New Recording Studio

Hi I'm building a new recording studio in a building next to our house. The internal dimensions of the building are shown on the attached file and right now the layout is pretty standard. Any ideas on how we can rejig things internally to make it work better? Sorry if this comes across as a bit vague but I've got the opportunity to make it into something pretty interesting if I get some good advice at the design stage. Anyone willing to help? Cheers

Hi "SkyHammer Studio". Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things! :) - Stuart -

AH, sorry man - I'll sort that now *blush*.

Ok, I think I've added the bits required and apologies for being a div. Ok, so this building is a 18th century coach house. and currently is set out as a double garage, it is next to our new house. At one end of the building you can see it has two rooms - I'm thinking one is a ready built drum room and one is a ready built control room. All rooms (including the larger space that I have earmarked as a live room) have electricity and have yet to be sound proofed. We have an experienced builder already with some experience of building 'room within a room' type deals. In our area we have no 'close' neighbours but we do have neighbours so out of respect for them I will be doing all that I can to sound proof it as robustly as I can. The intention is to use the space as a rehearsal studio for my band (and maybe one other if I can get some interest) so we can leave some of our stuff in situ (a current bug bear with our 'pay as you go' rehearsal space. I'd also like to start doing some recordings in the studio (demo's to start with while I cut my teeth and then, if I get good enough, start to progress further with bigger releases. So, basically, I'm totally new to this but have a great property, some decent contacts, an ear for a decent sound and some experience of recording and mixing (been using reaper for a while now to half decent effect) - I have a long way to go though before I would advertise myself as competent....... Just bought a Soundcraft Spirit Studio 32 channel desk and will upgrade as I go along. My aim is to get the studio sounding as good as it can, with as little sound leakage as I can and I was wondering if anyone on here was willing to work with me on it..... I'm in Cheshire, UK. The ceiling height is around 8ft, but we are thinking of removing the ceiling half way across the building and letting the neutral roof be the ceiling (the building has a first floor, currently undeveloped). Cheers, and once again, apologies for circumventing the posting rules.

AH, sorry man - I'll sort that now *blush*.

Much better! :) Welcome to the forum! :)

The internal dimensions of the building are shown on the attached file and right now the layout is pretty standard. Any ideas on how we can rejig things internally to make it work better?

There are a lot of options open to you, but it all depends on what you are trying to achieve, and also on your budget. If your budget is five hundred thousand pounds, then you can have an amazing studio in there, but if your budget is five hundred pounds, your options are somewhat more limited... :shot: So, from your description, it seems like the basic idea is to have a large rehearsal space that can double as a live room, plus maybe a drum booth or iso booth, plus a small control room. Does that sound like a reasonable summary?

Just bought a Soundcraft Spirit Studio 32 channel desk and will upgrade as I go along.

Nice! But that already modifies something I said: that console is pretty large, so the control room can't be small! The CR must be at least large enough to fit that console in comfortably, so that changes things a bit. What other gear will you have in the control room? what speakers do you plan to use in there? Also, how many people do you need to get in the live room / rehearsal room at once?

Ok, so this building is a 18th century coach house. and currently is set out as a double garage,

Great? But how is it built? Stone? Brick? Wood? Something else? What is the roof made of? Windows? Doors? Floor? Any HVAC at present? More details would be useful. So would some photos! Also, I'd suggest that you download SketchUp (it is free) and use that to model the building. That's sort of the "standard" around here, and makes it much easier. So please try to provide as much detail as possible, so that we can get a better idea of what you are dealing with. After all, it's easy for you: you can see it any time you want! But we can't: we need photos and words to understand what you have. - Stuart -

Cheers Stuart. OK, I've downloaded Sketchup and will have a go at that this morning. The building is brick and block, with a regular slated roof - here is a photo of the external http://media.rightmove.co.uk/1k/652/388 ... 20x414.JPG The control room is 13ft 10 by 9ft 11, would that be a decent enough size for this desk? I have already done a rough hand drawn sketch (apologies for my childish attempt) but this is how it looks inside. If you can imagine a flat ceiling of about 8 ft until you get across to the pillar and the area coloured in green, that is where the ceiling drops (for the full length of the space) down to about 6 or 7 ft. I am considering removing the ceiling from the space where it sits at 8 ft (the part NOT marked in green) and using the full height of the building. No HVAC at present, but I'm thinking of installing something - do have access to pretty much any type of HVAC installs (our family business does HVAC installation and maintenance). Control room will have a desk, I'll probably make this a corner desk with some space underneath for rack mount effects. Monitor speakers can go on the wall, I'd like a sub speaker underneath the desk. Any thoughts?

There are several things that can be improved with that plan. I would say the two biggest issues are the pillar, which I'm guessing cannot be moved, and the low ceiling. I would aim to structure the rooms around that pillar, hopefully so that the pillar itself is in the wall cavity between two rooms. since the pillar is, by definition, part of your outer leaf, having it run through a room greatly complicates your isolation. You would have to build a decoupled box around it to correctly isolate the room, with the box being part of the inner leaf. The pillar also creates potential issues for room acoustics, since it seems to be quite large enough to cause reflections and diffraction, so that is a secondary issue. And apart from anything else, it is just awkward to have that huge thing poking up through the middle of the room! The other issue is the ceiling that apparently drops down low on one side. Since symmetry is critical for control rooms, and since the room cannot get smaller at the back for acoustic reasons, the only possible orientation for your control room is to have the front of the room (where the speakers are) located under the lower part of that ceiling. (Assuming that you want to have you control room in that area). But whichever way you look at it, a six foot ceiling is very low, and that's without even considering the height you will lose due to the isolation, so if you can take that out and use the space above it, then I'd really suggest that you do so.

here is a photo of the external

Please keep all your photos on the forum itself. We discourage linking to outside hosting services, since URLs can change, companies go out of business, accounts get shut down, or for any number of other reasons the photos just disappear after a while. There are several threads on the forum where people are talking about an important issue that is visible in "the photo", but the photo no longer exists, so the entire thread is useless. so please post your photos direct to the forum.

