New Studio Design in Iowa, USA

Hello all, I am currently living in California, but am planning to move to Iowa in about 3 years. I currently record in my house and I have always dreamed of having a big place to record. I have learned a lot on this forum over the last several years and I am looking forward to actually participating in a design here. The building I want to build will be on the property I intent to buy in Iowa (basically a building behind my house). It will be built on a concrete slab. Currently, I am working on the layout. I attached a picture of my current ideas. Here are my current goals for this project. This list will grow as the design matures. 1. The studio will be mostly for personal use, but I will definitely operate this as a business. 2. Music recorded and mixed will be mostly rock and acoustic. 3. I love the John Sayers built-in treatment look and I intent to incorporate that look and feel. 4. I want an airlock to the outside so when people come in and out of the studio, the entire lounge environment is not affected. (I've been in studios that don't have this and it's truely horrible in the dead of winter). The budget has yet to be finalized, but I want to focus on what I want first, then figure out if I have to scale it back. This will be a long term project, so it can be financed over time. I will do most of the work myself. The walls will be 10 feet tall, and the roof will will most likely have scissor trusses so the ceiling height will be ~20 feet at the peak. I would appreciate any inputs on the layout at this point. Thanks Mike

Hi Mike, and welcome! :) I'd suggest rotating the CR quite a bit anti-clockwise, so that you can get decent sight lines straight ahead into the LR. - Stuart -

Thanks for the feedback Stuart. I realize line of sight was a weakness in my layout. I was thinking about adding a window from the edge of the door and bringing it as far forward as possible without affecting the listening postion. This would help, but is not great. I'm worried if I rotate the control room, I will start eating into my live room and / or lounge space. Maybe you see a way to do this that I can't see right now. At this point I would prioritze the size of the live room over line of sight. Can you give me further direction on how I can rotate the control room and not lose Live room and lounge space? Maybe I need a whole new layout. Thanks, Mike

If you rotate it and also move it so that the rear end is where the kitchen table is right now, then you'd have good use of space and good sight lines. Re-arrange the kitchen / bathroom / HVAC areas to the are at the bottom of your image, where the CR is now, closer to the front entrance. You could probably also fit in a door directly into the LR, so it would not be necessary to go through the CR every time you needed to access the LR. Right now, the ONLY access route to both the iso booth and the LR is through the CR, so all equipment, instruments, furniture and people heading for the LR will be traipsing around behind you in the CR, as they load in and load out for sessions. Annoying for everyone, to say the least! - Stuart -

Well I tried experimenting with your ideas and I just can't come up with something that works. I admit I am not very imaginative when it comes to these things. I end up with a very strange live room shape, lots of wasted space or I start pinching off access to the Control Room door. Regarding your input about people having to go through the Control Room, I will have a large equipment load in door in the Live Room (shown on the drawing on the left side of the building). I am also trying to incorporate input from reading other peoples threads, like..... 1. Not having to pass through the live room to get from the control room to the bathroom. 2. Having all the plumbing as close as possible, and on the outside wall. I have updated the drawing by adding a window to the live room and moving the iso booth door. This improves line of site. Not really sure where to go from here. Thanks, Mike

Mike, I am not one of the experts here, just an avid reader like yourself. Here are a couple of layouts that may give you some other ideas. -Charlie

I like it, you good information share the live room to get from the control room to the bathroom. I tried experimenting with your ideas and I just can't come up with something that works. [SPAM SIGNATURE DELETED BY MODERATOR]

OK. I think I have found the land that I will build on. I'll be traveling next week to look at it and possible buy. I need to keep going on the design aspect as I expect it to take the better part of a year to work out all the details. Here is an update on my isolation requirements: I predict the loudest I will be inside is 120 db. I am going to shoot for a noise level of 40db at the nearest neighbor's house (about 200 feet away). I found information in another thread that says that the noise level drops by 3-6db for every doubling of distance. If I go conservative and use 3 db, I can be 60db at 1 yard away from the building. This gives me a target TL of 60. Please let me know if I have this right or wrong. I will using a MSM system with damping and I will target an F0 of 20 Hz. I hope this is low enough. Can someone tell me the formula to figure out the F0? I found some info in other threads but couldn't find the actual formula. I need some help regarding the roof and ceiling leaves. I see so much information on this site about wall construction, but not nearly as much on the roof. I am shooting for a 2 leaf system, but I run into confusion on how I can actually implement this when it comes to the roof. At the moment, the building will be built very much like a detached garage. 4 walls, scissor trusses on top of that, and the roof on top of the trusses. If I use the roof as my outer leaf, how do I implement the MSM system? I'm pretty sure I need to have venting of the attic area in between the roof and the bottom of the scissor trusses (standard roof venting methods). I'm pretty sure that blows my MSM system apart. I saw references in another threads to using "acoustic ducts" for this. But I have no idea what that means. Doesn't the spring part of the system need to be as airtight as the Mass part? I have seen people treating the roof as a normal roof then treating the bottom of the trusses as the outer leaf. Is this a true 2 leaf system, or does this now make it 3 leaf? Any information on how to do this would be great. That's about it for now. Thanks! Mike

Your studio design plan is very nice and awesome. It's look like fantastic after complete all thing. I have a suggestion that You should do striaght from right side in main hall. So I think it look like better. Otherwise chalies's design is also superb so you can apply it.

I have a suggestion that You should do striaght from right side in main hall.

Why? What acoustic benefit do you think that would bring? If he did that, the left and right walls would become parallel, thus increasing the probability for flutter echo and modal issues on the width axis. Plus that would mess up the sight-lines and complicate the window installation. To be honest, I see no benefit at all for that. - Stuart -