Studio Design Help... new space

Hi all... I want some input on a design... I have a space in my new home that is specifically for me to build my new studio in. Its not a huge space, but I do want to have area to record multiple instruments at once. Here is the basic area with measurements as well as my original idea for the layout. The area the enters the studio, ideally will be a vocal booth/airlock combination. Velvet Elvis

hi mate - booth 3 looks a bit strange - why not invert the whole plan so you enter the rear of the control room through the booth 3 space?? cheers john

John, Yeah I thought about that... I did it that way just for an airlock and to take care of that strange slanted wall in my basement. I can add a few pictures if it helps better understand. I thought it might also be a good way to get a small vocal booth area. One other thing I didn't mention, is that there is HVAC/plumbing all along the ceiling of the south wall (I will attach pictures). My thought for orientating the studio the way I did was that I could enclose those pipes/ducts in the wall where I would soffit mounting my speakers. The remainder of the ceiling is unobstructed. With the exception of needing to keep access (I'm planning on doing hinged panels) to a tub and shower drain (one in booth 1 and one in booth 2). Picture one shows the HVAC and pipes I want to enclose in the soffit mounths Picture two shows one of the tub drains I need to leave access to in the ceiling (hinged access panel) Picture three shows the slanted wall that I need to deal with (where booth 3 is drawn) - the photo is actually looking INTO the studio area... from the other portion of the basement. Velvet Elvis

Yeah - I see what you mean about the airlock - it really doesn't matter if you have the lower ceiling (because of pipes/ducts over the soffit or over the rear wall) so I'd still recommend you reverse the control room so you enter from the rear - especially of you want to soffit mount the speakers. You can still use the airlock as a booth. cheers john

John, Ok... I will try drawing it up that way. The pipes and ducts are ONLY on that one wall (luckily)... the rest of the ceiling will not have to be dropped. But I suppose I could build them into the wall containing the bass traps or slot resonators just as easily as I could build them into a wall with soffit mounted speakers. My other though for having the console face the opening was visibility for the airlock/vocal booth. If it were you designing the room, how would you lay it out? (taking into consideration the pipes/hvac and the access needed to drains in the ceiling of the north east and south east corners of the room). I appreciate the help! Velvet Elvis

I was thinking along this line :) cheers john

John, Thanks man.... that's cool. I'm still concerned about the HVAC etc along the south wall... if I build at an angle I'm going to have to do some funky stuff to build around it (I don't want to lower the whole ceiling, as the rest of the room doesn't have anything in the way and its 8 feet as it is). What if I were to take your plan and shift the control room back with the front and rear walls against the existing walls (rather than at an angle). I could still use the right wall angle for the drum/vocal areas. I'm REALLY like to keep space for my rack/producer's desk between my mix position and the couch in the back. Velvet Elvis

You can still have a rack behind you - even have a raised seating as well ;) cheers john

John, Fantastic... I'm liking it more and more... Couple of questions... I'm attaching a copy of your drawing in which I outlined where the HVAC was that I am concerned about. I'm not sure how to go about constructing the back wall you have proposed (at the angle) while taking into account the HVAC. I also notated where the three drains/water feeds were in the upstairs rooms that I need to have panel access to of some sort. Do you think I will be able to get decent isolation for the drums? or are they going to be annoyingly loud in the control room? Thanks, Velvet Elvis

Hey Velvet!!!!!

Whassup Frederic!?! What do you think of the design so far? Velvet

Honestly... I like it better "by far" than the designs you and I were doing "over there". I was wondering why you were so quiet and not into the paper cutout thing... now I know why. You got "pro" help :lol: I do like how the airlock became "just an airlock" rather than a booth of any sort...

