Studio from scratch Philadelphia. Pa USA

Hello , everyone My name is Kenete and I have been engineering for about 8 years And I am now 26 years old, I have recently purchased 235 sqft of empty space (23.5 x 10)in a warehouse and I have no idea what I am doing. I have about 1500 -2000 to spend on getting the room correct if that's even enough,after the walls are put up.I only want a control room and a vocal booth majority of my work is focused on mixing and VoiceOver work .What Iam looking for is a complete studio design from A-Z(materials needed, measurements of walls ,floating floor,etc) please keep in mind I am completely ignorant to most of the things concerning studio design and construction I did read the rules before posting and I apologize if I have broken any if the rules ,tho I don't believe have .I've added pictures that shows a portion of my space

Hi Kenete and welcome to the forum.

I have recently purchased 235 sqft of empty space (23.5 x 10)in a warehouse and I have no idea what I am doing.

:cop: You should take a moment to think about what you are asking here. So, you have no clue how to build a studio and want people to tell you what to do? Excuse me, but in what world are you living? Some very generous people (particularly one person) answer peoples questions that are all in the process of learning to build there studio. But you expect someone just to tell you what to do? For free? :-D Seriously, you have two options: 1) Take the time to learn the stuff at least half decent buy studying a book and reading in this forum. Then think about what you want and start designing you studio. In the process of doing that ask questions here or present your ideas. There will be people helping, as long as you described everything in detail. That is how this place works! 2) You don't wanna go though all that trouble? Well, then get the cash together to pay some professional doing that for you! But honestly: your 1500 won't even buy you the material you need.

Hi there Kenete, and I'll add my "Welcome!" to FriFlo's I'll also agree with the comments he made. The forum is a "self-help" place, where you can find a huge amount of information on how to design and build your studio, then post your design when it is done, and people here will comment on it, offer suggestions on how to improve it, tell you what's wrong, what's right, etc. As FriFlo said, you basically have those two options: 1) Learn to do it yourself, in which case I'd suggest two books: "Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F. Alton Everest (that's sort of the Bible for acoustics), and "Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros", by Rod Gervais. Realistically, it takes about 2 or 3 months to learn the basics of acoustics, and probably another 2 or 3 to learn how to build it. Then figure another month or two for the actual design, then several more months for the build. It takes most people at least a year, maybe 2 (or more!) to complete a studio, from the time they first start out with the idea. 2) If you don't want to do that, or don't have the time, then you'll need to pay a studio designer to do the complete design job for you, then you can just do the building based on his design. That can be a lot quicker, and should only take a couple of months, max. It might even be quicker: perhaps just two or three weeks, if your needs are very simple. FriFlo is also right about your budget. The best way to figure how much it will cost to build your studio, is to call around local contractors and see if they will tell you their basic "flat rate" per square foot for turning an unfinished garage or basement into a home theater or guest room. Then add about 25% to that. That's a realistic cost for your actual build. But as FriFlo said, 2 grand is not going to go very far at all: 2 grand for 235 square feet implies that you want to spend about 8 dollars per square foot of floor area. That wouldn't even cover the cost of the floor, without considering the walls, ceiling, doors, windows, HVAC system, electrical system, and acoustic treatment. Even if you do all of the labor yourself, and can buy materials with a huge discount, 2 grand is still not nearly enough. For example, to do your inner-leaf wall and ceiling, just for the insulation alone you'd need about 400 square feet of 4" insulation, (or 800 square feet of 2" insulation). If you use OC-703 insulation (the best), you'd need a pallet of that (48 sheets of 2"). That pallet goes for about US$ 1,200, according to the Home Depot web site. There goes more than half of your entire budget, just on insulation for your inner-leaf walls! To do those walls, you also need a whole bunch 5/8" fire-rated drywall, 2x4 studs, nails, tape, mud, and stacks of caulk. As you can see, your budget is way short of where it should be. About ten times more would be a reasonable estimate.

I've added pictures that shows a portion of my space

I'm not seeing those pictures: Maybe you didn't add them correctly? There are no attachments to your first post at all... Please try posting them again: Pictures are very important for us to understand your space better. - Stuart -

FriFlo wrote:

Hi Kenete and welcome to the forum.

