Another noob with another basement and a ton of questions

Okay, here's the deal: I have a portion of my basement that I wish to convert into a recording studio. Being merely a musician, and a guitarist at that, I am not quite skilled in the studio design arts... Hopefully, the attached photo will be worth the proverbial "thousand words" - I based it off of a design on the SAE site. The space really isn't all that small, but wouldn't you know that right smack in the middle of it lies the HVAC and water heater (the big fuscia box and light blue circle respectively). The fuscia tubes are send/receive ducts for the HVAC. To top it all off, the three orange dots you see are steel beams that hold up the floor above. The maroon-colored stuff is existing, and the green/blue stuff is proposed. I *must* have access to the HVAC system from all sides, so I need the clearance you see in the design. I can deal with the HVAC sends/returns - The small ones that run directly north-south are *inside* the rafters, so the only ones I have to worry about are the larger ones that run through the control room - Those will be a pain. Anyone know of a good way to deal with that? The orange dot that represents a pole in the control room - Is that going to be a huge problem, or can I wrap it with diffusion foam and forget about it? Should I hire an engineer to see if I can move it over a few feet? I was thinking that in the "live" room I would have a slot resonator along the "east" wall, and some sort of diffuser system on the south wall - Is that right? What should I do with ISO 1? I am thinking it will be used mainly for guitar and vocals... In the control room, I have the big bass trap in the back, and the two under the monitors - I was thinking of an absorber on the wall directly in front of the console as well...thoughts? Should the side walls be slot resonators? I was also going to angle the ceiling in there, but it's going to be hard with only eight feet between the existing concrete floor and the bottoms of the wooden rafters - but I will figure something out, even if it's only some little clouds hung up there and covered with a fake fabric "ceiling". Am I correct in my assumptions that I need the green walls? Any assistance anyone would care to offer is greatly appreciated.. Thanks, Tim

Looks like you have done quite a nice workaround, as your HVAC hangs out in the lounge area. Yes the green wall would act as your outer wall in the double leaf construction. As far as the duct work in the rafters, when you close up your ceiling they will be handled. I'd wrap it in some kind of insulation to further dampen/isolate noise coming from the ductwork. So far as the jack post in the CR you can purchase a jack post from your local Home Depot and place it "inside" one of your walls to replace this jack post. Do a forum search for more info. Slat Resonators for the walls of your CR are a wonderful idea. They will really help clean up the midrange in the room. The absorption on the wall in front of the console is a novel idea. Just further kills any reflections off of your front wall. :) As your ceiling height is so low, absorption for the ceiling is the correct way to go. And if you desire to angle it go forth and conquer. I did as my Flr to ceiling ht was 8.5' By angling the "drop" ceiling that was stuffed with Rockwool, it added additional bass trapping. Basically I framed a false ceiling that angled in the front and angled in the rear and covered it in cloth. You have this grasped very well. :) You could if you wanted, make ISO 1 a dry (dead) room with full on absorption if you desired, keeping your live room live. Because of the angles, you will not have an issue with standing waves clouding what your mics hear. Especially in the low end. I would deaden the celing, the east and south walls. Resonator on the north wall. that should deaden the room pretty well and not make it too dead. As far as your live room depending on how lively you want it, I'd put resonators on your west, east and south walls and deaden your north wall and of course deaden your ceiling. Will make a nice lively room that is not out of control live. :) Also verify that your north wall angles at a 12 degree angle. I cant really tell if it is. Otherwise you are looking very good and have a very good grasp of what to do. :)

Interesting design Tim - I have a problem with the access. So you have to walk around through the storage area - up and over the steps, through the lounge to get to either Iso booth?? That jack post could be removed by replacing the timber bearer with a steel I Beam which would free up the control room. cheers john

John (regarding access to the booths): Yes, that would be the case - One step up from the workshop, then one step down into the lounge for access to either booth (the large set of steps goes up into my living room). It isn't the most convenient, but it would at least serve to keep the control room clear. I could put sliding glass doors in place of the windows, affording easier access...and to tell you the truth, I'm not entirely sold on either option. It's one of those things I'll probably put off nailing down until I absolutely have to. And by the way - I forgot to say thanks in my original post for what I believe to be one of the most useful sites I've ever been to... Anyway, after doing more reading, I am afraid that this design may have to undergo some changes. My basement walls (the big maroon square in the drawing) are cinder block which, from everything I've read today, qualify as "double leaf" walls in and of themselves. So wouldn't adding the southern and eastern walls as I have in my design create a "triple leaf" situation? In addition, the original builder of the house added (for some reason) solid concrete bricks on the bottom five feet of that "southern" wall (see the attached image). So I'm left with a dilemma - How do I build on the cinder blocks? Should I just run my ceiling right up to it, and caulk it? I mean, the walls are underground (for the most part - the "south" control room wall has a big window in it, but I can plug that - I was originally planning to plug it up and build the wall in front of it - no need to be asthetically pleasing from the outside, that's the back of the house and the window is under a deck anyway.

