aiming at £2000-£3000 as after the room is finished i'll need light fittings, floor finishes etc, etc, the initial budget is just to get walls and ceiling finished and panels in place. thanks for taking the time to read this and sorry the images aren't in sketchup, but i havn't had the chance to get the hang of it yet. dave. fuseboxstudios :horse: (love that smiley!!!)

bare floor

this was my basic idea regarding wall treatment solid corner traps 600x600 slat resonator 2400x2400 absorber panels 1200x2400

i guess the end result would be something like this?

Hi Dave, and welcome! First question: can the existing interior walls all come out, or are some of them structural, or cannot be moved for other really good reasons? The reason I ask is because you seem to be wasting an awful lot of space, the shape of your control room leaves much to be desired, and I think I can see ways for you to do a much better layout. Also, I may be wrong, but reckon you can probably forget the "polystyrene bead" idea: polystyrene is normally closed-cell insulation, which is practically worthless, acoustically. - Stuart -

hi soundman2020, thanks for that, only the small walls either side of the desk area are structural as such, but the ceilings in the existing studio area are all built on top of the studs. the result being if i do the long term sensible thing and gut out this area and start again it will be a COMPLETE strip out! this causes a few problems. 1. this studio was only put up 2-3 years ago and i was really hoping not to be doing a complete strip out just yet. 2. i teach drums out of this studio every week and would rather have been able to keep working as much as possible 3. we have clients booked in the studio for a few months in advance and again would like to keep things going 4. budget isn't gonna stretch to a complete remodelling of both areas i know the majorty of these excuses can be pushed aside with the phrase "well, if you're not prepared to put the proper effort, time & money into it, then you may as well not bother!" and i whole heartedly aggree with that but my family firm is floating this whole new liveroom build after floating the initial studio build only a couple of years previous and i think i may have to hold off a while before i really go to town fixing the original work. i'm trying to balance between getting a better result and not pushing my luck at the minute! bottom line is we went at it hammer and tongs last time before i really new anything about studio building or acoustic treatment. :oops: and i'm gonna have to live with that a certain amount as it is. i need a 'better' mix area/control room but to even start doing that i need a big area for our rehearsal space and to teach and record drums in. otherwise half of what we do in the studio will be impossible. so my first move needs to be getting the live room sorted and done properly so i don't need to revisit IT again in a few years! so for the mean time i'm trying to reduce remedial works to the control room to adding a couple of studs to actually make it a room rather than a wee corner in a stupid big space, and to getting some acoustic treatment that i can always reuse later if i remodel completely. budgets suck! :cry: but hey, i've a big space with no rent and free labour :yahoo: i can't comlpain too much :roll: dave.

ok soundman i've done a deal with the devil and the load bearing walls that were the two small rooms of the main area in the existing studio are no longer load bearing! :shock: shazam! so i've been thinking and if i can i'll rearrange the CR now and if not i'll do the live room access etc in such a way that i can do the CR right in a year or so. so on this new pic "CR Exp" the two red zoned rooms which were store and kitchen can now be removed completely leaving an area 6.9m x 4.6 in which to create a new control room, kitchen, store (if possible) and access to the new live room and existing two booths on the left. this should give us more options? the only issue is that the green and yellow sections of this 6.9x4.6 area have two different ceiling heights :roll: i'm stuck with the lower height of 2.25m in the green area but could bring the yellow ceiling height down if that was needed to make sense of the control room shape. also, can anyone let me know if the previous plan regarding the new live room will be ok as i have guys getting closer and closer to the stud wall stage and need to know if it'll work? thanks dave.

what about this plan then for CR, is this space big enough?

Looks like you're wasting a lot of space! Look at John's designs, he is very good at stretching the last cm of space.