952 Studios Planning

Hi All, It has been a really long time since my last post on this forum. Thanks to this wonderful group of people I had built a really nice (for me) basement studio in a town home and had no complaints about sound bleed into the adjoining units! However I did learn a lot of lessons, particularly around room design. My mixes never translated well because I didn't have good symmetry or sound treatment in my control aread, and my live room was extremely fluttery and I just could never tame it, mostly because it was just too small and too symmetrical. I moved out of that house several years ago and gave up the studio. I had built a makeshift recording space without any isolation in the basement of my new house which was just for me. It worked but with several kids running around it was a challenge to get clean recordings. Sadly we had a major storm here in the north east over the summer, the basement flooded, I lost a lot of my equipment and the space is ruined. Wanting to not go through such a thing again I decided to start from scratch with all the lessons I've learned and build a more permanent and lasting structure on my property. The goal for my studio is mostly personal use, however Im designing it so that within the next 20 years if I retire I can use it for some nice extra side cash. All of my kids are now young musicians as well and I want to make a place where we can all create and explore music together. Ive now read the Rod Gervais handbook front to back, Ive recounted on my own experiences and I have been very active in visiting all the designs in this forum again. I wanted to start a design thread here because it was absolutely amazing the last time. This time though, I am older, wiser, have a slight bit more means, and most importantly I have patience. Hoping I can get the same value and great insights from this group once again! That said here is what I am working with:

- Studio Budget is $50k-$75k USD. Has to cover a new foundation and materials for contstruction, HVAC, plumbing, and electrical. (I will do electrical, HVAC, and plumbing myself with friends) - I can only put an additional 500 square feet of space on my property per township code with a max height of 16ft at the peak. - It MUST have a bathroom - A well designed and well ratio'd control room for mixing. (I WANT MY MIXES TO TRANSLATE!) - A big comfortable flutter free live room with space for a whole band (3-4 people) to play. - From a sound control perspective, Im only really worried about isolation between the rooms. Im in the country and far enough from my neighbors that as long as I can achieve an STC of 55-60 on the outside of the building it will be enough

I have taken a first pass at an 18x25ft design (about 450sq ft, I don't want to go to the max I can do). 18x25 is based on where I can position it comfortable on the property as well so this feels like about the right dimensions to be working with. I would love feedback on a few things at the beginning of the design process to help me think about how functional the space is. Questions I have:

- Is the door on the angled wall of the control room a bad idea? Im worried that it will throw off the balance of the room in the listening location - Do I really need an isolation room? I'd like a dead room to stick guitar cabinets in, potentially to do vocals also, but if I design the live room well is it really necessary? - What do you think about the rough dimensions and layout of the rooms. The control room ceiling will be 9ft, the live room will be 12ft and pitched down to 9 (traditional barn style roof). Ive included the ratios (Type B) that I am hitting in the room with the current floor plan

Looking forward to building another studio with the help of this community!

A second design with no iso booth and a different orientation for the control room. What I like about this design is that I have an airlock, so I dont have to deal with double doors, and my desk would not have a door opening into it. What I dont like is I lose the iso booth, but again thats one of my questions, cant I get the same performance out of the larger live room for vocals and guitars?

you could use tall gobos in the live room, in a pinch the airlock could double as a booth (complete with a reverberation chamber :-)) Abbey Roads didn't have booth - just stood up gobos as needed to create separation or "more intimate" areas so people wouldn't feel like they're performing in a cavern...

gullfo wrote:

you could use tall gobos in the live room, in a pinch the airlock could double as a booth (complete with a reverberation chamber :-)) Abbey Roads didn't have booth - just stood up gobos as needed to create separation or "more intimate" areas so people wouldn't feel like they're performing in a cavern...

Using the airlock as a booth is brilliant idea. If I use a door with glass and stick an XLR plug on the wall, it would be all set. Thanks for that! I am definitely digging on the second layout the most to maximize space and make isolation of the live and control room slightly easier.

So based on the feedback above, I am really liking the 2 room design. Knowing my ceilings are 9 ft in the control room, I pass all the checks on bob golds room mode calculator. Also looking around there are nice budget friendly pre-fab garages that I can purchase and put on a slab. 16x28 seems common and the cost is reasonable. Here is an updated design which tweaks the space slightly. Any feedback on the general shape of the rooms or space? Things I might be overlooking or having a difficult time treating? I still have to get into major details on things, but this is a rough floor plan so I can at least get zoning approved and know I can do anything at all. Control room mode check:

This is a spectacular project. I'm three weeks away from finishing something very similar. I do like the third plan. I'm not a tech guy and don't know the numbers but have made part of my living playing in studios here in LA. Having the bathroom door NOT opening into the control room is a good idea plus you'll save money not needing the extra large fart fan. :) Also the air lock as your iso booth will come in very handy. The live room seems like plenty of space to do live recordings. Part of our design as well.

