My Studio Plans. What do you think?

Alright, I've done a ton of reading and have formulated my plan for my basement studio. I'm posting it so you can tell me what you think. The drum room floor is floated and there is an amp riser in the live room that is floated. The ceiling is only 7'3" so I couldn't float the whole room. I'm going for a maximum amount of isolation here so as not to bother people upstairs or outside. Well, I'm posting some pictures and a link to a sketchup file if you happen to have that program. THANKS! www.absolutezero2k2.com/SketchUp Tim

I know people are downoading this thing I can see it on my web results. Any thoughts?

The lack of symmetry in the control room bothers me. Andre

How about, what do you want to do in your recording studio? Gotta know before looking at the plans really makes any sense. AV post, rock bands, personal acoustic guitar recording etc... -ashley

I'm having trouble seeing what the rooms are supposed to be. Is the CR the room with the desk and chair, and the studio the room with the single couch?

Ok, the labels should clear up on what room is what. I kind of thought maybe the symmetry would be bad in that first control room setup too, but am trying to get a family room down in this basement too so we're trying to work with the space I've got there. This is going to double as a practice space for my band. We're a heavy rock band. Screaming Marshall stacks and double bass from hell, all while trying not to piss off the neighbors. I came up with a possible plan for the control room inside of the practice room with the amps inside of a riser/closet sort of configuration for isolation purposes. The work desk would be just off of the slanted wall across from the amp riser/closet idea, which I'm not even sure is a good idea. I know it will cut down on structural sound, but am not sure if it will be a good design for recording purposes. And that little jog in the wall from the control room to the live room to the drum room won't really be there, I just screwed up when I was drawing and didn't pay close enough attention to what I was doing and didn't really feel like going back through and redoing the whole thing. It'll really be one continuous wall even with the live room wall. OK, thanks for the input so far. Right now I'm redoing my kitchen, which isn't nearly as interesting as this. Oh, and before I forget, I didn't post the sketchup file on my bands website so that people would go there, it was just the easiest way I could think of to share a larger file, but thanks to the people who looked around and downloaded stuff. You should see the rooms we recorded and I mixed that music in. F@$#ing nightmare. Alright, thanks again. Tim

Tim - could you do something like this?? cheers john

In a world where my wife is, no. In a completely different world, yes. My original brainstorm was something similar to that, but we already have one child, with only one extra bedroom upstairs and what if and so on and so forth. I'm trying to stay within a few 5 or 10 feet of that original design. I've been doing this music thing for many years and, although my wife loves everything I do practically, its hard for her to take possible space away from a future dependent. She'd like a possible bedroom on the side next to the laundry room and its hard to argue with if another child were on its way. We're not rich people so I'm going to have to deal with what I've got. I thank you greatly for your input. What do you think of the control room and live room together plan?

Then let's reduce it down - same size rooms as you had but laid out differently - much better acoustically and visually IMO. cheers john

Hmm... I like it. The only problems I could foresee are mainly practice problems. It looks like a great studio setup, which is its main purpose, but we're going to be using it a lot for practicing too and vision between drummer and everyone else is a bit skewed. What do you think of maybe keeping the rooms the same, but moving the drums into the far left room instead of right next to where the family room will be? I don't know, I'm looking for a good line of sight here. A balance between practice space and studio. I've gotta go to work so I'll mull this one over some more while I'm there. Thanks Tim

Sure Tim - I just put the drums there to give an idea of scale. It's been my experience that people with this sort of setup end up practicing using the control room as part of it with everyone going through the console, bass di etc and you can hit record if you want to capture something :) cheers john