I have recently purchased 235 sqft of empty space (23.5 x 10)in a warehouse and I have no idea what I am doing.

:cop: You should take a moment to think about what you are asking here. So, you have no clue how to build a studio and want people to tell you what to do? Excuse me, but in what world are you living? Some very generous people (particularly one person) answer peoples questions that are all in the process of learning to build there studio. But you expect someone just to tell you what to do? For free? :-D Seriously, you have two options: 1) Take the time to learn the stuff at least half decent buy studying a book and reading in this forum. Then think about what you want and start designing you studio. In the process of doing that ask questions here or present your ideas. There will be people helping, as long as you described everything in detail. That is how this place works! 2) You don't wanna go though all that trouble? Well, then get the cash together to pay some professional doing that for you! But honestly: your 1500 won't even buy you the material you need.

But you expect someone just to tell you what to do? For free? :-D Seriously,[/quote] I never expected for anyone to it for free maybe I should have expressed that. I have no idea how this forum works .i was hoping to explain what I have and needed and for people to quote me on a price to consult etc...and thank you for what information you did provide I didn't know what was and what wasn't enough so I guess for starters I will up my budget ,but no once did expect anything for free

Soundman2020 wrote:

Hi there Kenete, and I'll add my "Welcome!" to FriFlo's I'll also agree with the comments he made. The forum is a "self-help" place, where you can find a huge amount of information on how to design and build your studio, then post your design when it is done, and people here will comment on it, offer suggestions on how to improve it, tell you what's wrong, what's right, etc. As FriFlo said, you basically have those two options: 1) Learn to do it yourself, in which case I'd suggest two books: "Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F. Alton Everest (that's sort of the Bible for acoustics), and "Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros", by Rod Gervais. Realistically, it takes about 2 or 3 months to learn the basics of acoustics, and probably another 2 or 3 to learn how to build it. Then figure another month or two for the actual design, then several more months for the build. It takes most people at least a year, maybe 2 (or more!) to complete a studio, from the time they first start out with the idea. 2) If you don't want to do that, or don't have the time, then you'll need to pay a studio designer to do the complete design job for you, then you can just do the building based on his design. That can be a lot quicker, and should only take a couple of months, max. It might even be quicker: perhaps just two or three weeks, if your needs are very simple. FriFlo is also right about your budget. The best way to figure how much it will cost to build your studio, is to call around local contractors and see if they will tell you their basic "flat rate" per square foot for turning an unfinished garage or basement into a home theater or guest room. Then add about 25% to that. That's a realistic cost for your actual build. But as FriFlo said, 2 grand is not going to go very far at all: 2 grand for 235 square feet implies that you want to spend about 8 dollars per square foot of floor area. That wouldn't even cover the cost of the floor, without considering the walls, ceiling, doors, windows, HVAC system, electrical system, and acoustic treatment. Even if you do all of the labor yourself, and can buy materials with a huge discount, 2 grand is still not nearly enough. For example, to do your inner-leaf wall and ceiling, just for the insulation alone you'd need about 400 square feet of 4" insulation, (or 800 square feet of 2" insulation). If you use OC-703 insulation (the best), you'd need a pallet of that (48 sheets of 2"). That pallet goes for about US$ 1,200, according to the Home Depot web site. There goes more than half of your entire budget, just on insulation for your inner-leaf walls! To do those walls, you also need a whole bunch 5/8" fire-rated drywall, 2x4 studs, nails, tape, mud, and stacks of caulk. As you can see, your budget is way short of where it should be. About ten times more would be a reasonable estimate.

I've added pictures that shows a portion of my space

I'm not seeing those pictures: Maybe you didn't add them correctly? There are no attachments to your first post at all... Please try posting them again: Pictures are very important for us to understand your space better. - Stuart -

Thank you Stuart as I once said before I have no idea what it is that I am doing but I guess for starters the first thing I need to do is up my budget for the place . And being though that I'm not to handy I don't mine paying someone to create the design,however much that would cost so that I can give it to a contractor and he can tell me how much everything is gonna be that's kind of all I wanted I'm srry for my lack of detail it kind of comes from my lack of understanding outside of acoustic treatment I have no idea what I'm doing ...I have attached pictures below of the space I have available and thank you very much for your help