An anecdotal comment + a new studio to design... | John Sayers’ Recording Studio Design Forum archive

Greetings friends: When I was a child, about 9 years old (I think so), I loved to wake up at 6 AM every Sunday and watch with my father my (by the time) favourite TV show: Beyond 2000. In that times was something normal for all the broadcasters in my country (Venezuela) to show anything that contains educational or scientific stuff (in special this kind of far far made scientific stuff) at hours where, well, nobody could see it at least that you makes some sacrifices (like waking up at 6 AM on Sundays), by the way, cable or sat TV was still far, far away from us. Also by that times I was just starting to be introduced to the world of music playing Violin in the music school of my town, and even when our computer knowledges were just primitive in comparision with the rest of the civilized world, everytime that we saw an especial report in Beyond 2000 about the “new super-incredible-powerfull-revolutionary music production technology called Interface Digital de Instrumentos Musicales also known as MIDI, by their initials in english”, I still remember my father saying me: “son, that’s the music of the future, that’s gonna change the world, you should learn more about”. Well, I was 9, and by the way completly ignorant about anything related with (also my father, and being realistic, almost everybody in the world!). My father didn’t lived enough to see the music revolution that he used to tell me that will came (and came, and it’s still coming!), and I didn’t realized the long way that I ran from the classical academical music from my beginings to the full digital multimedia production and performance of today, untill I found this great site in my quest trhough the internet to find some advice and tips in the construction of my first recording and production studio, and then I discovered that the persons behind this site were also in someway the persons behind my very first contact with the music production enviroment where I really love to work. I feel that we’re in a really little world, don’t you think? Intro I’ve been interested in having my own recording space from about three years, and after several attempts to buy an already-workin semi-commercial studio in the surroundings of my city, well, I couldn’t find anything for sale and usefull for my needs. The main reason to NOT build a recording studio from the scratch in Venezuela is that almost any single piece of equipment and sound-related building materials must be direct-imported from the USA (resilent channels, high density glass fiber insulation or studio grade mineral fiber insulation, vinyl sound barrier and even the acoustical sealant!), making by yourself the related mesh of related paperwork that such a big cargo means, otherwise, the long, long chain of distribution of most of the merchants in the country makes the final price of the products almost double as expensive than the list prices at any retailer in the USA. Anyway, as I told before, I didn’t found anything other than some well-equiped and relative good-sounding but poor isulated spaces, almost every single one carpeted from floor to ceiling with a really old-moisty-bad smelling carpet as “acoustic treatment”. That’s why after many weeks looking for the pros and cons I’ve finally decided to to build rather than buy. What I need... As an independent producer, my hobbies and working needs are really close related (music performance, music production, independent film post-production, radio and TV spots and shows and graphic designs for TV, web and print) and often, the diferences between each kind of work disappear. That’s why am looking for a design for my studio that includes a performance room to practice and record primarly with my band (six people: guitar, bass, keyboards, violin, cello and computer-based drums and effects sequences) and of course other peoples’ bands, a small iso booth for sporadical drum recordings, vocals and speech dialog, a multifunctional and versatile control room for mixing and producing whatever I record, but also suitable to be an audiovisual production room for finishing commercial spots for TV and radio (with superb sound), my place to work on graphics designs for TV, print and web and finally, post-production of independent film materials. In this sense, a 5.1 compatible control room would be “tip-top” for the future because there is a growing market in this country . In adition, it would be very nice (but not absolutely necessary) to have some extra space for a small bathroom (with a small shower), a 2-seat convertible sofa-bed and, just if it’s possible, a little desk for a laptop with internet for my clients to hang out while they’re waiting for the action. What I have... The place intended for the studio is an empty, unused building in my house, which is located in the semi mountanius surroundings of the city, the building is self contained, that is, that it doesn’t shares any outside wall with any other building. My closest neighbours are about 65m away, and my house is about 30m away from this building. Due to the touristic nature of the zone, its normal at weekends to clearly hear the music of the open air diversion places of the neighborhood in my living room (they have no sound control at all, and we have no serious legislation about noise in Venezuela), they are damn loud! This building is made of the most common construction material in the country: Hollow concrete blocks covered with plaster, even for the inner walls. By this time I am making some demolition work inside to get a “blank canvas” to raise the studio from, only interrupted by the columns that support the ceiling which is 3m high, WITH ABSOLUTE NO POSSIBILITIES OF GROWING! (check graphic #1, the numbered black squares are the places where the columns are, and they are 20cmX20cm). The entrance to the building can be placed anywhere between columns 7 and 10. Doors, windows and natural light: what a pain! As a designer and as a human