What room would you choose???

Hello guys! I'm brand new to this forum, happy to have found it considering I'm in the middle of making a big decision here in regards to my plans for building a small studio. I will quickly explain my situation the best I can. These are my 2 options for rooms to convert into a recording studio. Option 1: I just bought a home and there is a walk out basement that is half under ground as house is built on a hill. Its a concrete slab with some yucky lino over it. The basements dimensions are roughly 28' X 11'. And there is also another room off of this room that is an oddly shaped room, cuts off at 45 degree angle, so could be a cool booth! The ceilings are a little over 8'. But after putting some flooring in it will be at about 8'. So that is option #1. Basically a room about 28'X11' and another room off of it about 15'X 6'-9' (its a triagle shape) Option 2: Outside of my house is a pretty newly built (about 2006) Garage. Its dimensions are 12'X24' (so smaller than the option 1. and only this one room) The ceiling is also 8' high BUT it is vaulted and the vaulted part is closed off to use as storage. So I was thinking of removing the roof and having this be a vaulted ceiling. Fortunately the garage was built very nicely. big concrete slab, insulated walls, cedar siding, metal roof... So do I go with option 1, the larger room in the house basement with 8' ceiling, with the option of another oddly shaped room there as well. OR, do I go with option 2, only one room, smaller in size, but with the vaulted ceiling (with the peak of the vault being around 11'. The other thing I didn't mentioned, that if I were to need to record drums and want a big sound, my living room in my house has 18 foot vaulted ceilings and would be brilliant for this. So I could always do big drums in my house and over dubs in option 1 or 2. Or even drums in option 1 or 2 would work as well. The music I will be recording is everything from folk music with acoustic guitars, and violins and stand up bass and vocals etc... to possible recording some "heavier" music with bigger drums and electric guitars. And also to add, I guess I would have the control room be part of the "tracking room" or maybe not? not sure about that with the space I'm considering with these 2 options. Thanks so much, just looking at what your choice would be and why! Of course option 1 and 2 BOTH would be awesome! :) but not enough money for that right now. And also I should add that it would be waaaay cheaper for me to use the garage as its level and ready! but the basement needs a subfloor system installed as its not that level in spots etc... Thank you! Adam.

Hi Adam. Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things! :) There just isn't enough information in your post to be able to validly offer any advice on choosing between those two. Both seem viable, but we'd need to know all the usual set of information to be able to help you. I can only offer some very general comments on a couple of things you said:

I guess I would have the control room be part of the "tracking room" or maybe not?

Personally, I much prefer to have a separate control room,for many reasons. One of those is that control rooms absolutely must be symmetrical, and absolutely must have totally neutral acoustics, not changing the sound in any way. But lie rooms, tracking rooms, vocal booths, drum rooms, etc. should NOT be neutral: they are supposed to have individual "character", as needed. So trying to use a single room for both means that either you have lousy acoustics when you are mixing, or you have lousy acoustics when you are recording. Or more likely: both! Another reason is that when I'm tracking, I like to hear exactly how each instrument sounds in each mic, on the CR speakers by themselves, cleanly, to make sure I'm getting the best possible sound. But you can't do that if the instrument and mic are in the same room as the speakers, for obvious reasons. And other reasons too... But some people do manage to track in the CR, at least for vocals and things like acoustic guitar, that sound just fine in a neutral room.

but the basement needs a subfloor system

No, it does not need a sub-floor system! That would be a terrible idea. What it needs is a level floor, that is also massive, solid, hard, rigid, and well damped. ie, it needs a slab on grade. It already has that, except for the lousy lino on top and an uneven surface. So pull up the lino and use self-leveling cement to get a smooth, flat, level floor: There's nothing better, for a studio. But do not, under any circumstances, build a sub-floor on top of that. You cannot, have air-filled cavities under your floor, and you cannot have a thin, lightweight surface over that, such as plywood or OSB. Anyway, please provide the rest of the info, and we'll see if we can offer anything that would help you choose. - Stuart -

