Studio design in New Delhi, India

Hi all: First of all, I'd like to congratulate John and everyone else on this forum for creating, maintaining and updating such an excellent source of information for people of varying magnitudes of knowledge. As I could not find an introductions section on the forum, I thought I'd just introduce myself briefly here: I'm Nikhil (Nik for short) from Toronto, Canada. I'm 26, an Electrical Engineer by education and a musician by choice. Currently I'm in India to pursue my passion and hopefully turn it into a career. Obviously one of the prerequisites for this is to have a studio setup for my ongoing use. I've read over the Forum Rules page and hope to follow everything mentioned there, but I apologize in advance if I disobey any rule as I'm new here and it will take me a few days to get accustomed. I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to anything related to a studio, be it construction, equipment, software, etc. and hope to learn a lot over the next few weeks. Essentially, what I want from this studio is the ability to record myself (which I usually do on tracks) or sometimes if I want to invite musicians to come and play an instrument, then I want to be able to accommodate them as well. In addition, I've given up my job for this dream and am presently not earning so I'd like to be able to rent out the studio to other aspiring musicians like myself to come and record. OK, so here goes: In my residence in New Delhi, I'm on the second floor of a house consisting of three floors (so there's one family above and below me). The layout of each floor is exactly the same. Because I have recently moved in, I have two rooms which I am not using and I'd like to dedicate those to the studio. My biggest challenge then becomes how to properly divide that space efficiently in order to achieve what I'm trying to get out of this. Another challenge I foresee is the probability of not being able to procure all the required materials for this job as easily as I would in Canada. However, these are issues that will come up during any design process and I'm confident I should be able to overcome them. Another issue is that these rooms are built, just not furnished and construction in India is slightly different from North America. Walls are constructed from brick and then cement plastered and finally POP'd to give them their finish (unlike the standard drywall back home in Canada). The floors of the two rooms are currently Marble and the doors are constructed from a mixture of solid teak-wood and teak-ply board. I am OK with breaking whatever must be broken in these two rooms and constructing again. One again, I'm completely new to this and lack any knowledge of how soundproof rooms should be designed (shape, materials, etc.). I'm going to post pictures of the rooms and hope to take that as a starting point from where someone can possibly help guide me in the right direction. Mind you, I'm not a very handy man either so I do not plan on conducting the actual construction myself, but will hire someone to do the job for me. I just want to be sure I know what I want from the contractor as contractors here do not typically have the knowledge required for constructing studios. Please see the attached pictures. I have labelled Rooms 1 and 2 in the first picture and then taken 5 pictures of the inside of Room 1 and 2 pictures looking in from the door of Room 2. Both rooms are pretty much rectangular with the dimensions of Room 1 being approx. 13 ft by 10.5 ft and the dimensions of Room 2 being approx. 14 ft by 11.5 ft. Please also note that Room 1 and Room 2 share a common wall (in which I hope to have a glass setup so the Sound Engineer and Artist can communicate) and this common wall is denoted in one of the pictures of Room 1 to give you a better idea of how the rooms are laid out. My current plan is to use Room 1 for the Sound Engineer and equipment setup and Room 2 as the soundproof recording room for the Artist. Also note that in one of the 2 pictures of Room 2, there is one picture showing a window on the right hand side. To give you a better perspective, this window is directly opposite the common wall of Room 1 and Room 2 and can be permanently closed off if necessary. Please have a look at the pictures attached and tell me what you think of my current idea. I'm open to all sorts of criticism and ideas and would love to be part of a creative conversation. I thank everyone of you in advance who has taken time out to read this and am looking forward to hearing your valuable inputs.

Update -- Oops... just went over another do/do not do list by knightfly and am going to try to fill in what I've missed: 1) How loud / quiet do I need to be? : This isn't too much of an issue as in India we have fairly solid walls and I doubt too much noise will leak out of the property anyway. In terms of within the house, the upper and ground floors belong to my family as well and we have relatives residing there and so I don't think loud noise on occasion should not be an issue (for the most part, I'll be recording vocals on tracks and seldom having musicians come and record). 2) Acoustics are 3D (I didn't provide the height of the rooms) : Both rooms at 10 ft ceilings. 3) Budget: I'm trying to achieve all construction work / equipment under $10,000. Now mind you, materials and labour are slightly cheaper here in India so I can probably sacrifice more of this budget on the equipment I'm going to purchase for the studio. Thanks again guys, Nik

I'm sorry guys have I missed something important? No replies?

Hello Nik, I'm not from the official welcoming crew ... just a member here. It can get very busy around here, so sometimes new projects get backed up. One item you may want to provide is the current Floor Plan of the rooms. Label all the dimensions gives us an overhead view/layout that your starting from. Be sure to include all doors, windows, built-in structure. Measurements help a lot. To help with all this, there is a free 3D drawing program called 'SketchUP'. Very popular here and highly recommended. A bit tricky at first, but once you get a handle on it, it will be a very valuable tool in designing your studio. Also [during the wait], as you've noticed, there is a tremendous amount of information contained in this site. Taking some time to read through some of the posts can help you prepare, and also get some great ideas. This is a DIY based site, and can get overwhelming at first ... oh, and even later :lol: But the help, guidance is second to none. If you're not much on building experience, then you will want to do some homework here. Contractors, builders, and buddies can all think they know how to do this 'Studio build' ... but the better you understand can save you much ... in many ways !!! One thing is certain ... ask questions here. Speaking for myself, and probably many others ... I thought I had some decent understanding & experience of basic studio design and construction. There was much I had to UNDO with that thinking. Took awhile to sink in ... but it slowly did. I now have a Control Room that exceeded my expectations ... like a dream come true. Hope some of this helps ... all the best ! RJ

RJHollins wrote:

Hello Nik, I'm not from the official welcoming crew ... just a member here. It can get very busy around here, so sometimes new projects get backed up. One item you may want to provide is the current Floor Plan of the rooms. Label all the dimensions gives us an overhead view/layout that your starting from. Be sure to include all doors, windows, built-in structure. Measurements help a lot. To help with all this, there is a free 3D drawing program called 'SketchUP'. Very popular here and highly recommended. A bit tricky at first, but once you get a handle on it, it will be a very valuable tool in designing your studio. Also [during the wait], as you've noticed, there is a tremendous amount of information contained in this site. Taking some time to read through some of the posts can help you prepare, and also get some great ideas. This is a DIY based site, and can get overwhelming at first ... oh, and even later :lol: But the help, guidance is second to none. If you're not much on building experience, then you will want to do some homework here. Contractors, builders, and buddies can all think they know how to do this 'Studio build' ... but the better you understand can save you much ... in many ways !!! One thing is certain ... ask questions here. Speaking for myself, and probably many others ... I thought I had some decent understanding & experience of basic studio design and construction. There was much I had to UNDO with that thinking. Took awhile to sink in ... but it slowly did. I now have a Control Room that exceeded my expectations ... like a dream come true. Hope some of this helps ... all the best ! RJ

Thanks for the great info RJHollins! That's precisely what I've been trying to do... I've browsed the forums trying to read up on whatever I can that may pertain to my requirement and also downloaded SketchUP! I'm trying to play with it... here's hoping I figure it out within the next couple of days and get at least a basic floor plan up for the experts to see. Your help is much appreciated :). Regards, Nik