Triangle solution?

Hello! I'm just about to build a studio in our garage. Here are the premises: 1. The studio is going to be the rehearsal room for my three-piece rock band. It is also supposed to be a hobby/semi pro/low budget recording studio. 2. The garage is a separate building about 50 metres from our house (and a few hundred metres from any neighbours). 3. The garage is 6,6x5,3 metres with 2,5 metres from floor to ceiling. 4. Right now the garage has three 25 cm concrete walls. The north wall has a window in it. The south wall is really not a wall, but two huge car doors. (See sketch named plan1.gif below.) I have been thinking of different ways of designing the studio. First I thought of dividing the garage with a wall parallell to the north and south walls, thus making two rectangular rooms. (See sketch plan2.gif below. The circle to the left of the rectangle in the control room is supposed to be me, sitting at my desk.) Then I learned about standing waves and went back to my desk. What I came up with was the same idea once again, only that the dividing wall is going from corner to corner this time, making two triangular rooms instead. (See sketch plan3.gif below.) I have never seen a studio designed like this, so I guess something is fundamentally wrong with the triangle idea. :-) I would appreciate any comments! By the way, please note that my sketches are only sketches, made to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. They are not meant to show exact positioning of doors or width of air gaps. / Ambjörn

I'd look along this line - do you really need a room within a room when you have 250mm thick concrete walls and are 100m from neighbours?? cheers john

Fantastic! It would have taken me a week to make a picture like that... (As you can probably tell from my shakey sketches, by the way!) Thanks a lot for your help.

John Sayers wrote:

I'd look along this line - do you really need a room within a room when you have 250mm thick concrete walls and are 100m from neighbours??

Perhaps I don't... I'm not really sure. We recently moved out to the countryside and the neighbours are mainly farmers and retired farmers. I'm sure they would put up with the sound of tractors and chainsaws but I don't know how they feel about music... Anyway, right now the inner ceiling is the main problem. It is unisolated and made of one layer of wooden boards with lots of wide gaps between them where every sound made in the garage finds its way out, so my strategy is to improve a bit on that and then see if I need any more soundproofing. Perhaps those concrete walls are ok. I have been thinking about how I should divide the space between the control room and the live areas. Your plan uses more than half the garage for the control room. It would be interesting to know a bit about your thoughts behind it - why not making the live areas the large ones? (I'm not questioning your ideas at all, I'm just curious!) Thanks again for your help - what a gem this forum is! / Ambjörn

Sure - you can make the control room smaller, it's up to you to decide how to utilise your spaces as only you know what use you will put it all to. I'd seal off the ceiling and then see how much sound is getting out. cheers john

John Sayers wrote:

Sure - you can make the control room smaller, it's up to you to decide how to utilise your spaces as only you know what use you will put it all to.

Yes, of course. Since I am a beginner when it comes to studio design I just thought perhaps there was some "secret rule" saying something like "a control room must never be smaller than so-and-so"... :wink:

John Sayers wrote:

I'd seal off the ceiling and then see how much sound is getting out.

I crawled up into the space between the ceiling and the roof yesterday and started to seal off. Feels good to be on my way! Thanks again for your advice! / Ambjörn