New to Studio Design, really could use some help.

First of all I am still formalizing a lot of my budgets for start up, but I will start by saying, I am an engineer (small town), and my partner is a musician/songwriter in the area. What we are trying to do is provide not an LA quality space, but one that is decent enough that perhaps some of the tracking work we do could be used on a big studio album. WE are looking to go either 32channel protools HDX or 24 channel protools with MOTU interfaces. We don't have any space yet, but we are loking at 2500-3500 sq ft. We don't want to all that space for production we want to sub divide it and use 3-4 10x20 spaces as rehearsal spaces, these could probably be shrunk down but it's a starting point. As far as acoustically what I am looking for is a big live room for grand piano, drums, choruses and small string or instrumental music groups. I would like spaces isolated for guitar amps at least 2 (rhythm and lead) or 3(rhythm, lead, and bass). Lastly a smaller space for vocals that is mostly dead(would like to do Voice Overs etc). So what I have put together is the floor plan below, it's based on a 3000 sqft space, with a lenghth of 76' and a width of 38' (as we have not signed a lease yet, I don't have actual measurements). May be jumping the gun, but I am hoping to at least get the ball rolling, perhaps get something that would allow us to estimate our construction costs when negotiating with our landlord. The space is set up so that one end is for loadins, the other end is for walk ins. The control room is meant to serve both multi-tracking, mixing and mastering. Although I would eventually like to seperate mixing and mastering, for now it will have to live in the same place. Please let me know if there is anything else I can answer. I hope that this I haven't broken any rules. Chris Warner

Hi Chris, and Welcome! :) Sounds like a nice project that you have in mind! One comment on what you said:

May be jumping the gun, but I am hoping to at least get the ball rolling, perhaps get something that would allow us to estimate our construction costs when negotiating with our landlord.

Once good way of estimating the cost of building a studio is to find out how much it costs in your area, per square foot, to build an up-scale house. Add about 10% - 20% to that, and you won't be far off. You could call around a few contractors and ask if they have a base price per square foot for that kind of job. That's assuming that you start with empty land, no building. If you already have a good building to use as the basis (thick concrete slab, good brick or concrete walls, heavy roof), then ask contractors for their square-foot rates for building an up-scale office or shop in an empty shell, and once again add a "fudge factor" to that. Those figures won't be accurate, of course, but will put you in the ball-park. On your layout, there are many things I would change. To start with, your control MUST be symmetrical. A non-symmetrical control room will pretty much ensure that you do NOT meet your goal of being able to do work that big studios can use. I can't make most of the text and numbers on your plan, but I would also ensure that the control room meets ITU and EBU specs for critical listening rooms, in terms of total volume, geometry, reverb times, NC curve, etc. I would also put your rehearsal rooms closer to the load-in/out doors: you don't want musicians traipsing all up and down the corridors, carting heavy equipment and instruments with them... You could also consider arranging things so that there can be a view from the control room into one of the rehearsal rooms, so you could use that as a second live room, along with the vocal booth, to do big tracking jobs where you need good separation for some instruments. There are probably several other small and not-so-small details that I'd change, but those are the biggies that stick out at first glance. Anyway, all that will no doubt change once you actually find the land / building for the project: I'm looking forward to seeing that happen! - Stuart -