:oops: So...after staring at my "base" diagram of an empty basement, I realized that my previous design was not an ideal use of the space I had available. So I opened a new file in my design program and (using another plan from the SAE site) came up with this design. Notice that I backed the "south" walls of the control room right up against the basement wall - I'm hoping that will be okay, as the hollow cinderblocks already serve as a double-leaf system of sorts - I can add extra sheetrock on top of it, and the two ISO booths don't touch it anyway. This also elimnates the issue of having to go all the way around to access the booths - except the live room, but I don't see a way around that - Maybe a door under the stairwell that leads in that way...? I may measure and see what I can figure out... But I did leave enough space to maybe add a bathroom and small kitchen area later. Any thoughts on this one?

Much better design, care to include dimensions?

:? yeah, I was up pretty late last night and forgot the dims. Here's a new one, with the measurements shown. I also moved the door to the live room under the stairs. It's hard for me to think of that as available space. As I was designing this, I was sitting in my office, which is exactly where the words "Storage/Workshop" appear on the blueprint. The area under the stairs is a closet, but when I tear out everthing else, that goes as well...I just plain forgot the space for a door was there.

The design seemed to dedicate a lot of space to circulation and had the walkway from the control room going right through the future bathroom (ew!) Here is a sketch that lets both iso room be a little bigger and the walk from the control room to the office/lounge to be shorter. (another idea might be to reverse the positions of the live and control rooms) IMHO I would not be too concerned with the concrete block qualifying as 'couble leaf' For a basement foundation wall so many of the cells are going to be filled that it is going to be more like solid concrete than 2 layers.

Cheers John

Wow - thanks, John. I like the extra space in the left and right booths. Unfortunately, the left booth will interfere with the HVAC and hot water heater that reside just near the door and window so I can't use that one exactly. However, I did use that design, along with the ideas that Innovation threw out there, to come up with my latest attempt. The large purple square represents the HVAC system, which I need fairly wide access to all around, but mostly on the "south" side, which is where I have to change the filter and service the unit. With the exception of ISO 1, every booth has more than one entry/exit, and the control opens to all but the live room. I bypassed the glass doors for windows due to cost considerations - each pair of glass doors will run me $1300 US while I can build a double pane window box far cheaper. And I put windows in each room to each room - the only thing is that ISO 1 and ISO 2 have line of sight, but only through my thick skull... I also added fixtures in the "bathroom" which is going to need a special tank/pump system to move the waste to the septic feed pipe which is actually in the overhead rafters. Don't really know how I'm going to get a kitchen in there - Might just have to send the guys up the three flights of stairs to my kitchen - They can use the excercise anyway...LOL

Yeah - sorry i didn't realise about the HVAC but you've resolved it Ok.an you get access under those stairs as you've drawn.? cheers john

Thanks, and yes there is access under the stairs. When I originally began planning, I forgot that my office (situated in the Northeast corner) would be going away, and that I would no longer need the closet that currently occupies the space under the stairs. Demolishing that will leave me more than enough room for the doorways as drawn. I do have one question, though - the east and west walls of the control room - should I use slot resonators above/under/around the glass on those?

Yes - I would use slots there mate. cheers john

here is a thought that I had. It seems very space efficient

Yes - good one. even this possibly? cheers john

Sorry it took so long for me to reply - Work is hell.... I used the last two ideas from you guys and came up with this design, the one I am the most satisfied with. It fufills everything I need - a decent-sized control room, along with a couple of larger rooms and a smaller vocal booth - There are a minimum number of doors and windows, and the only room cut off is the vocal booth, and I don't mind that - Sometimes I think it may even be better. Opinions?

It's not showing up for me. anybody else?

It should work now

Yep - that's a good solution ;) cheers john

ha! Four separate recording spaces on that one!

Very creative use of space. Rock on Dude. :)