Sinclair wrote:

This is a spectacular project. I'm three weeks away from finishing something very similar. I do like the third plan. I'm not a tech guy and don't know the numbers but have made part of my living playing in studios here in LA. Having the bathroom door NOT opening into the control room is a good idea plus you'll save money not needing the extra large fart fan. :) Also the air lock as your iso booth will come in very handy. The live room seems like plenty of space to do live recordings. Part of our design as well.

Thanks for the kind words! Do you have a thread for your project?

eightamrock wrote:

Thanks for the kind words! Do you have a thread for your project?

Not here. It's on a drum forum. Should have started one here. Perhaps I will. My contractor and a few of his guys are all down for the week with covid so I should have the time to keep it up. Here's a rough of the basic plan. No bathroom. Pretty straight forward. We did raise the ceiling in the center of the live room to 11ft and added a second small iso booth in the storage area. Congrats on your build. Your budget seems right in the ballpark. I'll be checking in for updates.

Sinclair wrote:

eightamrock wrote:

Thanks for the kind words! Do you have a thread for your project?

Not here. It's on a drum forum. Should have started one here. Perhaps I will. My contractor and a few of his guys are all down for the week with covid so I should have the time to keep it up. Here's a rough of the basic plan. No bathroom. Pretty straight forward. We did raise the ceiling in the center of the live room to 11ft and added a second small iso booth in the storage area. Congrats on your build. Your budget seems right in the ballpark. I'll be checking in for updates.

Thats so funny, here is another design I was working with, I just dont really like how much space I waste. Also using the rectangular control room, I get a way better ratio that I "hope" its easier to treat. Curious to get feedback on that choice. Additionally its more doors, another window, more outlets, more lighting, more complicated HVAC. I really like the simplicity of the 2 room design as long as the control room size and ratio work.

Ha...that looks great. Very similar. I needed the storage space for a grand piano on it's side, my drum gear, mic stands, cables and shelving...and my espresso machine and small fridge. That took up 4ft across and nixed the bathroom. Would have been nice if I had space but also would have put me even more over budget. My son, a guitar player/song writer/engineer is also involved with the design and will be doing all the wiring. Fairly complicated even for this small of a studio.

Sinclair wrote:

Ha...that looks great. Very similar. I needed the storage space for a grand piano on it's side, my drum gear, mic stands, cables and shelving...and my espresso machine and small fridge. That took up 4ft across and nixed the bathroom. Would have been nice if I had space but also would have put me even more over budget. My son, a guitar player/song writer/engineer is also involved with the design and will be doing all the wiring. Fairly complicated even for this small of a studio.

A word of caution from my last build, run audio cabling as short as possible and NEVER run it in parallel with electrical. If you have to cross electrical, do so perpendicularly and give your self as much space as possible. I had a terrrible 60hz hum on the lines from my iso booth of my last build because I ran it along side power wire for about 6 feet. This is another reason I like my 3rd design, an XLR patch through the wall from one side to the other beats running snakes all over the building to different rooms.

eightamrock wrote:

A word of caution from my last build, run audio cabling as short as possible and NEVER run it in parallel with electrical. If you have to cross electrical, do so perpendicularly and give your self as much space as possible. I had a terrrible 60hz hum on the lines from my iso booth of my last build because I ran it along side power wire for about 6 feet. This is another reason I like my 3rd design, an XLR patch through the wall from one side to the other beats running snakes all over the building to different rooms.

Wise words thanks. Our wiring is completely separated from the electrical and won't run parallel or across it at any point. The cables are also 100% shielded. The plan calls for everything to run outside the walls in a narrow trough along the baseboards. Sections of the top able to screw off in the event we upgrade. Our panels just showed up today. The real guts of the place. Redco Audio put our plate design together.

Hi again all, hoping to get some feedback. I've landed on what I think is getting close to the final design. A few question, specifically about dimensions. The Control room is 9 feet high, 12'6 long, and 12' at the widest and 10' 4" at the listening end. The walls are splayed for about 60% of the room at 6 degrees per side (total of 12). The average width falls somewhere around 11' 2". According to the bobgolds calc, this still looks ok and I am getting "2) L. W. Sepmeyer: 1965" 1 : 1.14 : 1.39" for my ratio which I am fine with. I just want to stay out of the bad area. I know this room is getting very close to square. Is this control room going to be too small or will I be able to treat it, would I need to go inside out or can I just use diffusers and absorbers? My goals for this project are a large space to jam and write so I dont want to cut any more into the live room, but I do want a functional control room that will translate mixes well. Do you think I will be achieving this? I am happy with my layout overall, I just want to make sure I'm not inventing problems for myself.