Psssttt... I will still use it as a small vocal booth :oops: :lol: :wink: Yeah... I think it looks pretty decent... and so far it incorporates all of the things I wanted to see happen. I still have all of your ideas printed out too Frederic... I just thought I'd ask John as well... then see where it all falls. I'm ALMOST done with our loft at the house, then the next project is the studio :) Velvet Elvis

Cool. Don't worry, I'm glad you asked John. I've yet not to like one of his designs. I like how the console room is cock-eyed. What I don't get is why you want to walk through your console room to get to the other rooms. For me, thats just a disaster waiting to happen. Picture a drummer, carrying a bass drum with the legs attached and chipping your nice rack. I dunno, if that happened to me there would be one less drummer :shock: heh-heh. I'm just starting to move stringers up. Whats neat is I get two new stringers out of one of the old ones... Whats neat is I was worried cutting down the long stringers would weaken the structure - four of the 11 of them weren't even nailed in at one end (the outside soffit end). Imagine that. I haven't spent too much time up there today, the pest folks came this morning and sprayed the inside of the roof, the inside of the soffit, and the crawl space, so I can't get too much sawdust anywhere until it dries. I even updated my website with flash experiment II. Wait, I'm ruining your thread with my BS LOL.

Yeah I thought about the whole drummer scratching things issue... but my thought was the drums will be mainly stationary (IE - I have a kit). The other reason was that the likely hood of people walking in and out of the control room during sessions is probably a bigger concern... I mean you only carry the drums in once... but if you have to walk through the live room everytime you exit the studio, we'd have to stop sessions everytime someone wanted to go use the little boys room. Velvet

Gotcha - pee breaks probably happen more often than clumsy drummers passing through :D

You got it :) Plus this space is 90% for my own use only. I'm excited to get building on it... especially to see how good of STC I can get and what my 20/20's will sound like in a soffit mount. btw - your site is looking good... but PLEASE put a "return to home page" button on your construction page :) Velvet Elvis

There is a "return" button off the construction section... < goes back a picture, > goes forward a picture, and X returns to the main flash garbage :) I did notice that I forgot to do the hovers for those, maybe thats why it wasn't obvious. Sorry about that!

Yeah... I'm a guitarist by trait... so I can read... only drummers look at little pictures ;P

Hehehehehehe. You're as bad as me :D

John, If you get a chance, can you take a look at the drawing I included with the HVAC and let me know if your studio design mastermind has any ideas for how I can build the wall around those (since the control room is shifted at an angle to the HVAC run). Also... right now the outer walls are solid concrete (no windows) with 2x4 framing attached on the inside with insulation and a vapor barrier. The floor for the room above sits on top of the concrete using structural I-beams. Will I have to build the outer walls (left wall) for the control room over, or should I be able to treat the existing wall as the inside member of a double leaf wall (given the concrete on the outside)?? Thanks, Velvet Elvis

I agree it's better to walk through the control room to get to the studio than the other way around. I don't quite see your porblem with the HVAC - as I understand it you have ducts running underthe ceiling across the back wall, surely you can build around it - see attached pic. cheers john

John, Yeah I can build around them... but they are parallel agaist the existing wall... and the new back wall that you have drawn in the control room is at an angle to that... so, would I build just the section that needs to be lowered or would I ideally want to lower the entire back angled wall of the control room so that it looks/sounds symetrical etc.? Am I making sense? Its early :) (IE- I would only HAVE to drop the extreme southwest corner of the control room to clear the HVAC, but would it be better to drop the southwest AND southeast corners just to make it look better etc?) Also what do you think about the outer wall construction? Thanks! Velvet Elvis

Yeah - just make the rear ceiling symetrical to the room shape. As for the pipes you'll have to build access doors that seal up totally for access.

Also what do you think about the outer wall construction?

what is the outer wall construction?? cheers john

John, As it stands, the room is solid concrete walls... (no windows)... with a header on top of that and the I-beams mounted directly to that. The contractor then put 2x4s up against the concrete around the entire perimeter of the room. He insolated those and then put a vapor barrier over it (to hold it in place). These 2x4 walls do not hold the floor above, they are just to meet code.... but it is one wall system all the way around the perimeter of the room. My idea was to use this existing wall for the west (non slanted) wall of the control room... drywalling (multi layer) the outside of it... and then to build double wall construction for the isolation rooms. I am worried about having too many airgaps etc. Would the concrete act as one leaf of a double leaf wall? Velvet Elvis