Which one would you choose?

Hi John and everybody else, The outer shell of my new studio is nearly built (roof to come on in a few days) and I'm narrowing down on my ideas for the design. There are no set plans for the inside framing, so I can "move freely" :) . However, I have come down to two ideas and i would like you to help me choose one :) I'm attaching the basic drawings of the room layouts. Now, I would love to have that big room sound and with my space and ceiling height I think it's possible to achieve to some extent.(ceilings are 12' up to 17.5' at the pitch).The room sound is very important to me. I would also like to be able to accomodate small orchestras, eventhough it is not my main gig at the moment. On the other hand I know that I will be recording quite a few bands in here. I would also like to be able to track vocals and Drums in both, live and dead environments and to have the necessary separation between players when needed.So here comes the idea with a smaller live room and additional Iso Booths. Looking at the attached drawings, what would you recommend i go for? Is the live room too small with those isos around? Thanks very much for any input :!: :)

sorry...here's the other one

I would chose number 3 8) Greetings, Dirk

Thanks for your input Dirk...Nice idea

Dirk has a good layout. I personally would make the bigger room the drum room, have a smaller room for the rest of the guys to stand in (2 guitarists and a bass player can all fit into the space taken up by their drums if their amps are in an iso booth), and since the drums are the most affected by room sound, you want to give them the best sounding room. I personally would lose the drum room completely, and make the main tracking room that much bigger. But Dirk beat me to it. ;) Kase www.minemusic.net

Yep. I'm a drummer and do a lot of drumrecording. I won't call myself an expert, but people tend to like my results... I lust for the moment that I finish building my dreamstudio (exactly as the above picture) and can start to use some serious room mics on the drums! I don't care too much for Iso rooms. One or two smaller amp closets is cool though to be able to track drums in the main room together with bass and guitar. As a general guideline, I would say, make the control room as large as possible (within reason) and have one bigger tracking room. I see a lot of people here trying to fit a lot of smaller rooms into their space which I don't quite understand... I love the feel of a spacious control room and of a recording room where you can set up the drums, leave some stuff lying around and still be able to move without kicking mc stand. Furthermore, the larger spaces are easier to get sounding right. Good luck, Dirk

Yeah I understand what you're saying Dirk...big rooms are nice.As i mentioned in the first post, i would like to be able to track drums in a dead room as well, and add digital verb after just for the different tastes and drum sounds, thats where I thought I would have to sacrifice some of my live room area.But I guess i can do with one dead room (for drums and vox) and use the rest of the space as one bigger room.There would still be some space left (I hope). thanks

Having a bigger space and making it more dead is not that difficult. Some movable gobo's (rockwool in a frame on wheels) may come in handy anyway to adapt the acoustics for the purpose. You could even put the drums in a corner with some gobos around it to have a dry sound and record the opposite site of the room and use this as your reverb :wink: . Greetings, Dirk