The 1000th basement - The 2nd time

(the original thread for this topic is found at http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3170. and I'm sorry for making you guys sit through all those pictures loading up) Ok here are the three most recent ideas I've played with... Although the 2nd one has the smallest live room, it would require the least structural changes which would be nice. I don't know the acoustical guildlines very well so please... any comments would be appreciated.

I reckon NO 1 is the way to go - just need to fix the beam problem - which is fixable :) cheers john

John, thank you. I got a quote on the beaming from the original builder and it will be right under $1000. I'm still playing with ideas, but plan one, one of its slightly modified versions, or a version which requires no beaming are the most likely canidates at this point. Thanks again.

that place is gonne be awesome!!

Thanks for the encouraging post Ballgame. :)

Well... I am under a big rush to get the studio done all of a sudden... long story. To put the situation in a nut shell, money is very tight. I can't afford to beam the basement although I wanted to. I am thinking of a simple layout like this: I read many of the post here and a book called "Building A Recording Studio", but I still feel like I am guessing at what to do. Using the basic layout I have here, is there anything obvious that I have planned wrong? I have a large vent that runs the length of the basement that I will need to deal with. I wondered if I could tilt the walls in order to avoid parallels? It would almost create a tent like control room... I have thought about doing the same thing in the Tracking Room 1 one the side that has the vent. I would treat the two empty spaces as bass traps. The builder and I have already brought in the flooring materials and layed down most of the insulating work on the exterior walls so he is pressing me for the plans on what we will do next. Life circumstances have really thrust this rushed time table on me so any timely advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Rock BTW the Smartdraw plans are very accurate but the ones cretaed in Sketchup are really rough sketches to give a general impression. I didn't know how to reduce the file size on sketchup docs so here is the link for the room layout... It's about 590k http://www.rockkennedy.com/media/images/studiolayout.zip

Rock - angleing the walls like that is very tricky as they have to be braced to stand up which will mean bracing trusses to hold it all up. If you are going to leave out the rear door - as you have in your latest plan, whynot revert to the simpler design like this In fact if you still want a rear door it would be cheaper and easier to convert one of those windows into a door openning. cheers john

Gosh John, thank you so much for the quick reply. I didn't mean to hide the back door it was just on a different layer. Sorry that doesn't come across too well without the other smartdraw layers. Moving that door isn't an much of an option since it's got a deck built around it (7 feet or so off the ground) which also supports a second floor deck above that which opens into the kitchen. Two questions though... If I did something like you posted and scooted the cr over to the left to make room for the door would the cr be too short (less than 12 feet)? If I went more with something like the last one I posted (which was based on trying to be cheap in most respects) and I don't try to tilt the walls, how would you recommend doing the specific shape of the rooms? I am especially wondering about walls a, b, c and d. And the interplay with the vent. Do I need to create a false vent on the opposite side of the cr? Could it be used as a bass trap? The "W" Shape I drew on wall d was just a shot in the dark at what might work. Thanks again, Rock EDIT - ADDED :D :D :D :D :D :D If I go with this plan, I might go with double glass doors between control room and the small tracking area rather than double windows and a separate set of doors. It looks like I will need to have a plan by Monday... I'm going nuts :shock:

Just a couple of things and picts to update... The flooring is all stored up in the garage now, although installing it will be one of the last things we do. The proposed main tracking area. Not quite done laying down a layer of blackboard because a small water leak appeared when it rained. Once that is patched up, we'll go ahead and do the rest. The control room area. We have just started laying metal track to box in the duct work. :) Once this is framed in we plan to fill most of it with rockwool. I can turn the tv upstair up pretty loud and you don't hear much down there now. Impact noise is a different issue, but I live alone and we still have at least one layer of dry wall to go. Also the piano upstairs seems to be pretty easy to hear but we have a few plans to cut down on that noise transfer. It's pretty fun going so far... still trying to come up with a final plan, luckily we have been busy with stuff we need to do no matter what plan we choose. Thanks, Rock PS - John, still looking forward to hearing from you and also would like to ask if you mind posting the smartdraw doc you posted the pic from. Thanks

here you go cheers john

Thank you.

Hi John. I reworked the last one you sent and after trying hard to save all the windows and make the CR a little bigger (won't be tracking near as much as working on songs by myself in the CR) this is what I came up with... zipped smartdraw I really like the way the green room in the picture will act as a big soundlock / semi-tracking room for scratch vocals and keep the loud stuff like guitar and drums in the two other pink room separated from each other and from CR. Is there anyway to use soffited speakers and still save my windows? If not I will likely give up on 5.1 and just use stereo nearfields. Can the speakers point down? Any other advice at this point? Thanks again for all, Rock

I'd do this Rock cheers john

Thank, John. Wow I really hate to give up the windows... I guess if there is no way to have the windows and the soffited speakers, I just have to choose... :cry: Maybe I could use some glass panes in the side soffited areas to be able to see out the window and still have a little natural light. Thanks again