Shed Recording / Mixing Studio - The Plan

Hi all, first post. I am pretty new to the whole studio design and construction thing (Been looking over this site a lot and a few others for the last month or two, as well as reading Rod's book) and I have been eagerly absorbing this new information overload that is building a studio and trying not to go into brain meltdown in the process. :shock: So my co-musician and I have an existing small 3.5mx5m 'soundproofed' (more like sound-muffled) space in one half of a shed that has been our jamming room / studio for quite a few years now. It is essentially a wood-framed room lined with mdf panels, insulation fibre and carpet that my friends father helped us build. We have been very grateful as it has given us a place to be creative with our projects over the years, but we've always known we'd one day need something bigger and a little more 'to spec' It has many things it is good for as it has things going against it. It has served us well but we are feeling like we have somewhat outgrown it and are looking for something new; Especially as we have recorded a handful of local artists over the last couple of years and are wanting to have a space better suited to getting a good mix, not to mention space where we can comfortably fit a drum kit. We usually write and record without drums and using programmed drums or an electronic kit, but it will be good to have some space for times that we record or jam it out with real drums. I know very well that a masonry structure would win over a metal shed hands-down in terms of sound-reduction, but we are limited by time, budget and practicality for the property we are building on, which currently leaves building a shed as the most viable option. I am completely aware that we are dreaming if we expect to get a significant improvement of sound reduction with the new studio compared to our current one but we want to make it as good as it can be. 90% of the time we will be recording and mixing material without an acoustic kit so high volumes won't typically be an issue, however it is something we still want to tackle for when needed. The Shed We have a quote for a 6x11m shed on a concrete pad. The roof will be 3m at the walls and 4.21m at the apex. No A-brace or other truss system, just Apex and knee brackets so I hope integrity won't be an issue. The frames should be completely independent of the shed structure so it is just any added mass that could be a concern. A slightly less narrow shape to the floor dimensions would be better but we are limited by the size, shape and slope of the property and by the easement of 1.5m. I also have a rough sketchup for one possible internal floorplan for the shed, consisting of a control room, a live room, isolation booth and probably storage space also. Rooms design I have kept the design with the two leaf system in mind, though I am yet to figure out the most practical method of adding mass to the inside of the shed shell itself. We will most likely go for double-layered gyprock on the wall and ceiling timber frames with fibreglass insulation. I have read varied opinions of when using Resilient Channel is and isn't necessary. I have looked into inside-out wall construction and from what I read this can allow for a smaller spacing between leaves though I would have assumed the opposite to be true? HVAC I have done practically no research into HVAC yet, but I am allowing for keeping space between the frame ceiling and the apex so that there is room for any ducting required, or what how it would go installing such a system onto the shed itself. Control Room I have looked into room ratios but haven't yet settled on one that would best suit our control room. Our monitor speakers are Mackie HR824's which to my understanding are best off *not* being wall mounted. We are still yet to look into ensuing long-term moisture and termite protection (big problem where we live) for the wood frames once the shed is complete. Anyway that's the primary points I can think of for now... Attached is some shots of the planned studio floor plan and the shed info from the quote. In the meantime as we refine our plans some more, we're looking forward to any advice and feedback that could steer us in the best direction. Cheers, -Raze

welcome! nice level of detail here! would it be better to have 4m high side walls and perhaps slightly flatter roof supported with trusses? this way you can put all the AC etc up above the rooms and have nice height rooms inside and the exterior structure would be able to support the additional mass. on the design - since you're willing to lose space for "storage", you might consider a hall instead to allow access to the CR, booth, and live room and it becomes the air lock. otherwise it looks like people would be bringing their equipment through an air lock, into the CR, into the booth, then into the live room... if you decide to keep the apex based shell, turning the CR could also help with leveraging the angled ceiling and improve visibility.

Nice job with the Sketchup there gullfo, definitely less redundant in design than my floorplan. Meanwhile preparations to make space for the new shed have begun. Last week we had some contractors come in and remove the asbestos cladding off our existing 40-year old garage shed (It's not the same shed where our existing studio is). It is just a bare frame now, but it has helped us better to visualize where the new shed will be and to measure it out somewhat. Using sketchup I knew it would take up a lot of space, but measuring it for real we can see now just how huge it is going to be. There is still a crapload of work ahead of us before we even begin building the shed: We need to arrange a new gate so we can pull the rest of the old shed frame down (The galvanized door is the only thing stopping the dogs from escaping from the back-yard), and there is a half-meter retaining wall which juts out into part of the yard where the shed will be. And on the garden bed supported by that wall is a 15m tall palm tree which looks nice but the whole lot will need to go. Then there is financing the whole thing. Unfortunately we have less than half of what the total budget will probably end up being. (Area preparation about $5K, Sandworks, Shed & concrete = $19K, Inside Materials probably at least $15K, Air conditioning I haven't got quotes yet but probably between $5K to $10K, so totalling AU $50K at the very least) so getting approval for a loan is our only option at this stage. So much to plan and consider...