been I really think that natural light it’s the key to work and live in a more efficient way (at least for me!). In adition, since Venezuela is a well placed piece of land at the heart of the Caribbean See, it would be a shame to not take advantage from having very white, bright and FREE light from 6 AM to 6 PM almost allover the year. Unfortunately for my design, I can only have windows on the front (columns 10; 11 and 12), and back (columns 1; 2 and 3) of the building (I need to keep the lateral walls because they’re the only place for growing the building in the future) but these windows can be as high as from ceiling to floor and as wide as from wall to wall. Here is one of my questions: How much glass can I have in these rooms to maximize the light coming from the biggest windows I can build in the front and back? and of course, how big can be these windows to the outside without making mayor sacrifices in the sound quality of the rooms? I’ve seen that the most implemented solution in this forum (mostly John Sayers’ designs) to maximize the light of the rooms and increase the comunication between the performers are the big glass sliding doors, and although I really like them, there is no way for me to find anything like that at any retailer in Venezuela, remember again that since wheather in this country is close-to-idyllic, there is no market for such things like double glass doors or windows and wheather strip, just to make an example of the worstest stuff for sound proofing that are even better than what we have here...nothing! Anyway, trying to keep things simple, I want to know if I can substitute the glass sliding doors with something like what is in the graphic #4. It consists in a solid wood door, about 5cm thick, with a big glass window in the middle, this glass is 1 cm thick (installed in the same way than a control room window) but since I am aming to use two of these doors front-on-front on each threshold, I’m still not shure if it’s a good idea to install double glass on each door (I’ve read somewhere that installing more than 2 layers of glass doesn’t means better sound control). Sugestions?, in any case, there will be at least a 25cm gap between doors. The custom shape of the door edges will fit exactly inside the threshold, even at the bottom part, like the doors of a bank safe, making a little footstep at every threshold (an ergonomical sacrifice aiming to correctly seal a door without using any automatic door bottom kit) installing first a magnetic rubber seal, very much like what you find in the refrigerator doors, and then a thick rubber strip. The door is about 80cm wide and the remaining space used by a normal sliding door will be completed with big windows. Again, is this a plausible substitution for the glass sliding doors? (thinking only in sound control, natural light transmision, and comunication between performers, I know very well that the sliding doors by itself will always look much better an be much more practical than anything builded by yourself) Construction materials available: Altough it’s not very common in this country, I’m aming to build every inner wall of the new studio with the classic combination of gypsum board and other dense materials just because it’s easier to work with, but not cheaper than concrete and masonry...some of you guys know a “better-than-gypsum” construction way using concrete and masonry?. I know by experience that even if the concrete hollow walls have much more mass than gypsum, correct use of gypsum and other materials gives far better results in sound control than concrete (in special when decoupling a room from other). For that pupose check graphics #2 and #3 which shows the scheme of the layers for walls, floors and ceiligs (I know that some times you get better results when using more layers, but this is what I can pay, and I think that it will archieve decent results in sound proofing for this kind of building), this schemes were extracted from the acoustics sugestions found in the Auralex web site. Of course, if some of you know something better (and proven) in this rank of construction, or a better construction technic, please let me know. For the studs and joists I can use either wood or metal because they cost almost the same in this country, but I’m not shure if the kind of metal studs in this market are efficient egough to offer improved resilent over wood (I don’t feel them with egough mass) . I’m posting on the graphic #5 a picture of the kind of metal studs found in Venezuela, can you tell me if are they the same used normally for a studio construction in other places of the planet? First sketch: Well, I spent some lines writing the pros and cons of what I can reach for building this studio, but this is the studio design forum and in what I really need is help in getting the most of the space available. I made an early sketch of what the space can be (graphic #7), based on what I need, trying hard to keep in mind everything I’ve learned trough a lot of quotes in this forum, of course, if you see something obviously or not wrong here, please give some advice. I started my drawings from a 5.1 control room design published before in this forum (graphic #6) that had almost the same dimensions of what fits between the columns, and then carefully dropped all the other rooms. What makes me unhappy about this design, is that this control room is intended for having fited instaled monitors in the walls I would feel myself more confortable having fully adjustable (and well decoupled) monitor stands. It's that possible? Other combinations could probably give as results a bigger control room or a better ergonomical distribution, the problem is that I can’t find all that by myself. Sharing diferents points of view about a topic often is the better way to find a better solution, so please help me! and from now, thanks. ANTONIO RIOS-MANRIQUE Karmahaus – Refugio Creativo – Produccion Audiovisual [removed] [removed] +58 / 251 / 717 0606

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