New Room in New Zealand - Your help would be great!!

Hello all, I have been hanging around this forum for over a year and have a basic understanding of all the principles of isolation and general design. I have just brought a new house and it has an attached studio/sleepout that I want to convert to a studio. What I am looking for is a simple desin for a live room and a control room in this attached space. No need for a storage room, vocal booth at this stage. I am a drummer, and record mainly pop/rock, the main house and neighbours are fairly close so I want to make sure the isolation of the live room is tight so I can practice/record anytime day/night. I am thinking about a double wall for the live room but with the existing external wall is this an overkill I could avoid to make the room larger? Any design help would be appreciated, I am just not sure where to start , especially with alll the windows on one side. As with all these thing I have a very limited budget to work with. The general design of the shell of the room must stay the same. Thanks for your help, you guys are great (sorry about the drawing!)

Here is an Idea based on a desing from the forums here, just modify it for your needs. Bryan Giles

Thanks Bryan, I was hoping for more space for the live room. This looks like crap but would something like this work? JohnG

Take the plan I gave you, narrow the CR by 3 feet and it opens up your live room, lose the dividing wall in the live room area and wallah you have a decent sized practice space. A Nice cutting room and a decent sized CR. Your live room ends up being about about 9x16 at it narrowest point Another thing when U say limited budget. And realizing you are in New zealand. :) What is the limit and any idea of the cost of a 2x4, 4x8x1/2" drywall and 4x8x 3/4" Plywood or Particle BOard just give me and ruff Idea of costs in your area. Bryan Giles

John - one of the problems is the windows. I've tried to keep as many as I can in this design - it gives you a really nice control room and room for a smaller live room - Everything is close to scale in this drawing. cheers john

John I looked at your plan and it gave me an idea that could use all of the windows without much acoustic sacrifice by inverting the plan vertically. I then picked up on an idea I saw elsewhere here and added a single inside window (essentially turning the exterior windows into 'studio windows'. I know that this does not give a totally absorbent back wall but there should be plenty of wall space left for absorbtive materials and if that is not enough you could add heavy curtains over the windows.

I'd hesitate to put windows anywhere on the rear wall. They will be the sonic equivalent of mirrors. If you do install them back there, set the "inner" mirrors at an angle so that they do not aim sound from the monitors into the mix position- perhaps point them sideways and install heavy absorbers into the side-walls in the right spots. Otherwise there's probably no real problem. If you can set the windows to be symmetrical about the control room, it'd be even better- and only the inner window (CR side) have to be symmetrical. The outer windows can be wherever they work best. Good luck!

You are right Kase - that's why I drew it the way I did. :D If only the room was a meter or so longer ;) If you aimed the windows back up/down so the reflection went above/below you, you could probably get away with it. The room would have a nice feel. :) cheers john

Thanks John and All, The design is fantastic. Just perfect.!! My better half has been giving me a really hard time about blocking all the windows over so that should help with the karma in our house!!. I have posted another question in regard to wall construction if you could help us out. Many regards JohnG

That was why I also suggested the heavy drapes. I knew that the windows were a compromise. I just considered them an acceptable compromise.

I terms of the windows, couldn't you make hatch style covers that could be opened and close. Something like John's rear wall absorber, but on a hinge and sealed against the window trim with neoprene or something. Thats would leave the windows alone and avoid the window reflection problem. Disclaimer: I am only thinking about this idea. I have no idea what I'm talking about and don't know if would work. fucanay

I terms of the windows, couldn't you make hatch style covers that could be opened and close.

That might work. You'd have to close them when you were doing critical listening, but most of the time you could leave them open. Just build these shutters like you would any sound-proof door- heavy and air-tight.