Old house rehab adding a studio

Hello all, A friend of mine is rehabing a house he purchased to include a studio. It will be his space and construction and my gear. Now I have been operating out of a converted bedroom studio for 5 years and making a living off of it. This oportunity has both of us pretty excited to go to the next level. Anyway the architects designed what they thought was the best use of the space and of course I rearranged thier design and eeked out a bit more space... What I would like to see is of course the control room, a live tracking room, a vocal/gtr iso booth and a lounge. Please look at these drawings and give me some suggestions. I guestimated the dimensions based on the blue print so I may be off by a few feet. I know the ceiling will be 10' before any treatments. Thanks, Paul

Well... for one... that 'unused space' could be used... Vocal/iso booth, guitar room, etc... My personal motto on this is 'never waste space, space is money'. It's going to cost you to build it up, you might as well use it. Same with the garage, really. Do you *have* to park an RV there? :-)

The unused space is shown there to be used. The RV garage is not my call as it is not my property. This is the space we have to work with and I feel blessed to have that. The reason, I put the unused space was so folks could help best decide on layout. Right now there are no walls,doors or windows so anything goes. Thanks, Paul

maybe something like this? cheers john

Thanks John, Looks great! We may lessen the loung area and give back some of that for storage, but we'll see. I like the combination of live and dead spaces. Anyone have any thoughts on how necessary windows from the control room are anymore? I have heard of some studios not using them anymore... Paul

Anyone have any thoughts on how necessary windows from the control room are anymore?

I think they are very important for communication but the front wall of control rooms is filling up with speakers and LCD screens so sideways is becoming more popular IMO. cheers john

Hey John, 2 more questions/problems: 1. I spoke with the owner and the store room as pictured in my sketch (not the blue prints) has to stay, so my options would be loose the vocal/iso booth all together and still have a lounge which I feel is important, or make the iso booth much smaller for just vocals and have a smaller lounge. 2. Is there anything wrong with not having in a barrier between the drums and the rest of the live room? IE bugger drum sound? I have seen many studios like this so I am just currious as to your thoughts. Also what if the drum barrier/wall was gone and a small carpeted iso booth was added in there? 3. Ok lastly, there seems to be a lot of space lost in the rear of the control room with corner treatments. Almost every studio I have been in from pro to semi pro does not seem to have this, so I am just currious as to your design philosophy. Thanks, Paul

Almost every studio I have been in from pro to semi pro does not seem to have this, so I am just currious as to your design philosophy.

Finished traps and absorbers often just look like walls when they're done right. You might be surprised what was behind the "walls" you were seeing... :)

Good point, but older studios I have seen in Nashville, LA and the Midwest seem to be glorified rectangular rooms with a mixing desk and speakers. maybe a diffusor on the rear wall... so I was just currious as to the more modern design changes... Paul

Actually, after looking again, the angled walls in the back of the room are soffits for the rear speakers of a 5.1 surround environment. (Looks like the right rear monitor was inadvertently left out of the drawing.) Proper placement of those rear units determines distance from the mix position, and you have a general choice of somewhere between 110 and 150 degrees... That's why all that stuff is where it is. :)