My first shot at a Studio

Hi, I have been a musician for 40 years now and have finally gotten to the point where I can build a nice sized studio in my house. I am a complete newbie at this so please bear with me. I have begun the process of researching and have also started some planning/designing. I am hoping you can direct me in the right direction. My ultimate goal is to retire from my current profession and run my recording studio as a retiree and have that as my profession until I am done. I would like to keep this initial project under 20k but that is not to say that I will not entertain more expenditures if they can be done on an extended time line or at a later date. I have attached two SketchUp diagrams and a JPG of how I envision things. 1st Diagram - The current layout of my basement. This diagram contains complete measurements of the basement along with placement of support posts, electrical boxes, windows, flooring, etc..... 2nd Diagram - Studio layout that I envision with rough measurements. This is where I really need input. I know that I am so green at this that I have probably not even come close but some helpful critique would go a long way. The only thing that is not displayed in the diagrams is the current ceiling. The ceilings in the unfinished part of the basement are unfinished as well and are made of 2 x 6's on 16 inch centers. The finished part of the basement, which contains the fireplace, is finished as well but is not insulated. It also has four pot lights. I believe this is going to necessitate me taking the ceiling down but I am no expert. I am about 80 feet to my closest neighbor, and it can get loud sometimes. Music ranges from Acoustic to full out head banging metal. Luckily my neighbors are great and are not all that picky. Some of them often wander over. :D I need to know if I am on the right track or if my design is a pipe dream. Any input would be welcomed. Alternate designs or suggestions are also very much welcomed. I have a lot to learn and from what I have read here so far, this is the right place to be. Additionally, am I being a little too aggressive? Should I concentrate on one room at a time? I was thinking that maybe I should try and design the basic space where each room will be then go from there to designing and building each room. This way I will learn from mistakes with the previous room. Also, since my floors are concrete, I believe I should use a laminate or paint them rather than floating a floor or putting in a sub floor. Everything I have read here seems to indicate that, is this the best approach? As a side note, I had not tried SketchUp until I started reading things here. That program is a life saver. :) Thanks, Tom

Okay, I spent most of last night and today reading through more posts and looking at other designs. The result is that I have come up with a completely different layout. Please let me know what you think of this layout and if there are any glaring faults that you can see. I have attached both an image and a Sketchup diagram. I have also managed to keep the support posts where they were and I have removed the fireplace as it is old anyways. :) I like this design much better but I am sure I have not thought of something. Thanks, Tom

The sound lock and the entrance are doing the same thing...and the isolation booths are going to be hindered by the small size. I would think that, given the room, delete the soundlock/entrance...find a way to have that one entrance without the loss of footprint, and delete the booths all together with. Put the vocals into the bigger live room, but if a isolation booth just has to be part of this project, put it in the live/tracking room.

Hi xSpace, Thanks for the input. I was looking another diagram and thought the sound lock was needed in addition to everything else. Thanks for pointing that out. Back to the drawing board. I have been torn between whether or not I need an isolation booth so I will try and design the live room, as you said, larger and try and leave a space for the booth should I find I needs it later on. Once again, thanks for the input. Thanks, Tom

Hi All, Okay, here is a design based on xSpaces suggestions. Please let me know if you think this one will work. I do have one issue at the moment though. If you notice on the diagram there are three blue circles. These represent support posts. The one closest to the control room is not going to be an issue because I can move it a couple of inches. The same goes for the one in the door. The thing I don't know what to do about is the one that is in the middle of those two. I am no expert on load bearing within houses, but is there a way that I can get rid of that post? I was wondering if the extra structure that is being built will be enough to distribute the weight on or if I should just bite the bullet and leave it there but dress it up nicely. I have attached both a SketchUp file and an image. Thanks, Tom

That looks like a better design and it lends itself to adding the iso booth later.

I agree with Glenn. I would still continue to try to incorporate the existing doorways into the design, since you loose so much real estate when viewing them as obstacles.

I found out I will not be able to move the support post due to construction regulations in my area so I am going to need to enclose that pole I guess. I also realized that I still need a small room to keep my computers in so I have modified things slightly and have made use of the existing door ways as suggested by xSpace. Here is the final layout as I see it. Now it is time to start the specific design for each room and figuring out what I am going to need in the way of materials. :D The door at the bottom of the image leads to the outside, so I made the entrance to the live room right in front of it so it would not be difficult to carry in musical gear. Thanks, Tom

what happens if you flip this design?

Nice idea. I am going to try it out with all the measurements and see how I can fit it. I was trying to make the outside door be part of the hallway and therefore minimize the outdoors exposure to sound but now that I see your layout, I am re-thinking it. I'll post another design shortly.

you could make the exterior door a set of back to back doors in a small air lock.

