basement studio w/ room for live shows, small space, HELP!

hey, i joined this forum a while back and have been reading for a while now, but this is my first post. i am planning to put a recording studio in my basement, but i aslo want to use the space to have live shows. the problem is that i don't really have much space to begin with. i live in Wonder Lake, IL. and am trying to start a record label from my basement/garage, and would like to do the recording down there as well. we have shows in the basement of local bands usually on the weekends, but also havde some during the week. the neighbors haven't comeplained all that much, except about parking, as we usually take up the beach parking accross the street and then some. noise getting out of the basement is kind of an issue, but not the most important. the house is pretty old, and some of the building i'm almost possitive isn't code. the floor and outer walls are almost all concrete. i live across the street from a lake, but haven't had any major problems with water leakage in the past. i have played around with a couple of designs, and am pretty sure on the one that i want, but haven't found anything on the site with dimensions anything like it, and am worried that it will not work. i have attached a floor plan of my basement to this post. all measurements were done by me, so they are all estimates. i was thinking of having the control room in the south west corner, with dimensions of 6x9 or maybe longer if i do a slanted ceiling to miss the pipes in the south east corner. the small room on the north west corner i was thinking of making a booth. the center area would be used for the live room as well as for live shows. along with the pipes in the southeast corner there is also the water heater and softener, which i hope to wall off in a seperate closet room. i did a very poor drawing of it in smart draw, and will attach that file as well. my ceiling height doesn't leave me with much room to play with, so i was thinking i would float the control room, and the booth, and wasn't sure but the west side of the center room between the control room and the booth is where the drums are set up, and where the bands play, should i raise the floor there too, or is that unnecessary? the ceiling height is about 88" however there are two I beams that run the width of the basement, i have them drawn in the floorplan. along with that there is also some duct work along the ceiling as well. i just went and took some pictures, hopefully that can give you a better idea of what we are dealing with. the stairs lead up to the living room of my house, and the door on the north wall goes into the garage. there are 3 windows on the west wall, but i don't think that they will be a problem, but then again im not the expert. its not letting mea add all the pictures, so im going to take them off, but if you would like me to post them i could no problem. i took pictures of all the walls, and one of the ceiling too. if any of those would be helpful to get a better idea of the basement let me know. basically i just want to know, is it possible to make a control room that small? if so, what would be the best design for it? if not, is there another place i could put it so it would be bigger, but still leave enough room to have bands play and people watch them? are my ceilings too low to float the floors underneath the control room and the booth? is it necessary to float the floor underneath the drums? your time and help is very much appreciated. im so glad that i found a forum like this, so full of information, and intelligent, helpful people. thanks so much. brian

Here is the first problem I see. You stated that the neighbors haven't compained that much. Worst case scenario is that as you increase the # of shows and bookings of recording gigs there will be more customer traffic in the neighborhood. This is sure to piss of some of the oldies in the neighborhood. They can get you on illegal business in a residential area. All depends on what the code is for your zone. Also since the house does not appear up to code this will raise issues to deal with if indeed you can build in your house. What I would do first is check the legality of your business in your current location. This will save you a ton of money, guaranteed. If you do commando punk rock style, don't worry about the sound levels since it will get shut down. I've seen it happen time and time again. Sorry for the semi doom and gloom post but I just hate to see someone who loves music so much lose money. dougo