beginning a new studio design

Hello! I can't tell you how thankful I am to have discovered your site. Fantastic. Thank you in advance for your help. So, I'm building a studio in my basement. It is totally unfinished, and except for a number of columns running the middle length of the house, it is a 7 foot high large rectangle. I've done a smartdraw design, and attached it here as a jpeg. The existing walls are in thick, and my ideas for the shape are in thin lines. I guess I'll leave it at that for now, as I'm sure you'll have a lot of suggestions. I just got smartdraw today, so the drawing is rather rudimentary, but I think all of the basic numbers are there. Thank you so much David

since it doesn't appear so clear in the drawing - The main room as drawn there has dimensions 13'- 7 1/2" X 16' The control room is 10' -11 1/2" X 11' -8 1/3" hope that is clearer. Thanks David

OK David - firstly - don't think in terms of rectangular rooms - try to put some splayed walls into the control room. Another aspect is the center columns. It's really not hard to remove one if necessary and put a steel beam in to span the distance. Check with your builder as to how to do it. cheers john

John, Thanks, First- I'm doing the building myself, and on a budget. For both of those reasons, I don't think it is realistic to move the columns. Given the general dimensions, is the general idea that I'm working with going to work? And to avoid parallel walls on the short dimensions should not be so difficult, but what do I do about the long walls? How do I determine the angles of those walls, and the overall area/volumes of the room to avoid bad nodes? David

am I getting closer? I modeled the control room shape on the one you've got in your studio plans. Just a sketch really, so the angles aren't right yet, but perhaps getting there? David

Ah - now you are talking :):) The angles can be a minimum of 6 degrees, preferably 12. The monitors are at 30 degrees. cheers john

I'm beginning to refine my design, and I'll need to deal with the hvac. Right now, along the center beam of the house, on the recording room side of the beam are two things, an hvac 6 inch round duct that goes to the middle of the room and then into the ceiling to heat the living room upstairs, and a cold water pipe that runs from the side of the house to the water heater. I'll plan on putting both of these in a soffit, but do I need to do any special sound dampening to the HVAC And to heat both the control room and the recording room, I"ll need to run another duct each. So far I've been using uninsulated 6' round ducting. Other than wrapping those in insulation, what hsould I do to cut down on sound, and transmission? Where would you run those ducts? Thanks a ton David

Davidlavin wrote:

Where would you run those ducts?

existing HVAC is a pain in the ass to move, but if you can sling it up between joists, or along the perimeter of the room, you'll find it cuts into your studio space minimally. You can use flexi ducting (round flexible tubing about 12" or 16" diameter) its easy to sling around towards the outside of the room. The galvinized stuff is more work of course, but it screws together with gaskets so its just time consuming, not difficult.

yeah, I actually hung the original ducts. Unfortunately the joyces run perpindicular to the direction this one has to go... So I've run the first one along the main center beam of the house, whihc hangs donw 8 inches anyway, so I'll have to soffit it in. Is there a difference in sound transmisison between the flexible insulated ducting and normal? Are there products I can put in the duct itself to cut down on rattle etc.. they're kind of noisy as is. Thanks david