once over on my layout.

hello everyone my name is john and this is my first post. ive been following along for a while now trying to get along on my own but i still need some help filling in the blanks. A little back story I guess. I live in maryland and am an aspiring AE about two years ago I began rent of warehouse space not far from my home. After demo it was basically an empty concrete shell with a small bathroom left. I proceeded to build what i thought was my studio...... thought is the key word. long story short about the time we started bring in the audio equipment my friend hands me a book and tells me i should check it out it was by some guy F. alton something or other..........yeah, day late couple thousand short but im back and ready to do it right this time. What i have is a layout ive been working on trying to work within my mistakes from befor but some of the details get me a bit tailspun. Ill try to provide as much detail as i can that cant be seen from the cadd drawing. Here goes.... The space is aprox. 25'x50'x16' on the bottom of a two level structure. All walls are 8" concrete block some areas filled some hollow. the ceiling is poured concrete on corugated steel with steel truses aprox. 2' on center. the space above is a office(sometimes i can hear the phone ring). The other side of the north wall is a massive concrete starwell with a 32' cieling, south wall is a oil and auto parts storage space. the west wall faces a main road but we are underground because the building is built on a hill. the east wall has a 12'x12' foot garage door that i have enclosed with drywall and filled with insulation beyound that is the parking lot. Floor is poured concrete throughout. i think that pretty much covers the existing construction. The control room has the dimensions show in the drawing. This part i built....whoppsy. the ceiling is 8' and the joists run east to west 16" on center starting from the north wall back and they are 2"x12" lumber. 1/2" dry wall, floor above is 3/4" sub floor, bay have one layer of insulation. room at the rear of the control room is metal studs and drywall and is not structural so it can be easily removed. By the way all things that exist now are in black while proposed stuff is in purple. the thicker black wall to the east of the control room is structural 2"x6" drywall on both sides. there is a header over the door to the north of the wall and at the opening in the middle. What i would like to do in the studio is lower the ceiling to 12' and fill the space with insulation or bass hangers but i would also like to achive some isolation from office above and control room. So now i have a few question if anyone is willing to give me some advice and im more concerned with the control room at this point because the will be getting built first. A couple other things to mention behind the sofas are burlap stretched panels that i already have and the 2 in the middle would be sliding or swinging to act as a door to the electrical panel room.side walls at 6 degrees. 1. Any obvious flaws im unaware of? 2. New east wall connected to existing east wall, is this a problem? 3. Storage room at rear of control room houses elec.panel so i need acess but bass hangers maybe? will symetry be an issue here? 4. Raising the ceiling would be a real PITA, cloth ceiling fill bays with insulation? slot ceiling? Remove drywall and sub floor add bass hangers above from metal joists? 5. Raising the floor on furring strips and adding sub floor. only reason being cable runs. Good, bad? 6. Any recomendations as far as treatment and placement go? 7. If i decide against soffit mounting should i keep the same shape or extend east and west walls to north wall? Sorry im running on here i have a million more questions but im getting a bit lost. Any advice or critisisms you may have would be greatly appreciated. thanks John

welcome! please update your profile with your location. is this existing and you want to try and salvage it? or it's wide open and the space could be re-done to work correctly? which way is north on this drawing?

North is the top of the picture I put a small compas in the center the detail didnt come oit to great when I resized. The part of the drawing in black is existing and the stuff in purple is not. Basically all angled walls are non existent in case anyone is colorblind. ideally I would like to make the best use of the space as possible and the only thing I cant move is the bathroom. Other than that im open to all options.

Anybody?

Hi John. Welcome! For your control room, the basic idea looks right, but I don't see any isolation in there. Your inner leaf seems to be directly attached to your outer leaf in most places, and in other places it IS your outer leaf, by the looks of things. You say that everything except the bathroom is fair game: Does that include the small walls between the CR and LR? Can those be taken down, or are they structural? If you can take those out, then I'd rotate your CR 90° clockwise, enlarge it a bit, adjust the shape a bit, and isolate it properly. Regarding your questions:

1. Any obvious flaws im unaware of?

The isolation. Are you aware of how two-leaf decoupled MSM walls work? If not, then you might want to look into that. It is the best way of isolating at reasonable cost.

2. New east wall connected to existing east wall, is this a problem?

Very likely, yes. In order to isolate, you need to decouple, which basically means that the inner-leaf of each room should have no hard mechanical connections to any other room, nor to the outer leaf of the building.

3. Storage room at rear of control room houses elec.panel so i need acess but bass hangers maybe? will symetry be an issue here?

Bass hangers would probably work fine there, and symmetry should not be too much of a problem, since this is in the rear of the room.

4. Raising the ceiling would be a real PITA, cloth ceiling fill bays with insulation? slot ceiling? Remove drywall and sub floor add bass hangers above from metal joists?

Maybe do an inside-out ceiling for your inner-leaf? I don't see the purpose of putting bass hangers between leaves, though.

5. Raising the floor on furring strips and adding sub floor. only reason being cable runs. Good, bad?

Probably not a good idea. You run the risk of creating a resonant cavity under the floor, which is a really bad idea.

6. Any recomendations as far as treatment and placement go?

Large bass traps in as many corners as possible, slot walls for the sides, absorption on all first reflection points, ceiling cloud, hard floor, soft ceiling. You already have the hangers slated for the back, so that should be fine.

7. If i decide against soffit mounting should i keep the same shape or extend east and west walls to north wall?

I'll answer that question with another question: Why would you NOT want to soffit mount, when you have the space to do it right? :)

Sorry im running on here i have a million more questions but im getting a bit lost. Any advice or critisisms you may have would be greatly appreciated.

Do you have Rod's book? If not, I'd suggest that you get it (Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros). What kind of budget do you have for this job? - Stuart -

maybe something like this then? if need be, replace the 2x6 wall with a steel beam and few posts to interfere with the room?