family vs acoustics

Dear fellow forum members and moderators, After a lot of reading on this great forum, this is my first post. I am considering building a new studio and have some dilemma's. There is a good chance that I will ask John to design my new place, but before that there are some decisions to make. I'll try to paint you the whole picture as complete as possible… Here goes! I am a Dutch (The Hague in The Netherlands) composer and producer, mainly produce pop and electronic stuff, now and then I mix a bit of hip-hop, a jazz-album (recorded elsewhere) or a singer-/songwriter. Besides that, I am a professional voiceover and record a big part of my work myself, in my control room. My current working-environment is little over 3 km from my house, in a combined industrial / office building. My studio there is ok, sufficient STC for where it is located (approx 50dB), I have built it approx. three years ago and could (in retrospect) have done a better job on some points, partly because I was limited by the existing ceiling height and partly because of my limited knowledge at the time. (My knowledge is slightly less limited now) ;-) I have a recording space for up to 3 singers with good separation on my right hand and daylight on my left hand (daylight is a really nice feature of the design I made back then). I have a wife and two kids (1 yr old girl and 3 yr old son), our house is a three level upperhouse with a 5x6m roofterrace on top of what used to be a garage and what is currently in use as a space for a physical therapist. This space is for sale, and it would be a great opportunity to expand our house with a big kitchen / livingspace and a small garden behind the 'garage' for the kids to play. I love the idea of working at home (and have done so for many years before building the studio that I currently use). The space for sale is roughly 5.5m wide, 3.6m high between the concrete support beams and 3.2m high below the support beams. The floor is solid concrete without a basement underneath (I believe there is just sand under the concrete). This is an interesting space to built me a really nice control-room, incorporating all the things I have learned so far. There are neighbours on both sides, no telling what the future may bring in terms of activities in these adjacent spaces. Could be tai-chi or a car repair shop, either way I would need to be on the safe side of sound coming in or getting out of my studio. Most importand in this regard are my voiceover work (requires quility recordings and a quiet room) and the possibility of my neighbours deciding to locate their bedroom there. For the past few weeks I've been drawing and sketching etc to come up with a great controlroom that has - some form of daylight - great sound - enough room to sit and work there with 2 or 3 people and 2 on the couch or so - a recording room for up to three vocalists, or a singer-/songwriter etc -=-=-=-=- THE DILEMMA To get to the family kitchen / lounge / living space that will be at the back of the house and with doors to the garden, there are three options: 1. From the upperhouse (first floor is our current livingroom / kitchen) we can create a stairway down in to the new kitchen-to-be and to the small garden 2. A hallway on the groundfloor from the front to the back of the house, passing the studio 3. Through the studio (not really an option) Option 1: This would create a rather weird situation. If you come home with groceries etc, you don't just need to climb the stairs (like it is now), you have to descent after that, just to get to the kitchen. With kids growing up and playing on the street or coming home after school, this will not be preferable from a family perspective. Option 2: Preferable from a family perspective, but ofcourse this reduces the available space for my controlroom and with that the options for an optimal design. Option 3: That would seem best of both worlds, but the whole idea of kids running in my controlroom bothers me greatly (and that's a big understatement). I read a post from John that the optimal size for a controlroom is about 6m from front to back and 5m wide with enough height to accomodate decent ceiling treatment. Option 2 would be a compromise in that regard, though the length is achievable if I sacrifice daylight (I don't think a big window behind the listening position is a good option). Recording others is a rarity but I need the option to do it and it has to be done well, so line of sight with the performers is preferable. A studio that is 7m wide and 4.2m deep is an option… maybe. The actual questions are: 1. Can a room that is only 4.2 deep give me a great mixing environment? 2a. If I turn the whole thing around: can a room that is sufficiently deep but only 4.2m wide give me a great mixing environment? 2b. Is there a way to get daylight in this space? 3. Does anyone have a great idea that I haven't thought of yet? I am very much looking forward to your replies, please let me know if I forgot to supply important information. Thank you! Best regards, Harmen Sipkema

