Small Basement studio

Hello all, I'm new to the group. I've been lurking a lot and learning a bunch. Working on the learning curve of sketchup but haven't gotten past the basics yet. I'm designing a basement studio to be built in summer of 2011. I have between $5,000 and $10,000 to spend. I'm experienced in carpentry, electrical, plumbing etc. and will be doing all of the work. My problem is creativity. I just can't come up with a design that doesn't look like crap, and I'm afraid it might sound even worse. I'm including a crude skp file, like I said, I'm still learning. You'll notice the space has a support post right in the middle of it. It might be abe to be incorporated into the design, but I'm not opposed to ordering an engineered beam to carry the load and eliminate the post entirely. Although that would be a lot of work to support the house to get the old beams out and replace with a new one. Ceiling height is not bad for an older basement @ 7' 10". Ceiling is uninterrupted except for a 6" X 8" beam that carries the load down the center. The studio will be used for recording my personal projects. I'm a guitar player, learning drums and might do some vocals if I had a vocal booth to practice where no one can hear me. :) So the studio should have a control room, live room for drums, and a vocal booth. Vocal booth can double for amp isolation when recording with drums. Main sound concern is to not hear anything upstairs. Thank you for providing such a great resource, and any advice I can get is very welcome. (edit) Just realized I forgot to attach an direction arrow on the stairs. The large square is the upper landing, the stairs go down from there. I also uploaded my latest file, still crude, but learning lots. Still have to build real stairs, but the footprint is shown. Thanks, Mike Salem, Oregon

Welcome! What is the basement construction like? Concrete floor and block walls?

Basement walls are solid concrete from poured formwork, 8" thick, floor is smooth cement. Probably will fill in the snap-tie conical shaped holes in the wall surfaces before sealing the concrete. Ceiling is open floor joists. I have no obstructions other than that central beam with support posts. All wiring and piping was relocated to reside between the floor joists. The water heater and plumbing stack is inside the bath/laundry/utility area so will not be an issue. The only house stuff that is a very slight obstruction is the breaker panel on one of the walls. I'll add that to the drawing pronto. :) I've owned the house for 20 years, finally getting to do what I wanted when I moved in. Also realized that I don't "need" a vocal booth since I don't plan on tracking vocals at the same time as the instruments, but it might be nice to have one to double as an iso room for an amp. After playing around with sketchup, I realized that I do want to keep the stairs open so a small lounge near the bottom would be nice and it might keep the access to the bathroom clear. I might even put a small patch bay in the bathroom just in case I want to get creative. I should also mention that the bathroom/laundry/utility area is not yet framed so that can be a bit flexable in the door placement and framing for isolation. Learning a lot from browsing older projects but I've yet to find one close enough to work for mine. I've played around and still not having luck with a room ratio for my control room that leaves me with enough size for my live room. Mike

here's one thought. if you don't mind accessing the CR and booths from the live room, then use the space opposite the utilities for the CR and the remaining space for the live room, 2 iso booths, storage under the stair, and a hallway to connect the stair, live room, and bath / laundry / utility room. use large glass windows/doors to keep everything visible.

Glenn, I really like that a lot. Thank you for the work you put into it. It looks better than anything I've come up with so far. I think iso 2 could be sacrificed to give a bigger lounge area since I don't really need two iso booths. With this design that would really be good motivation to get a new beam put in so that I could get rid of the post in the middle of the live room. I don't ever plan on tracking a whole band at once so getting rid of iso 2 is pretty painless. It's just a project studio for my own use and a place to whale on the drums and guitars without getting the family mad cause they can't hear the TV upstairs. Ok, so here's the truth, the main reason to get rid of iso 2 is because my wife is claustrophobic and doesn't want to go down the fully enclosed stairwell when she has to do the laundry. :oops: I don't want to be stuck with doing laundry for the rest of my days. Mike

I would do a bigger live room and a much smaller bathroom :P You can use part of the bathroom for the lounge room or, better, place a iso 2 booth in half of the space of the bathroom, so you can put a window and see the singer while he/she sings, so you can dialog with her/him even with signs because he/she can see you (just a thought) and you can keep the iso 1 so you can place a drum and have an alternative sound, a drier sound, you can use for the drum and/or for the bass guitar, while the live room will be used for a natural, airy, drum sound (or piano or strings and so on) just a couple of thought, but my I have no skill in designing so I can give you a graphical idea, I need to learn sketchup :P sorry

Whitecones wrote:

I would do a bigger live room and a much smaller bathroom :P

I wish I could go smaller on the bathroom, but there is a lot of stuff not shown in the drawing yet, like a large closet that will contain a large water heater, sump pump, plumbing stack and storage shelves. Then on the other side, a washer, dryer and a large soaking tub (think the size of a small hot tub). The main thing driving the bath size is the layout of the plumbing which is already in place. No way I'm taking a jackhammer to the floor to relocate that stuff. I'm willing to change just about anything for the right studio design, but that one is off the table because it's not just a few pipes that would need redone, there is also a drainage system under the floor with perf pipe that goes to the sump to keep the basement dry as a bone. The only reason I know all of this stuff is because the whole foundation/basement was replaced in 1996. I put most of it in myself and it all had to pass inspection to code. I've not had a drop of water down there since 1996 and the sump pump has only cycled a couple of times during heavy continued rain. I wish I would have done things a lot differently back then, but at the time never envisioned that I would finally get to this point. At the time it seemed like I had so much room down there after the work because the basement was originally only a half basement with 6' tall ceilings. It was like a small cave. Mike

Whitecones wrote:

(just a thought) and you can keep the iso 1 so you can place a drum and have an alternative sound, a drier sound, you can use for the drum and/or for the bass guitar, while the live room will be used for a natural, airy, drum sound (or piano or strings and so on) just a couple of thought, but my I have no skill in designing so I can give you a graphical idea, I need to learn sketchup :P sorry

Thank you! I do appreciate the suggestions, but i thought I might add some thoughts so we can keep perspective on the use of the space. My 17 year old daughter plays drums and gives drum lessons on occasion. I play guitar and bass, teach guitar lessons and occasionally bang around on the drums. The live room would be used for drums and an amp for jamming and that occasional drum lesson. Iso 1 could be used for an intimate one on one guitar lesson, or the lounge area could be used to teach acoustic guitar. Iso 1 would also be used as a vocal booth, or amp isolation. I do bass tracks by DI, no room needed. In fact most of the time I'm happy with doing guitar tracks direct and feeding back through monitors, but there are certain times when nothing but miked will do. This studio is only for personal projects. I don't ever envision getting a bunch of session players in there, or even the thought of getting a piano down the stairs. That's what synths are for. :) Mike

ah ok, sorry I thought you were building it from scratch, never mind