Possible new studio space... need help planning for walls...

Hi all, My girlfriend's grandparents finally had all the offers go through and they're now selling their current store space to move into another, MUCH larger space, that's just down the street from my day job. As they're going to be moving their business to internet sales, they're planning on keeping the back section of the store for their inventory/photo studio, and renting out the front section to local artists as studio space... Since the space is apparently very large, I asked if she'd be okay with me placing a permanent studio on the inside, and she was actually very excited about it, as am I. The rent will be SUPER affordable, to the point that I can cover the cost of rent there, plus all living expenses, just off the salary I earn at my day job. This is GREAT, as I would still have a very low overhead and can afford to take my time with bands that I have come in - At my current rate... a band recording two songs would cover the rent at the size I'm thinking :lol: Getting to the space... I haven't actually seen the building yet, as they don't move in until April and we'd have to schedule time to get in to overview everything... but they gave me some basic dimensions yesterday. Attached is the general layout of the building and the space I'd be renting out. I CAN rent more space (and there might be the ability to add more space on later), if needed, but the rent is dependent on the square footage, and considering I no longer have a huge client base (I haven't recorded many bands over the past year or so, as I really don't feel comfortable with them coming to my house anymore), i didn't want to go too big and end up owing more than I can afford. Right now, her grandma was thinking of putting me along the back corner that separates their space from the artist area. This will give me three existing walls, and I'd have to build a 4th (along with any interior walls). Two of the existing walls are brick, which should be nice for sound isolation from the rest of the space, but the other is sheetrock.... i was thinking I'd put the control room up against here, as it should be less noisy than the live room, when tracking drums. Should I be building a 4th framed wall with sheetrock, or another brick wall, if isolation is needed? Obviously, since there will be other tenants, I don't want to be bothering them by being too loud. Thankfully, my dad is a contractor and him and his partner are willing to help me put up the wall and renovate the space for the cost of materials, so building this shouldn't be too expensive and likely won't take too long, either. I also talked with my girlfriend's grandma and we might be able to work out a pretty hefty discount on rental costs, while I'm building the space and can't do anything with it. For interior walls - I'm wanting to do a live room, plus control room, as well as a small vocal booth (possibly in the corner of the live room?). What dimensions would be ideal for this? My desk is 5 x 3ft with a pair of Yamaha HS80Ms on, I believe, 46" stands, plus I have 1 16-space Argosy sidecar rack, with all my pres and two 1176s in it. I'd like to build the wall separating it with the live room with a small window, so I can keep an eye on things while tracking, and place a small couch behind my mix desk, for clients to sit at. I already have plenty of treatment for the mix room, including 4-48x24x4" wall panels,4 8ft corner traps, a 48x48x4" cloud and 2-48x48" skyline diffusors, I also still have a ton of 2 - 4" fiberglass panels left over to build treatment for the live room and can source more for cheap in the vocal booth. My budget definitely isn't over the top - I'm not expecting million-dollar studio aesthetics and sound here, but I WOULD like to at least build something fairly professional looking... TBH, anything is going to be better than where I'm at now! Just the space to record drums will be a HUGE asset alone. What would your course of action be? Thanks, guys!!

Hi there "MatrixClaw", and sorry about the delayed Welcome! :) Busy with lots of stuff right now... It seems I first answered some of your other questions on a different thread, but I did have this one lined up for a reply too, so here goes:

Right now, her grandma was thinking of putting me along the back corner that separates their space from the artist area. This will give me three existing walls, and I'd have to build a 4th (along with any interior walls). Two of the existing walls are brick, which should be nice for sound isolation from the rest of the space, but the other is sheetrock.... i was thinking I'd put the control room up against here, as it should be less noisy than the live room, when tracking drums.

Which room is going to be loudest? My guess is the live room. So that's the one that should go against the brick walls, if possible. Bricks are your friends, for isolation! :)

Should I be building a 4th framed wall with sheetrock, or another brick wall, if isolation is needed? Obviously, since there will be other tenants, I don't want to be bothering them by being too loud.

You first need to answer the question: "How much isolation do you need?". To do that, you need a sound level meter. You can get a decent one for around US$100 on Amazon or e-bay. Avoid the cheap Chinese junk toys that go for around US$ 50 or so.

Thankfully, my dad is a contractor and him and his partner are willing to help me put up the wall and renovate the space for the cost of materials, so building this shouldn't be too expensive and likely won't take too long, either.

:) last words! :) Building a studio is quite a bit more complicated than building a house, office, shop or school. It's good you have a contractor, but he will have to re-learn a lot of stuff, and learn so me new stuff that he has never done before. Same building materials, same tools, but different methods, principles and techniques.

For interior walls - I'm wanting to do a live room, plus control room, as well as a small vocal booth (possibly in the corner of the live room?). What dimensions would be ideal for this?

That depends on what you want to do, and far how you want to go! For example, for optimum critical listening room, the specs from EBU, call for a floor area of not less than 40m2 for a reference room, and 30m2 for a high quality control room. That's about 430 square feet and 320 square feet, respectively. On the other hand ITU specs call for "20 - 60 m2" for a stereo room, and "30 - 70 m2" for a multi-channel room (5.1, 7.1, etc.). 20m2 is about 215 square feet. On the other-other hand, John has built highly successful studios inside a shipping container, and many people here on the forum have built great studios in small spaces. So, if you are aiming for a world-class studio that meets international specs, then you need a floor area of about 250 square feet or more for your control room, and about 5 times that for your live room, for a total of about 1500 ft2 or so. Or if you don't need to go to that level, then you can do a great studio in less than that. It seems you have about about 250 ft2 to work with, so I would try to split that to about 1/3 for the control room, and the other 2/3 for the live room. That would give you about 85 ft2 for the CR and 165 ft2 for the LR. However, I guess the dimensions you show are the absolute limits of your space, and you'll be losing some for that for the isolation walls and other things, so do take that into account. - Stuart -