Control room size

I started to really look at my design and I was wondering if the control room is big enough. I have a few feet I can play with to increase the width of the room. I also removed the office space at the rear. The side walls are at 4 degrees should I increase the width so that this can be changed to 6 degrees and still maintain the int. space? The room will have a 10 foot ceiling.

I'd widen the room by making the angle at least 6 degrees - remember the angled sides need only go as far as just past the listening position - so you could start with 12 degrees to just past the listening pos and then narrow down to 6 degrees. cheers john

I have changed the wall angles to 6 degree and widened the room by 1 foot 8 inch, and moved the consol back about a 1.5 feet. I believe this will better align the listener.

Here is the whole design with room treatments. I'm I on the right track............anyone?

what if you swung the control room around like this?? You could even make the office area a vocal booth cheers john

Great idea I never thought about swinging the control room over like that. One flaw though the live room will serve as a practice room for my band so the bigger the better. Will the rear area cause a problem? Should I angle in the rear walls? Thanks for your time John.

John your idea got me thinking so I moved the control room back which increased the area of the live room and I also added in a vocal room and a entry / snack room. Thanks for the great idea. What do you think? :D

Layout looks ok but for those two "new" rooms... I would just make one larger room instead of two smaller rooms. (per John's design). On paper is one thing, but once you have this built you're going to have to rooms that are tiny and claustrophobic.

well basically you've sliced 2 feet of the front making your new room around 13' deep as opposed to the 15' I drew - personally I reckon 15' is better - 13' is going to get too small IMO. cheers john

I just checked and my room is about a foot longer than the drawing you posted from glass to back wall. The drawing you posted was a little under 12.5 feet from glass to rear wall. I cut the control room from your drawing and pasted it on to mine and I moved the glass slider futher away from the desk. I pushed out the right wall so that the live room increased to 19 foot where as your drawing had the room at 15.75 feet. What do you think of the rest of the changes? Do you think the changes are useable. I would post the design file, but it is to large of a file..sorry. Man what is up with the forum logging me off before I finish typing. :evil:

Yes - it looks fine - the booth will work OK - go build it :):) cheers john

I hope I did not make you mad, your post had kind of an overtone to it. If I did, I am very sorry, that was not my intention. :D If you are still willing, I was wondering what treatments you had in the modified control room. I am still kind of kicking around the idea for the first control room just because it gives more room for the talent. That way the are not breathing down my neck while I am at the console. Are there any changes that could be made to salvage the original design? Thanks

Hey vair, I just wanted to jump in and add my $.02 (USD) because I'm sort of in a very similar circumstance as you. I am in the planning stages of building a studio in a one-car garage with around the same dimensions as your space. I'm considering a design very similar to the one John proposed for you. My problem, which is also similar to yours, is my wife (drummer) wants to have a "live" room that's large enough for her to teach ensemble classes, so it would have to be large enough to have her plus 4 or 5 others along with a drum set, bass amp, guitar amp(s), keyboard, keyboard amp, etc. Sure, it would be nice to have a large live room for band rehearsals and such but this whole large live room idea is really starting to ruin my plans as far as what I'm really trying to accomplish with this space, which is to make a recording studio, not a rehearsal studio. It's also been pointed out here and elsewhere that a common pitfall with studio design is to build a studio with a large live room and too small of a control room. During a recording session, the control room usually turns out to be the "hang" room and many (bass players, guitar players, etc.) prefer to be in the control room while recording so they can listen to the monitoring system available in there instead of headphones. So, in my case, what I'm really trying to do is weigh everything out by calculating the percentage that the space will be used for different activities and then will design to suit my needs. I don't want to end up with a control room that's too small, a live space that doesn't work for band rehearsals and other rooms that nobody wants to be in because they're too small. One thing I have been considering is to create a two-room studio (control and live) where it's possible to open the isolation (sliding glass door, for example) between the two to widen the live space for rehersals. The issue I'm having with this type of design is that my neighbors are less than 15 feet away, so sound isolation is VERY important. I would have to build 2 rooms withing 2 rooms so that proper isolation can be obtained and that would lessen the overall available space. This post is probably not helpful to you at all :) but I just wanted to post to let you know that there's someone else out here with similar concerns (maybe) and also to point out that pitfall of building a control room that you will wish you would've built larger when all is said and done. Good luck with your studio and I hope it turns out exactly how you want it! -Scot

You make some good points scot. hey - I'm not upset - I was just throwing it over to you as you have to make the decisions - as scot pointed out. I agree with scot in that people usually end up in the control room cos they like hearing themselves on the actual monitors so you should allow for them to be there "breathing down your neck :) " cheers john

I will just add one small comment. The door from outside in to the live room is fairly narrow. I know doors are a pain sound-wise, but moving euqipment through a small door is also a pain.

Thanks Scot for the thoughts, from what is sound like we are in pretty much the same situation. It is a pain trying to find that purfect meduim when working with a limited space. John I am glad to hear I did not make you mad. I think I am going with the first design. The design will be a little harder to tune, but it will give the talent alot more room to chill in the backround. I know the length will be a problem being 9 feet and 9 inch fron the rear of the seat to the rear wall. This will cause over a 18 ms delay which will cause a bounce delay. Hopefully with the help of all on this list I can come up with a suitable solution to this problem. Jack the door you are refering to is kind of set in stone, well concrete. The door is flanked by the foundation for the garage. I guess it could be widen, but boy that would be alot of work....yuck. :) I have included the last rev of the first design. Any thought would be great. Thanks guys. :D

Well due to some California building codes, I have had to relocate the studio to the back of the yard. Here is the new design any thoughts or comments are quite welcome. The construction tech's stay the same.

Hello is this thing on?????? :D

mate - it's been on for two whole pages and various redesigns - so now you want it all over again cos you changed your mind?? cheers john

John just looking for a thumbs up or down thats all. If you happen to see any problems if you could point them out that would be great, if you don't have the time thats ok not a problem. I understand I have already run though the whole design thing and I would have stuck with that design, but the state of California is not going to let that design fly, it is just dos not fit building code.