One room to track and mix

Hi everyone, It's my first post but I've been lurking around for several months trying to get a handle on all this stuff. What a score to have come across this and the SAE site! Thanks to John and the other moderators. I have a one car garage that is roughly 26X12X9 ft. I plan to utilize as much of it as possible for my new studio. I can't seem to decide if I want to go with one room for mixing and tracking or build a live room for tracking and a slightly larger and deader room for mixing. I'm leaning more towards one room these days since the space is not all that large. My question to you guys is would it be realistic to have a room that is really suitable for both? I want to track drums, acoustic guitar and vocals and am thinking that a more live sounding room would be the ticket for acoustic guitar but would such a room be suitable for mixing? I recall some folks (John??) commenting that a live room isn't necessarily out of the question for mixing. Is it possible to have a room that sounds great for tracking and is perfectly functional for mixing or am I going to be compromising one for the other? Maybe one room that's not too live so as to be suitable for both. Any comments, suggestions and other input is highly appreciated! Thanks! -Scot

Scot - your 26 length is cool you could easily have a 16ft long control room and a 10 x 12 studio which would be big enough to track drums etc. Going for a live room in a small room like that is possible but you end up with the room reverb on everything which is not always cool - for me it's only a good idea when you also have another room that can be deader for vocals etc - I'd go for a tight flat deader tracking room and a nice control room. cheers john

Thanks a million, John. That's what I'm going to do. I'll check in again later when I have a first draft of my plan. Thanks again! -Scot