studio budget estimate advice

howdy folks. i plan on eventaully hiring a proffesional to design and build a studio for me... but here's the rough game plan at this stage. im a project studio owner who is working on budgeting for a seperate studio id like to add onto my home. size wise, im looking at a 13' x 18' control room with a large 30' 26' live room, and 8' x 8' iso booth. (a large 43 ' x 26' rectangular building would suffice, aesthetics are harly the goal at this point.) all gear and equipment withstanding, is a 200 thousand dollar budget reasonable, taking into consideration all the labor, design, wiring, and supplies? i realize this is less than then easy to approximate given the lack of details, but what would you guess the build/design cost to be for a room of that size, outfitted with typical resonators/bass traps/floated floor/double walls etc etc. id like a relatively live Main room for an open but accurate sound. the iso booth would be a dead space for dub overs/iso work. the build would be in southern vermont on flat land off of my home. feel free to ask anymore questions. please dont slap me to hard for being relatively ignorant at this point as to what to expect.

Incredibly vague, the first question I have is how much sound isloation do need/want from the outside? As specific your question is, a studio building of that size can be built for that budget.

Dylan, Greetings and welcome to the site. Avare is right about the budget. Does this include just the build out, or is this budget also for gear? As far as construction cost, it varies widely. The largest factor is, how much isolation do you require? Aaron

this is a budget strictly for building and design of the facility. (gear not included) ive set aside an additional 200 thousand for gear isolation wise, im interested in a tight spot... something that is isolated enough to lay down amplified guitar or aggressive vocals at night. the building wouldnt be directly connected to my home. i was thinking about 20 feet from it. i really would like to keep the neighbors happy. while isolation is a consideration, acoustics is my priority. ceiling height wise, i was thinking 9 feet for everything. this seems to be a good starting point. i dont want any windows, so they wont be an issue, however, air conditioning and heat will be. thanks for the welcome, i read this forum daily, just never signed up. :D

Working with what you told us, a 9' ceiling seems too low. start getting estimates to work out the budget. I would suggest a 12' if not 16' ceiling for the main room and 11' for the control room. The latter to be compliant with NARAS recommendations for 5.1 mixing. Without specifics we can not be more helpful. Andre

Hey, finny one - welcome to "official" memberdome (oops, that sounded a bit off, sorry) First of all, in your reading you've apparently missed my occasional thinly veiled threats should anyone choose to be unnecessarily nasty - your comment - "please dont slap me to hard for being relatively ignorant " - will NOT be a problem here for more than a couple of posts, I promise you that. We're all here to learn, we've all been relatively stupid for at least part of our lives (I'm still a card-carrying member :? ) and civility is a REQUIREMENT for anyone who wants help - there are enough boards around for little boys to measure and compare private parts and laugh at each other (now, laughing WITH each other, if mutual, is different :wink: ) I did a rough (as in, in my head on a plane trying not to forget anything adding as I went, kind of rough) guess as a per square foot cost of a sound proof shell pretty close to your size, and came up with somewhere between $65 - $80 per square foot, for materials ONLY - no doors or glass even. Ask me tomorrow, it'll be $10 more, this stuff is just in-freakin-sane these days - Now, if you want it done mostly by others figure roughly 3-4 times that amount, still not including acoustic treatments or gear. The good news is, unless you're addicted to vintage Neve or SSL stuff you will likely be able to borrow quite a bit from your gear budget if necessary - The guys are right though, we'd need quite a bit more detail to get closer than that... Steve