suggestions for basement studio layout?

Hi, I've enjoyed reading (and re-reading) this forum for years and finally have moved to a house with a decent size basement (at least compared to the crawlspace where we lived before) and would like to turn it into a project studio space, with rooms for: control room recording room vocal/amp isolation room machine room for computer/tape deck I'm looking for any suggestions for how best to layout the rooms in the space that follows for best room sound and space efficiency. I've tried to include all the important information on the diagram, which hopefully will display correctly. I've already re-run the ductwork to open up the space and insulate them for sound and am now ready to start planning for framing the interior walls. thanks for any advice, mblue

I'm not sure how the stairs work and what walls you already have but I'd head in this direction. cheers john

John, Wow, thanks for the eye-opening suggestion and I really like the direction! I've seen you do these kinds of transformations many times on this site, but seeing it happen for a layout that I know this well and found difficult to fit an elegant non-parallel design into is exciting. The basement stairway opens pointing up, into the middle of basement, and your plan would work fine with that, although I may not need that wall segment that runs from the right side of the basement stairway up to the control room outer wall. That way, I could walk into the studio room from the stairway opening, without having to walk around the stairway. The current walls are the thick lines shown in my original drawing, so your plan would require changing at least the wall bordering the control and studio rooms. Unfortunately, your plan would also require having to run the right-side angled wall under a newly run heating duct that runs parallel to that 2nd support beam (which is parallel to the exisiting wall bordering control/main recording rooms). After thinking over your plan, I think that I may be willing to sacrifice the machine room if I could rotate your plan 90 degress clockwise. That way I wouldn't lose as much space in the main recording room and would also have the back of the control room bordering an outside window space which gives some good daylight. I guess then I'd have to find a different way to avoid the parallel wall in the recording room. The odd-shaped vocal room at the bottom right corner that's stucco-lined, seems like it used to be a coal-storage room or something, but that's the one room I don't want to touch, since it's sounds great and is kind of weird and magical! I expect to do a lot of work on the main recording room, as far as re-flooring and interior-walling, but I guess I'll have to wait until I decide on the layout of the control room to see where to go on that room. Sorry for the lengthy response. I may end up just calling you to arrange a phone consultation, since I still have many questions and find the space tricky to work with. If not, I'll definitely visit the donation page. thanks again for your time, reply and site, mblue