Thank you for your reply :) I added my location to my profile :) Here is a quick draw up of the basement. none needed for the garage as its just a rectangle, (12x24) Its interesting how the basement is long and narrow, so not sure how to divide it up for control room considering the dimensions. I may just rip the lino out and pour a thin layer like you mentioned to level it out. thanks for that. Though I was thinking when I said subfloor I was imagining sleepers with insulation in between then engineered hardwood, so it would be insulated, not sure if that's still not preferable. MOst of the music I will be recording will be on the quiter side, acoustic guitars, folk music. and lighter drums. Not sure how to make best use of the space. and where to put walls in etc.. Thank you :) sorry if I am missing any info. Adam.

Its interesting how the basement is long and narrow, so not sure how to divide it up for control room considering the dimensions.

Long and narrow is not good for a control room. There's a bunch of good "room ratios" (relationships between dimensions of the room), but very few of them are in the range "long and narrow". So I would go with whichever location gives you a "NOT long and narrow" option! :) You can use the calculator at this link to help you decide on which space is better: http://amroc.andymel.eu You could still use the basement if you wanted, by building a wall across the "long narrow" bit, to make it "not so long", such that you get a reasonable ratio inside the Bolt area (or close to it). - Stuart -

Thanks so much for your reply. I've ended up taking out that one load bearing wall so now it's one big open space. So now it's how to divide the room up! I'll post a new draw up soon! Thanks again :)

Here is a plan I came up with, im sure I can make use of the angles etc... the control room would be pretty small but i mix at quiter volumes anyways and dont seem to have many issues. I mainly want as big as possible tracking room so this is what I came up with including a waiting room :) the halways is there to possible use as a reverb mic for some cool effects or just to make it easier to sell the house later on, but I could do without the hallway as well. Adam.

the control room would be pretty small but i mix at quiter volumes anyways and dont seem to have many issues.

The size of the control room is not related in any way to the volume that you play at. The size of the control governs the acoustic response. Specs say that the minimum size for decent acoustics is 20m2 floor area. That's for plain vanilla stereo. If you want the room for 5.1 or 7.1, then it needs to be 30m2. Take a look at BS.1116-2

I mainly want as big as possible tracking room

The volume of the tracking room needs to be about 5 times larger than the volume of the control room. Normally the ceiling height in the tracking room is much higher than in the control room, so that's ot too hard to do, as long as the floor area is about 3 times larger than the control room.

the halways is there to possible use as a reverb mic for some cool effects or just to make it easier to sell the house later on, but I could do without the hallway as well.

It's wasted space. I very much doubt that you'd be able to convert that into a successful echo chamber. I would use that to expand the CR. Other things I noticed: 1) You have no direct access between CR and LR (LR= "live room" = tracking room). It will get very old, very soon, having to go through multiple doors simply to adjust a mic, or move an instrument. Especially drums: You might have upwards of a dozen mics on the drum kit, and each one might need a dozen adjustments to get it just right... running back and forward through several doors, up and down an echoey corridor, while you make hundreds of adjustments to the drum mic, will get VERY old, very fast.... Do yourself a big favor, and put a direct door between the two. Make it a pair of sliding glass doors, back to back, so you don't even have to open and close them as you go through... 2) You have double-wide doors on the CR. Good luck trying to seal those to get decent isolation! :) Stick to single-wide doors only. 3) CR shape: What design concept are you following there? It looks like it might be an attempt at RFZ or maybe NER or perhaps CID, but it doesn't match any of them! Your mix position is way too far forwards, and the speaker soffits are angled way too extremely, 4) You have the bathroom INSIDE the LR???? :shock: :cop: ??? Ummm.... Nope. Just no. Many reasons that's a really bad idea. Put it out near the waiting room, where it belongs. - Stuart -