Hello from Nashville!

Hello everyone, this is my first post and have had a lot of fun reading the posts on this website. I am only a hobbyist when it comes to recording and playing but it is my favorite thing to do in my free time. I would like to throw out my information in regards to what I have to work with and would love to hear some feed back. I have been dreaming of building a "dedicated" studio for a long time and have done many sketchup mock ups, but ever since finding this website I realized I was approaching things the wrong way. I now have several new versions based on things I have read here and will post a few once I feel like I am heading the right direction. We will be moving into a new home at the end of the month and I have dedicated space to do what I want! Here is the run down: Dimensions: 11'4 x 11'8, 2 walls are poured concrete, the other 2 walls are stud 2x4 with drywall on both sides and typical residential "pink stuff" insulation. Dry wall is all unfinished, ceiling height is 103". Ceiling is not finished. Joists are visible (not sure what the heights of the joists are, not in the house yet, are their typical sizes?). The floor is poured concrete as well. The room will be under our kitchen on the main floor and that floor will be a particleboard subfloor with laminate "wood" flooring. There is a 26" opening not framed out for a door yet. There is 1"-1.5" gas pipe that comes into that room about 60" up the south end of the east wall (east wall is the 11'8) that goes up the remainder of the wall then up into the floor joists across the room. The only other obstruction is that their are 2 14" diameter HVAC ducts that can not be moved. I have an idea of how to isolate these and will show them in my sketch up drawings. My Budget is a max of $750 but would really like to be able to keep it closer to $500. What I want to be able to do: Sound isolation is a must. I have always had a bedroom recording studio and never could mike an amp and recorded mostly direct using headphones to not disturb the wife and 2 kids. I'd like to be able to open the amp up a bit to record. I do not have a neighbor to worry about, but I do have to worry about making to much noise. I would like the room to be good for mixing and playing back music that I record or maybe just to sit in a good quiet room to listen to albums. It also needs to be able to block sounds from coming in. So if the kids or Dogs start acting crazy I am not going to be picking up random noises. Be proud of the project I built and be proud of the music that I am able to make in it. I will not be recording live drums I do want to record vocals, guitars, bass, small percussion. 70% of the time recording just me in the room, 20% recording me and another and the last 10% of the time me and 2 others. Never live band. I am a very handy person and can do the construction by myself for the most part. I may or may not tackle the electricity. The room is already wired with a couple outlets and there is a light fixture connected to one of the ceiling joists. I will need help with my design, staying under budget, acoustical treatments, and my sanity once I get a chance to get started. Anyway, I hope I covered all the points if a list of equipment is needed let me know, its nothing fancy... Thanks!

The unfinished room

Any suggestions on how to make this room a good recording and listening room? I will be building a vocal booth in the corner where the Air Ducts come into the room. This way I can hide them and I can hopefully isolate the sound. My main question is what to do with poured concrete walls, sheet rock them or leave as is. Also, Concrete floors are they ok in regards to reflection do I need to toss a throw rug down or do I need to install flooring of some sort over the floor? I believe I have given the right details and did my due diligence with my posts, if not let me know what I need to fix.

I know why this isn't the best design, but what should I be looking at changing?

Any suggestions? I've seen a lot less details get responses. Have I done something wrong?

"Dimensions: 11'4 x 11'8, 2 walls are poured concrete" It's a square room, a small room, and the best you may do is to damp the whole room, or attempt to change the footprint with a hard boundary wall in the corner

What do you mean by damp? Do you mean dampen with lots of traps? Where would be the best spot to put a hard wall in relation to where I will be sitting and listening to music?

It is a square room and it looks like now it has a square booth in it. Yes you will have to treat/damp a lot of this room and the booth to nearly dead since the compounding frequency issues with multiple pairs of parallel walls is not going to be a pleasant experience, for neither room. So if you have not already constructed this room, please do not since you will not like the results.

You say isolation is very important: That implies that you need to build a second "wall" all around that room, about 6 inches away from the existing wall, by building a stud frame and putting at least one sheet of 5/8" drywall on it. (You need to do the same for the ceiling: a large air gap, a frame, then drywall.) So when you do the wall framing, you can make the gap much larger in one direction than in the other, in order to deal with the rather important problem that Brien mentioned: modal behavior. So for example you could make the air gap five inches deep on two opposite walls, and 9 inches deep on the other two opposite walls. That would improve the situation a bit. Of course, it also makes the room much smaller. Then you need to add a your acoustic treatment inside the finished, isolated room, and that takes up a few more inches on each side. To be honest, I very much doubt that you can get a vocal booth in there too, in such a small space: The space you have might be OK for a control room, but I can't see you getting in a booth too. You have to isolate the booth in the same way as the room itself: stud frames with drywall, and you have to treat the booth interior even more than the room interior, plus you need space for the booth door to swing inside the booth, without interfering with the mic or the talent! So the booth would actually be rather larger than you show on your diagram. So if that were my room, I'd concentrate on doing it as just a control room, then record vocals or amps in the room itself. And of course, those HVAC ducts are a huge problem! No matter what you do, you are stuck with those. If you can't move them, then you only have two choices: build the room that much smaller, so they are fully outside it, or soffit them. Once final comment: I don't think your budget is realistic for doing what you say you want to do. - Stuart -