It may be worth mentioning that my monitors of choice are a set of Dynaudio Air 15 (accompanied by avantones but they are not likely to have great impact on isolation requirements) and just to be clear: my music can be somewhat bass heavy at times... :)

Hi Harmen, and welcome to the forum! :) It sounds like you have a lot of good things going for you in that new space: the concrete floor and high ceilings, for example, are very useful. Regarding your basic question, I certainly agree that option 1 "stairs up then stairs down" is not really a good idea at all, and you would very quickly get tired of that! It also makes your control room squarish, and wider than long, which isn't so good for a small room. So I would forget that option. I would also forget option #2: kid running through your studio is not an option. That leaves you with option #2: leave a corridor for access to the kitchen, with a slightly narrower control room. That' the best of your options, in my opinion.

I read a post from John that the optimal size for a controlroom is about 6m from front to back and 5m wide with enough height to accomodate decent ceiling treatment.

True, but there's a LOT more to it than just that! In fact, the EBU recommends a floor area of 30m2 "for a high–quality sound control room", but the ITU recommends "20 m2 to 60 m2". Neither specifies shape, width, length, or height (except to say that the room should be symmetrical, left to right), because all of those need to be calculated for each specific room, based on the design concept (RFZ, LEDE, CID, etc.), the room ratio, and several other factors. Having said all that, those recommendations are just guidelines, and it is entirely possible to build very good rooms that are much smaller then the ITU or EBU recommendations. For example, John has built an entire studio inside a shipping container, with excellent results. So the actual design of the acoustic layout and treatment can compensate quite a bit for a room that is not "optimum" size.

A studio that is 7m wide and 4.2m deep is an option… maybe.

Or turn it sideways, and make it 7m long and 4.2 wide! That would be a much better option. In general, it is better to have your speakers firing down the long axis of the room, rather than across the short axis (unless you have a large room). So I would suggest using a layout that has you facing the live room directly, and with your control room laid out lengthways, not sideways.

2a. If I turn the whole thing around: can a room that is sufficiently deep but only 4.2m wide give me a great mixing environment?

Yes! 7m long, 4.2m wide gives you about 44 m2, which is much more than the minimum specified by both the ITU and EBU. And since you also have high ceilings, you should be able to get a good total volume in there too.

2b. Is there a way to get daylight in this space?

There are probably several options.... :) - Stuart -

Hi Stuart! Thanks for your quick reply!

Soundman2020 wrote:

It sounds like you have a lot of good things going for you in that new space: the concrete floor and high ceilings, for example, are very useful.

I am very happy to hear that my thoughts about the space where right: it will be a great place to build a studio in. :yahoo: The main reason for the plan to have a wide and undeep studio was daylight from my right hand (kitchen) and lefthand (through the recordig-room), because I have no idea how to get daylight in there otherwise. There is no light from the sides of the house (row house) and the ceiling of the studio space is the floor of my living. I was afraid that having windows both in the back and in the front of the controlroom would cause unwanted reflections etc. It is good to know that, as you say it:

Soundman2020 wrote:

There are probably several options.... :)

For now, this is all the confirmation that I need to go ahead and try to buy this thing! Hopefully this is the start of a good thread on this forum. I hope to have an update somewhere in the coming two months, after all the negotiations and administration is done... Cheers, I'll be back

Just a short update: we made our final offer to the current owner of the groundfloor this week. It's a "take it or leave it" kinda situation, negotiations have been slow and frustrating at times.

We'll keep our fingers crossed for you, that it all works out OK! - Stuart -

Hi guys and girls, It's been a while, an update is appropriate I guess. The deal is almost done, we've been working with a real estate agent to get things done with the current owner for almost 10 months now. On the studio side of things: I decided to keep my studio where it is right now, which is 3km from my house. A fine place with good neighbours etc. The studio could be a bit better, but there's still a lot of room for improvement without the need to build a whole new studio. I'll still be reading the forum, just because I like it. :P Thanks again!