I don't know ratios or diffraction/diffusion numbers, but it looks pretty good. If you want the option of recording a live rhythm section you might consider a larger window to reduce the blind stop looking into the live room. Also perhaps a panel in the bathroom if you'd ever need to use it as a second iso booth. The ceiling in the live room is also 9ft or higher?

Good Morning! Well it was a long weekend of planning and the details are finally getting dialed in. Ive picked HVAC equipment and came up with a plan for how to heat/cool/freshen the studio air. Going with a ducted mini split tied to an ERV unit. Ill need to build up some baffle boxes at some point and there is a likelihood I might need an inline booster fan to help the ERV as it only does about 150 CFM and I need 200. I also had to make space for the equipment so I dropped the ceilings in the airlock and bathroom down to 8'. Combined with an offset gable in the live room, I have enough area to get the equipment mounted and isolated from the rest of the structure. It will be tight, but I can do it. I also decided to swap the control and live room. I figure I'll be mostly writing with folks in the control room and really only using the live room when I want to isolate sounds. Going with the bigger room for mixing gave me a much better ratio and volume overall. Hoping that it will be easier to treat. I left some space for 12" bass traps in the back, obviously still need to work out my treatment plan overall. Any feedback on the new designs? Getting close to final layout and dimensions.

Updated room mode data. Also a question. The last time I did a studio, it was in a basement so I had the luxury of cement bricks being an amazing isolator. In my new design we are no long subterranean, I want to avoid accidentally creating triple leaf system or missing a M in my MAM. In my MAM assembly, my outer leaf is 2x6 which will be stuff with the rigid insulation 703, on the outside will be plywood wrapped in tyvek with vinyl siding. My guess is that this is not enough mass to truly help, considering my inner leaf is 703 in 2x4 topped with 2 sheets of 5/8" sheet rock. Would I need to also stuff the outer wall cavities with drywall? Would it need to be moisture resistant or will the tyvek be enough vapor barrier? Lastly what about the roof? Im planning to fully decouple the ceilings, but do I need to also stuff sheetrock in the ceiling joists agains the roof plywood? Would this get destroyed when they put the shingles on? I was hoping that the shingles and sheething would provide enough high up mass in conjunction with the 2-3 feet of space between the live and control room ceilings that it would be good enough... Thoughts on this?

if the plywood sheathing on walls and roof is your exterior mass layer, then beefing them up would probably be the best approach. on the roof (or when dealing with floors with protruding nails) you can add a layer of the rigid 1" blue insulation (pressed onto the nails) which will eliminate the air gap and provide a stable surface for the inter-joist/rafter drywall.

gullfo wrote:

if the plywood sheathing on walls and roof is your exterior mass layer, then beefing them up would probably be the best approach. on the roof (or when dealing with floors with protruding nails) you can add a layer of the rigid 1" blue insulation (pressed onto the nails) which will eliminate the air gap and provide a stable surface for the inter-joist/rafter drywall.

Thanks! Given the added load on the rafters, I supposed I would also want to beef them up a size. I would imagine that just meeting code wont work with the added load especially in the snowy/icy northeast

gullfo wrote:

if the plywood sheathing on walls and roof is your exterior mass layer, then beefing them up would probably be the best approach. on the roof (or when dealing with floors with protruding nails) you can add a layer of the rigid 1" blue insulation (pressed onto the nails) which will eliminate the air gap and provide a stable surface for the inter-joist/rafter drywall.

Also any general feedback on my design in general? Im terrified I will get it wrong in some ridiculous way.... I keep redesigning over and over again looking for a better way and oscillating on decisions.

soundman2020 wrote:

Stuart

was very helpful to me over 10 years ago, but I don't see him posting much anymore. Maybe I got it all "ok enough"....

I used a 2lb mass loaded vinyl (MLV) for my walls and ceiling. The 1lb might work as well. It's not cheap but goes a long way towards containing low end.

Sinclair wrote:

I used a 2lb mass loaded vinyl (MLV) for my walls and ceiling. The 1lb might work as well. It's not cheap but goes a long way towards containing low end.

Ah do you use it as a membrane between sheets of drywall? Do you use it on both leaves?

Here's what we did. The 2lb MLV on the studs. Then the isolated clips on the MLV, then the rail system slides into the clips. The drywall is then screwed to the flat parts of the rail. Hope this is clear.

Sinclair wrote:

Here's what we did. The 2lb MLV on the studs. Then the isolated clips on the MLV, then the rail system slides into the clips. The drywall is then screwed to the flat parts of the rail. Hope this is clear.

Yep I used iso clips in my last studio to detach the ceiling from the floor joists above.

Sinclair wrote:

Here's what we did. The 2lb MLV on the studs. Then the isolated clips on the MLV, then the rail system slides into the clips. The drywall is then screwed to the flat parts of the rail. Hope this is clear.

This looks great! Does the MVL also act as a vapor barrier for the inside rooms? Steve