is it really rocket surgery? Help an Aussie

Hello all and congrats on such a great, extremely well respected community you have here, i hope i'm not imposing and can develop some coherent understanding of all the advice I may receive. I will cut to the chase and explain i am looking to begin the planning/design phase of my garage studio build...i have NIL acoustic design knowledge and the more i read the more it seems to be a mad science i struggle to understand. :oops: I have lightly touched the base on basic ideas, principals and materials used within design and construction although the majority of amazing depth of knowledge here is somewhat going over my head as i am still very concentrated on learning/developing my audio engineering whilst attending other university education at the same time. While acoustics seems like an interesting science, my lack of technical construction knowledge is also holding me back from creating any kind of educated design for my proposed studio location. I have a reasonable setup that has been constricted to bedrooms, i have just purchased my own home and in my yard is a Solid brick/concrete Shed, somewhat unloved at the moment but with any luck some people will be able to help me make decisions regarding its compatibility as a recording/mixing space for the future. Or if unsuitable let me move on to other plans. Basically it is single brick/concrete double length Garage roughly 9.15M Long x 3M Wide, with sloped pitch roof, solid wall heights 255cm and 217cm - please see the pdf CAD sketch my friend was able to draw up quickly for me, i have NO skills in this area. There is 2 windows and doorway on the lower wall side, with one end a standard roller door. All concrete floor, slight 5cm drop at one area(detailed in drawing) Basically a long rectangle except for a couple of thicker 'pillar' sections in the concrete wall on the higher side, and one near the door on low wall side which may affect any ideas people may have for me. Basically i am interested if this long skinny room could be suitable for transforming into a Quality control room environment, perhaps with ability to track, I would consider building onto the roller door end a reasonable size tracking room(for drums etc) I have a starting out budget of around $10,000 aussie dollars>about the same in USD :D I have a couple of friends who are builders but obviously have no studio building experience so i will need to be on the ball with important construction aspects/tricks. Currently the roof needs work (basic wooden slat structure with corrigated tin), as this will be the major area required for blocking sound aswell.. i would consider raising it a little higher if this is necessary and or practical. There are no close neighbours, although over the vacant block and down nature strip(approx 40m) is a 4 lane highway which I am to try and block out of my recordings. It's not overly loud but may take some taming. My current plan would be to create a room inside a room double leaf but not sure if this will render my space just too small for a control room. (currently have a decent amount of real traps to start the treatment) If this is the best option, would i need to look at a floating floor, and how exactly would i construct the inner room within the existing brick structure? I also hoped to shorten one end of the space with a storage and or machine room >most likely behind studio monitors>best situated near the new wall after garage door is removed? I have little idea what of the most talked about materials are easily available here in Australia and what are my best, most efficient ways to maximise the soundproofing from outside noise while leaving room for reasonable inner acoustics. I tend to use electronic drums and lots of sample libraries so my current focus is on mix environment over tracking but a design that may allow for the building on of a drumroom/isolation vocal booth down the track would be great. I hope this is somewhat detailed enough, this is obviously my first build and am after some advice if it is worth perusing. thanks in advance. Rom

hello Rom and welcome, I am no expert either and have recently joined this forum concerning a practice room that i am building in a basement, however if you spend some more time reading other threads and the basics of design and construction that you can find here, then you will learn a great deal. The dimensions of your garage shed are not so good for acoustics (no one length should be a multiple of any other) so 9 x 3 are not the best dimensions. You could of course divide the room up, but 3 meters is not a lot of space to move around in, especially after building a room in room, or beefing the walls up. Also the height of the room is extremely limiting! So if I were you I would consider raising the roof and then adding on another room preferably on one of the long sides. Keep digging around here in the forum and give it some careful consideration . just my 2 cents... Lucas

Hi Rom, There are a few examples of long narrow space that have been converted into very good studios for example: http://www.johnlsayers.com/Studio/Mainpage/MP-Mark.htm http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8205 the above are just a few that spring to mind, there are more around here. Personally i would use the inside out wall design as used in the first link above. this will allow you to treat your space whilst maintaining as much space width wise as possible. if your that concerned about the room sizes/ modes e.t.c you could always incorporate a small waiting or entrance area at the 850 door end, then you could have a 7x3x2.5 contol room?? or you could have a vocal booth the one end? point is whatever space you have and whatever acoustic problems that space might have, there is always something you can do (this site has taught me that) :D

...and, words are good but pictures, dimensions, even if hand drawn, are always welcome. It might surprise you that some of us cannot read that well since we move kinda fast...but you can get our attention with pictures and diagrams...