Small Studio Design Questions

Hello John and members. I have recently renovated our house and included an area for a studio. It is the only room I have available and a plan of it follows. I originally intended this space to be for my own rehearsal etc. but have decided to make an audio studio if possible. I would be recording no more than two at a time but would need to record drums if possible. In my second attachment you can see what I am proposing, but I have many questions. Here goes. 1. Is there adequate space in this area for a decent control room with soffit mounted monitors. ( I know it's small but it's all I have) ? 2. I was hoping to float both floors but I think I would be in trouble with the m-a-m rule. (without ripping out all the internal Gyprock already there. Is this so? 3.The orientation of the Control Room is due to the slope of the exposed beams. Is there another way to do it ?. Note : The house itself has this roof shape, the studio is simply an extension on the side of the house. Sorry about the awful drawings, not in scale, but I hope you get the idea. Thanks in advance for your consideration, I have been studying the forum for a while now but this is my first post. I just need to start somewhere before I lift a hammer to this. I look forward to any help and all your suggestions. Thanks. Charlie.

That looks fine charlie - a 4.1 m deep control room is OK IMO. cheers John

How about something more like this? From the measurements you give it doesn't seem that the roof pitch should be much of an issue. The extra wall and door at the upper left seem overkill to me, since you already have two sets of doors separated by a wide space. Thomas

Thanks John & Barefoot for your replies, I have decided to go with a studio plan that looks like this, see fig A, because it gives me access to my home, to my wiring closet, allows for some storage and allows some sheltered space outside of the studio & control room for smoking, fresh air etc. Sorry Barefoot the orientation of the control room is such that the slope of the ceiling is from front to back of the CR and I’m kinda stuck with it. Having made that decision, and if that seems OK to both of you, then I have some more decisions to make. Given that the construction of the main space and in particular the walls marked in red, is like that detailed in fig B, building another room within a room will give me more than 2 leaves of mass, would it not?. What I am thinking of my options is this, and please tell me if I have it all wrong. a) if I float only the live room floor, then I may have to remove the existing gyprock in the live room part of the wall as in the bottom of Fig B, then I am back to M-A-M ? b) if I float both floors (is this necessary?), then I may have to remove gyprock from all of the red wall to get proper M-A-M construction? c) Is it possible that I can do a floating floor & ceiling within the existing structure? I’m thinking the cheapest way for me to go would be to float only the live room floor and not the CR which would give me more room front to back in the CR but you are the experts so I’ll await your considerations on that. Sorry this is long and drawn out but I need to get this right or there is little point putting thousands of bucks worth of gear in there, I know you guys understand that!. If you were to say I go with option a) and not float the CR floor then can we consider the ceiling structure detailed in Fig C and, a) could the space between the bottom of exposed beams to ceiling gyprock be used as a slat resonator or bass trap in the CR ? b) What options would I have in the live room for bass trapping and absorbtion in the ceiling ( the only construction method I have come up with is in Fig D. BTW, I am thinking of making the live room live or dead by using hinged panels on the walls. Is this feasible in such a tiny room? Sorry about this being a long winded thing but I’ve decided to learn by at least trying myself first instead of expecting you guys to do it all for me. I believe we learn by our mistakes. I am of course hoping that you won’t let me make any more than I already have and I thank you in advance. BTW I have been remiss in not congratulating you on a wonderful site, I was kinda taking it for granted, but you all deserve the greatest praise for this site. Thanks Charlie.

More Pics !

U got the concept. Build on. :) Bryan Giles

Given that the construction of the main space and in particular the walls marked in red, is like that detailed in fig B, building another room within a room will give me more than 2 leaves of mass, would it not?.

Charlie - the brick wall is not airtight so in reality it doesn't act as a mass/air structure. I'd just build within your existing structure. check with Steve on this but that's how I see it. cheers John

Charlie, you're saying that your walls are already constructed as in fig.B, and that you intend to remove the lower portion to build your floated floor? If so, you may be stuck with less than ideal isolation options. Even though your brick may not be airtight, it will still act quite a lot as a mass layer, lessening the improvements of a second air space and more mass - Eric Desart has made this pretty clear to me in past comments about wall construction, even though I didn't want to hear it any more than you probably do. Still, sometimes you just gotta go with what's available, and try to compensate where you can... Is there any way to gain access to either side of your brick layer, enough to seal it? And, before you answer, are there already "weep holes" along the bottom of your bricks? (They'd just be small holes, possibly in the mortar between bricks) - You're messing with mother nature here, so it's very important we know EXACTLY what is done, what CAN be done, and HOW it was done with WHAT - otherwise, you can run into problems with rot, mold (possibly life-threatening kind), and falling walls (hydraulic pressure buildup from blocking weep holes) - The more info we have, the closer we can get to suggesting workable solutions... Steve

Thanks Bryan, John and Steve for your replies. Bryan, you’re optimism is inspiring, but I have a few things to work out yet. John, Do I take it that you believe the brick walls with their cavity vents, weep holes and all, do not constitute a good mass layer ? and that I build another room within the existing structure detailed in the top of Fig B ?. I should at this point clarify something for Steve. Steve, the drawing Fig B is a plan view of the existing wall structure ie looking from on top and the bottom part of that figure was my way of depicting the removal of gyprock from that structure at the point where a floating floor room would start. ( I was confused as to what constituted m-a-m. in my case. Imagine yourself looking down on that wall. In other words, if my present structure could be regarded as 2 leaves of mass separated by an air/insulation space, then I was contemplating whether to remove the existing gyprock, build a new wall on floating floor, add the internal wall mass, leaving me with mass>stud wall/insulation>air>stud wall/insulation>air>brick, as in the bottom of Fig B. Now that is, IF the brick wall constitutes a mass layer. If it does not, then do I simply leave the existing structure as it is and build room within this room ? Now John, carrying on from your answer, do I take it that I would build both rooms as floating floors because the isolation isn’t so good.? That necessarily means that I will lose some front to back space in the CR, never mind. What do you think of my ceiling design, top plate just under exposed beams, ceiling joists on top of top plate (in between beams) so that I get as much height as possible. And all that sloping upward to the back of CR. BTW, regarding the existing structure of these walls, I had it done by the builder with the best of intentions. The floor is floating concrete slab on top of an inner layer of bricks. Then standard brick veneer structure except two layers gyprock 16mm/10mm with gaps left all round, caulked etc. The bricks are actually cement bricks that come in modular sizes 90x90,190x90, 290x90 Etc, they build up metric modules with them. Kinda like a small Besser block, in fact they are called blocks, not bricks. Steve, I know there are cavity vents top and bottom every couple metres along this wall and yes there are weep holes too and control joints. I believe I can never seal this wall and probably wouldn’t want to because the timber frame needs it. Gentlemen, I’ve just come back in here from having a smoke outside, scratching my nearly bald head and wondering if I’m trying trying to break the record for the worlds smallest RFZ!. I’m sinking guys, you’ve gotta try and build me up here. I’ve got about twelve feet (God I love that “Feet”, I remember them, I envy you guys in the US ), Anyway 12 feet max front to back of my CR. Am I going to be able to trap enough bass in that? Oh well, I’ll await your replies, thanks in advance. Regards. Charlie.

Hey Charlie. My Optimism is based on the fact that I built my room By Myself over the course of a few months learning as i went along and it came out GREAT!!!!. I understood basic concepts and somethings I jhust trusted what John and steve told me without a million Questions and as I put it up or followed their advice and it worked, I THEN had the Lightbulb AHA experience and understood it. :) Have fun. it's greatly rewarding. Bryan Giles