Well, I tried but unfortunately because I cannot move the two doors on the right hand side, I could not fit anything. Also, I found out I cannot move the posts either because of building code up here. Apparently, the load bearing beam that is in the house dictates 8 foot max spacing. I liked the idea of the machine room being at the back of the control room so I used that and I also changed out the doors into the control room to sliding glass doors and made the control room accessible from within the live room. That got rid of the clutter of the doors. I also remeasured things and realized I was off by almost a foot on the unusable area so that allowed me to expand the control room a little more. I have attached both a sketchup and a jpg of the new design. I think this may be about all I can do but any other suggestions to try are more than welcomed.

nothing says you cannot add an additional post to support the beam so you could spread them out better. another option is a steel plate sistered to the beam may also help extend the length if necessary. not sure why you cannot swap corners though, it seems like the 2 doors stay where they are and would be in the air lock. the exterior door (assuming the lower one) could have an air lock equal to the depth of the unused section next to it.

Thanks for that info. I will ask about the plates and see why they told me I could not move the posts. They mentioned something about the fact that the support beam is not a solid beam but is made of four boards bound together. They said along with the regulations on the snow load up here that the max I could space them was 8 feet. I think I am going to ask a couple of others as well on that. The reason I didn't think flipping it would work is because if I cannot move the posts, I am going to have two of them in my view rather than one. I also thought, it seems incorrectly, that your diagram indicated that I should move the doors in order to make the control room larger. Here we go back to drawing board again. :D Once again, many thanks for your input. It definitely helps.

you might space the posts 4' - one on either side of the door or shift a couple so one sits in the live room and another in the soffit space and the third moved slightly - so basically 6' apart. the actual beam construction is normal and what you want to do is shorten the span if possible.

Hi Glenn, I just got off the phone with the municipal building code inspector and finally got the straight goods. The code span is actually 10 feet. That means that I can pretty well move the posts wherever I want almost. based on that information, I should be able to move the posts in such a way that there is only one post in the live space and be able to use something similar to your design. I will post a new design over the weekend. :)

I have redesigned based on the fact that I can move the posts now and recommendations from everyone. I think I may finally have a really good layout. :) Please let me know if you think this will work. I have attached a jpg and a sketchup.

it may be now the CR is too small... one more twist - turn to put the CR into the upper left corner and use a small corridor by the 2 doors into an iso booth/airlock to enter the CR and use as booth.

Hi Glenn, I have redesigned it along the lines you suggested but I am not so sure about it. It seems like there is a lot less room for the live room. Let me know if you think the room available is sufficient. I have attached a JPG and a Sketchup. Thanks, Tom

i think the challenge is finding the right amount of CR versus LR space - so if you're doing a lot of band recordings - a larger LR is generally a plus although most times you can have the keys, bass, guitar, and reference vox in the CR, the drummer in the live room, and acoustic instruments in the booths and with enough glass it's reasonably visible and more than enough isolation (if that is desired). if you do a lot of recording with everyone in the same room, the larger LR would be better, but consideration for critical listening in the CR will guide you as to how small you might make that. it could just be a matter of a couple of feet to change it to where you need it - ignore the posts for now...

Yeah, I think your right. I am going to have to play around a bit with it from this point and give some serious thought as to what I plan on doing more of with the studio. Time to play. :) Thanks for all the suggestions and assistance. Now I can start tweaking things and seeing what I can make happen.

... and of course, everyone will want to be in the CR for playback & analysis. :roll: :wink:

RJHollins wrote:

... and of course, everyone will want to be in the CR for playback & analysis. :roll: :wink:

if it's a nice CR they could very well... :mrgreen:

Makes perfect sense and when I am done, people are going to want to be in there. What you said about separation between the rooms makes sense too. The more I think about it the more I think I am going to like a larger CR. Now it's just a matter of figuring out that magic number for footage. :D

Okay. I have spent the last couple of days re-thinking everything and have a design that I believe will suit my needs. I don't think I need two isolation booths so I went back and looked at all my designs thus far, ignoring the posts as Glenn suggested. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the truth about the size of the control room. I also realized that, if needed, rather than putting the airlock for the outside door in the room, I could very easily have the airlock outside the room because it is almost built now as it is. With all that in mind, here is the design I have come up with. Let me know what you think. I like this one the best and it gives me a lot of room in both the control room and the live room as well as leaves room at the back of the live room to add another ISO if I should realize that I was wrong and want another. I have attached a jpg and a SketchUp. Thanks, Tom