The control room is 13ft 10 by 9ft 11,

Is that before or after the isolation system is built? If you are talking about "after" (i.e., the final internal dimensions of the room, without considering treatment), then the room ratio works out to 1 : 1.22 : 1.63. It isn't too bad, but could be better. It fails one of the three key criteria used by the BBC for determining is a room can be used as a studio or not.

would that be a decent enough size for this desk?

Not sure! You'd have to do the complete layout of the room, using correct geometry for the speakers and listening position, then see how the console fits into that arrangement. With a large console like that in a small roo, you also run the risk of having major reflections coming off the console surface, so that will have to be taken into account in your layout.

No HVAC at present, but I'm thinking of installing something -

It's not so much a matter of "thinking about it"! :) You have no choice! In order to isolate the rooms acoustically, each room must have two totally airtight (hermetic) seals around it, with zero passage for air. People have this strange habit: they like to breathe several times per minute, so in order to keep that habit going, you need to feed fresh air into the rooms, and exhaust the stale air out, and that has to be done through the isolation using silencer boxes ("baffle boxes") in order to not lose the isolation. People also have another habit: they put out moisture and body heat. Since your rooms will be wrapped in very thick layers of acoustic absorption, you basically have the rooms wrapped in very effective thermal blankets that keep the heat in. Your equipment also puts out a light of heat, as does the lighting system and other electrical things inside. So a correctly designed HVAC system is not an option to be thought about: it is a critical, essential, necessity. Without it, you won't last long in there. The air will get stale, hot, muggy and unpleasant very quickly, and dangerous shortly after that. Some people think "Well, I'll just open the door every hour or so, and that will fix things." Nope. Won't happen. Air will not enter or exit the room with the door open unless you give it a reason to do so: Since the door is the ONLY path into the room (the windows are sealed and inoperable), then you would need several fans to force air in, out and around the room, plus you would still have wild swings in humidity and temperature. Not a practical or realistic approach. You NEED a proper HVAC system.

Control room will have a desk, I'll probably make this a corner desk

Symmetry is critical for control rooms. Your head MUST be on the central axis of the room, equidistant from the two side walls, and about 38% of the distance from front wall to back wall. There can be nothing asymmetrical in the front half of the room. The left half must be a mirror image of the right half. This is necessary to ensure that the sound hitting your left ear is balanced exactly the same as the sound hitting your right ear. If that is not the case, then you will subconsciously "compensate" for the imbalance in your mixes, so your songs will sound fine in the room, but will sound lousy when played everywhere else. This is known as "translating": how your mix sounds when played in a different room. If your control room is not symmetrical, then your mixes will not translate. so setting up in a corner is not a realistic option. The desk has to be in the right location, across the center line of the room, with the console on top, also centered (since it is a very large surface), and your chair behind it, also centered. The speakers must set up against the front wall, equidistant from the side walls, and angled inwards at 30° so that the acoustic axes are pointing at your ears.

Monitor speakers can go on the wall,

Actually, they can't! :) They must be either flush mounted in proper soffits (the best option), or they must be on top of heavy, massive, solid, rigid stands, between the desk and the front wall. They must be set up such that the acoustic axis of the speakers is at a height of 1.2 meters above the floor (about 47-1/4"). There's a lot more to designing a studio than meets the eye! :) I hope all this helps to get you in the right track. - Stuart -

Hi All So we have now completed on the purchase of the house and soon I will commence work on the studio itself. In essence we have decided to get rid of the pillar described and shown above, and are replacing the roof so that we are able to remove the internal walls and open the room right up. Before we fit sound insulation it will measure approx 28 ft by 28ft and will have a very high ceiling (in fact the ceiling will go as high as the existing roof (approx 6 metres). I am considering enlisting the services of a professional studio designer / acoustics consultant - should I? We already have a competent and trusted builder but do you think it necessary to spend over £1000 on a designer too? We will be installing a HVAC system professionally also with attenuated grills (we are having this done at great cost, but as a gift from the a family member). What do you think of these sketches? They have been measured accurately and these sketches were done in CAD by a friend who knows the software (I don't). I've added the dimensions to sketch 5 (so did my friend but they were a bit small on the image) - these dimensions are accurate. Imagine the empty shell once it is sound proofed..... Where would be a good place for the control room? Given the available space, what sort of dimensions would be best? I would also like to put an isolation booth in there for guitar / bass cabs and vocals. Any opinions on where would be best, what sort of dimensions I should consider? Once again, thanks for your time.

Hi I've now setup a blog to document the studio build. I've decided to employ www.studiopeople.com - after not getting much joy elsewhere. The blog is here. http://skyhammerstudio.blogspot.co.uk

What is your point, Jackmite? Why are you repeating everything I already said, and the OP already agreed with? Why pretend to understand when all you are doing is summarizing other people's posts, in really bad English, with practically unintelligible grammar? Are you a real person, or just a very badly designed spambot, waiting to strike?

I just want to know why he keeps talking about a 'bedroom'? :poke: Anyhow, I've updated the blog now - I'm going to do away with the control room. http://skyhammerstudio.blogspot.co.uk