I realize this may be a bit general for these parts, but I feel the experts here can easily and quickly spot issues that will be valuable to me. Here is my situation:
My wife and I are looking to buy a different house. Since we both have wants/needs, it has proven very difficult to find a house with a basement that will work for a studio. What I fear most, is buying a home, only to find out that a studio just isn't feasible, so I'd much rather keep looking than 'make' a difficult space work.
Generally, the ceilings in basements in this area are not very high. However, today I saw a house that made me think, and I thought I'd try to get some advise from the experts here as to whether or not the space is worth trying to work with. So please give me some honest opinions as to what you think.
The basement is stone, and all but two of the windows have been blocked up. The room where I would put the studio, is a separate room, and has no windows at all. In fact the only opening into this room is an entryway (with no door) about 3 feet wide. The room itself measures about 21'6" long, 8'8" wide and approximately 8' high,( maybe a tad higher) to the sub flooring.
The ceiling has a support beam running across the width of the room at about the halfway point which drops down about 6 inches, and a goofy cold air return that drops down about 8" in a spot.
I like the fact that soundproofing is off to a good start, being that the stone wall where the door way is, is about a foot and a half thick.
However, with room dimensions of that size, can it work? The stone gives the walls a rough uneven texture, so framing out the room would require constructed walls to be, maybe three inches away from the wall, as some of the stone work sticks out that far. Of course from a soundproffing perspective, this is good I suppose, but it makes the room even smaller, and being that all four walls are stone, splaying walls is not an option, unless I want a very tiny front wall.
Thoughts? Can it work? Are the dimensions a problem?
Thanks,
Tom C
Room size; Should I bother?
Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 3012.
Hi Tom,
I'm no expert at all, but I'll give you my opinion :)
First of all I would suggest you update your profile to include location because people that usually try to help here (moderators and other members) often ask new guys to do this.makes it easier to recommend certain materials based on availability in your part of the world and to use certain terminology that you're familiar with.
The size of the room is pretty workable I think, and the ceiling height is not as bad as some I've read being discussed here.Those walls are pretty THICK and depending on how loud you're gonna record/mix it could do fine with just that one leaf of mass...but again..depends on what you're doing.
I would suggest doing everything in one room considering how much space you have. So yeah I think it's very possible to do something with that space.You would probably need to give us some more details about stuff you're gonna record and importance of the isolation to you, so that guys around here could comment some more on it.
good luck
Random stone walls = good diffusion. If it's sound proofing you're after , you might want to load up *this* side of it. If you buy this house, are you planning on separate rooms for tracking and mixing, or doing everything in one room?The stone gives the walls a rough uneven texture, so framing out the room would require constructed walls to be, maybe three inches away from the wall, as some of the stone work sticks out that far.
I should clarify one thing. It IS a stone wall, but there are no exposed stones on the wall. InWisconsin, at the time the house was built, it was common practice to make the basement walls by forming them with lumber stacking a layer of stone in-between the form and pouring concrete around them then repeating the process until the proper height was reached. So, the end result is an uneven (bumpy) concrete covered stone wall, with jagged edges protuding in places. So I'm not sure how good of diffusion the room would yeild as the stones used were not the nice rectangle or square type, more of the broken until they fit type. Soundproofing isn't my biggest concern, but the sound of the room is fairly important. I am concerned that with a room so narrow, (about 8'8") and a similar dimension in the height (about 8') that room modes might make the room more trouble than it's worth. I'm not sure how great the dimensions are. With the room being as small as it is, I would probably just do a one room design. Wouldn't it be a bit small to divide into two rooms? The length is 21'6". Thanks for the response. TomRandom stone walls = good diffusion. If it's sound proofing you're after , you might want to load up *this* side of it.
From what I've read, it's actually better that it's a random surface.I should clarify one thing. So, the end result is an uneven (bumpy) concrete covered stone wall, with jagged edges protuding in places.
It'll end up being tight height wise, but bringing the ceiling height down to 7'6" might be enough to break up the ratio.Soundproofing isn't my biggest concern, but the sound of the room is fairly important. I am concerned that with a room so narrow, (about 8'8") and a similar dimension in the height (about 8') that room modes might make the room more trouble than it's worth.
Some of the plans over in the SAE site (http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html) have two room plans about that size, maybe a little longer. At about 21 feet, you can squeeze in one tracking room and one control room. In particular, look at Garage Plan 2. [/quote]With the room being as small as it is, I would probably just do a one room design. Wouldn't it be a bit small to divide into two rooms? The length is 21'6".