Advice on New Recording Studio project

Greetings all: I am an architect in New York designing a new stand alone recording studio from ground up for a client in Texas. I’m afraid this is my first venture in recording studio design. The studio will hold 5 rooms/studios of different sizes to achieve maximum sound and acoustic variation. I have a general idea as to how the room dimensions should lay out. I will post the plans this week. As I stated before, this is all new construction. Any advice on the general dimensions/rules of thumb would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Johnny

How about this as a primer?

Tremdous! Thanks for the link. The studio I am doing is twice as big as the "big facility". I do not know if this has been done before but the client has requested that the control room rotate (lazy susan) so that each studio have visual access depending on what studio is in use. Have you seen this done before? If not, this could be a first! I will post images as the project develops for more specific advice. Thanks Johnny

johnnycruz wrote:

. . . the client has requested that the control room rotate (lazy susan) so that each studio have visual access depending on what studio is in use.

:shock: Holy crap! :shock: There's a saying we have where I work, and it's quite fitting in this case... "Good luck with that!" :lol: In all seriousness, that would be 8) very cool 8) if you can pull it off... But aside from the "coolness factor" (which might be the best marketing gimmick in the history of studios, for all I know!), I would think that two-way video would be much more practical... Or, better yet, an awesome design with line-of-sight into all of the spaces. I've seen some great designs from John here where that has been achieved. Have you learned much yet about what kinds of construction techniques are in order to achieve the isolation levels needed for a project like this? If not, make yourself a pot of coffee and plan to spend the next several hours/days/weeks/months :shock: absorbing all of the information in this awesome resource. Then you'll know what you're in for! :twisted:

You really might want to consider bringing in another specialized acoustician/architect with experience in this sort of thing for a project of this size/technicality. I know some good ones in NYC if you decide to go this way. Edison had a rotating film studio, but not exactly the same thing. I think this will be very hard to pull off and will not be anywhere's worth the effort. It'd probably be cheaper to build 5 control rooms and 5 studios than to ever have this thing work and meet code.

Not all wild and crazy studio ideas get airborne... According to this interview KISS' own Ace Frehley initially wanted "an underground studio connected to his house by a tunnel." His home and "Ace In The Hole 2" multimedia studio and rehearsal space sits on a 7.5 acre estate in Upper Westchester County, New York.

I always loved that interview, it's very much like really talking to John Storyk.

johnnycruz wrote:

Tremdous! Thanks for the link. The studio I am doing is twice as big as the "big facility". I do not know if this has been done before but the client has requested that the control room rotate (lazy susan) so that each studio have visual access depending on what studio is in use. Have you seen this done before? If not, this could be a first! I will post images as the project develops for more specific advice. Thanks Johnny

How would you get connections in/out of the control room? I suppose it would be OK with a central cable duct up through the floor, as long as there were rotation limits, it might put a strain on the cables over time though. Bluetooth maybe? Still got to get power in as well. Sounds like a real headache. Big plasma monitors instead? Two way with camera over? You could use them to play an animation of the walls rotating with some low bass rumble through the big monitors, no-one would know the difference. :D

With that kind of budget, get a studio adesign profesiohnal involved. FMdeasign and WSDG are two of many in the NY area. Andre

Well I’ve had the 4th of July weekend to reconsider the rotating control room concept. The physical challenges as well as the technical ones are daunting. Getting that to work could blow my clients budget out of the water. The one thing that would work is a rotating console instead. Thoughts? This would eliminate the strain put on the cables below. Drew.n Plasma monitors sound like a great idea. I’m sure this has been done with projects that have multiple studios and one control room. AVare: I am going to bring a pro on board. I’ll look into FM design and WSDG. Thanks Johnny

Here's a thought... How about a stationary control room with a stationary console and windows or sliding doors into adjacent studio rooms/booths, but an engineer with a head that rotates. ;)

Also, bear in mind that you can achieve "line of sight" into two spaces from a single window. For example, you might have visibility of a vocal booth window through the live room in between.