Plans for splitting one room into two (booth and mix).

Hi All, I'm Ryan from Colorado and I'd love to get some eyes on a design I drew up for what I hope will be a somewhat simple project. My studio is in an oddly shaped basement and I currently having my mix position tucked amonst angled walls between a door and a window (see RW Studio - I'm on the left side with the speakers a few feet from the wall and firing longwise in the room). My plan is to build a booth in the back part of the room (incorporating a closet) big enough for a vocal booth and with enough isolation from the mixing room to put loud guitar amps in. I would also like to isolate it from the living quarters above as much as possible but I don't need to worry about the surrounding rooms. In doing so, I'd gain a still not totally symmetrical mix room with good acoustic dimensions that I can treat to function better as a mix room (no isolation from anywhere needed) by spinning the mix position around facing the booth and having a window in between. I'm on a budget and trying to keep it simple so the easiest thought I had was to simply build a double wall in the back of the room (RW Studio Design) with a 3 inch gap between them. I'd loose to much space if I did walls for side and back of the booth so I'll keep them the same. I plan to insulate the area between the ceiling of the booth and the floor above as much as I can and then hang a cloud of OC 504 an inch beneath the ceiling that covers the whole ceiling. I'd like to have a window, but once I put a 4 foot one in, there isn't much room for a door between the two walls (especially since I want bass traps in the corners and things to be symmetrical. My two thoughts for getting around this is to simply install a door with a window in it (2 doors rather, one for each wall), a pair of sliding glass doors, or create a new door between the booth and the hallway that runs on the bottom side of the diagrams. Any idea as to what might be the better way to treat the door? Also, will only doing double wall between the rooms while the ceiling and side walls are still coupled get me much in the way of isolation? I plan to change the carpet to hardwood floors and can put them on separate pads with a gap between them so the floors will be somewhat isolated. Any feedback would be greatly apprecated - hopefully these drawings are enough to give you an idea of what I am talking about. Once I decide where to put the dividing wall and what shape it will be, I'll move on to designing treatments and I'm sure I'll have plenty of question as to what to do with the back of the new mix room. Other key things - other than hopefully gaining some isolation from the booth and mix room and the booth and the floor immediately above I really have no other isolation requirements as far as other room or other neighbors go. My setup is a pro tools HD rig with a small midas mixer, a rack on the side of outboard and an NHT 5.1 surround system. I'm mainly focusing on stereo but play with surround so building the surround sound environment would be great but not necessary if it complicates things too much. I've been using another booth that I build down the hall for overdubs and but am starting to get more clients that want to do the whole project at my house and I'd love to have better sounding tracking/mix spaces so I could be confident finishing off mixes at home. Oh yeah, ceiling is 8 feet high - floor is concrete slab (under carpet). Thanks for your help, Ryan

Welcome! Where are the entry door and window? Given the complex shape, you might want to add another wall to get some symmetry for the mix position.

Sorry, the door and window fell off the second drawing and are labeled funny on the first. Door is right by the shadow of the person (it's on the first drawing measured as 3'1"). Window is on other angled wall in the back (measuring 4') and I'd love to not lose it so I might have to settle for "almost symmetrical" as I can't think of a simple way to change them without breaking into other rooms. I mapped out the booth according to my design and it will be smaller than ideal (love to be able to put a drum kit in there, even if it's tight) so i'm toying with the idea of moving the walls back 8" or so (there's a vent that I have to work around) which ruins my good ratios but I figure if I'm going to go through all the trouble the booth might as well be as big as I need it to be. Doing so, however, would trap a vent inside the booth. No problem turning off air during takes, but it seems like a key leakage point for other rooms. It can easily be moved along the vertical plane of the drawing but not horizontally (I have no desire to tear up ceiling in three rooms to send the vent down between different beams. It makes a straight line to the furnace and I could, however, disconnect it and patch over it. Honestly, it's the one closest to the furnace so always is always closed because it cranks out the hot air - removing it might help circulation to the rest of the house (which has been a problem). Room might get a little cool in the winter but I could put a space heater in if needed. Thanks for any input, Ryan

maybe?

Now that I like, thanks for taking the time to draw it up! I'd hate to dampen the limited sunshine that the window provides, but sometimes we must suffer for our art!

or put in a smaller interior window to help with isolation and allow light...