Need help with basement design

I hope everyone had a good New Year’s! This will be my first actual post. I am a complete newbie so please be patient with my long post and ignorant questions. I have been looking at this site for a long time and think it is a great source of information. I have learned a lot through my approximate 40 hours of research, but have also thoroughly confused myself with information overkill, hence the need for the post. I am trying to build a basement studio and have some questions about my design. As you can see from my first design attempt, my goal is to have the classic two room studio. The isolation booth is the rectangle room with the angled wall; the control room is the one where I will have to frame around some existing plumbing. The isolation room is currently designed to be 7’ x 7’5” x 8’. The control room is 11’x 9’ x 8’. The green in the drawing is existing concrete walls. The basement is finished but this particular room currently is not. The two outside yellow walls are currently in place. The north wall is a hallway wall; the west wall is a game/home theater room. Those two walls were previously constructed with ½” drywall on both sides and no insulation. My goal of the isolation booth is to have it “slightly” isolated from the control room. My definition of “slightly” is that computer, HVAC, and rack gear noise will not make it from the control room into the studio/isolation booth. I would also like to be able to monitor via my speakers vs. headphone while tracking drums, vocals, or a cranked up Marshall amp. I could care less if sound leaks through the ceiling or from the isolation booth to the next room. I am only looking to isolate the wall between the isolation booth and the control room. I live in a rural neighborhood so I am not concerned about the neighbors either. Since I realize I am lousy at construction, I decided to hire a contractor to help. Since my budget is tight we have to deviate from most of the recommended construction techniques. My fear is that this will render all of my isolation efforts useless per all the threads I have read. I will not be floating the floors or walls. I will not be using any RC to hang the drywall and ceiling. I will have two layers of 5/8” drywall with R-13 insulation. My contractor claims to have some rubber material he wants to place between the two layers of dry wall for further transmission loss. I will be using the recommended acoustical caulk and plan on sealing the doors according to the recommendations I have read here. The wall between the control room and the isolation room will be a double wall design with a 2-3” air gap. The window will be constructed per the recommendation of http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... nant+glass Once the studio is built, I do plan on tuning both rooms with home made or retail acoustic treatment. I hope that is enough background, now for my questions!! 1. Should I just design this room as one big room vs. two rooms, per my transmission loss concerns above? 2. I could use the funds I save in not building two rooms and purchase an isolation rack for my PC and rack gear that makes noise. Should I just do that instead? 3. I would like to track drums in the isolation booth and am concerned about the overall size of that room. Is it two small for drums the way I have it design now? 4. I am thinking I should extend it out another foot or so making the overall dimensions 8’ X 7’5” X 8’. Will that be large enough for 6 piece drum kit, mic stands, cable, etc.? 5. Will the drums sound o.k. recorded in that small of a room? If I do extend it out, I plan on having a 3’6” angled wall (on the south side of the drawing near the bay widow) before I cut across the rest of the room with the double wall. I hope that still leaves enough room for a drum kit. I would also make that angled wall the one with the window. That moves my mix position to the bay window area. Now for some construction related questions: 1. Since I am not floating any walls or floors, will the double wall between the vocal booth and the control room help with transmission loss? Any guess at the STC that I will achieve? 2. Is it worth the effort to build that wall with a double wall design? 3. Should I just make it a single wall with 2 layers of 5/8 on each side? 4. Will it have any transmission loss since the rest of the walls and ceilings aren’t decoupled? 5. If it does have some transmission loss, will it be enough to allow me to monitor with my speakers vs. closed circumaural headphones while a musician is laying down tracks? 6. Would using RC be worth it? I decided not to use it due to budget constraints, Should I bite the bullet and use it any way? 7. What about using RC in just the isolation booth? That might help with the costs. 8. Do I need it in the ceiling even though I don’t care if sound leaks to the first floor? 9. Is the mix area in the right spot for either design? Feel free to recommend a better spot that will help with standing waves and provide some natural diffusion. To make thing more fun, my contractor called and said he want’s to start on Tuesday, so I’m in a slight panic mode. Any help provided before then will be greatly appreciated.

any chance of posting a drawing we can actually read the dimensions on?? cheers john

Thanks for the reply John. The only drawing I have is the hard copy that the contractor gave me. I made a copy of it and noted the dimensions by hand for you. I cropped the image a bit so you can see it better. All ceiling heights will be 8'.

maybe something like this? cheers john

I'm quite concerned about your contractor's drawings... Specifically, the areas I outlined with "universal not" symbols I added below -- the areas between the control room and the room on its left. It appears the leaves are fused together at these points. If you rush the construction -- if you allow your contractor to begin building before you've had the opportunity to study more here to be able to design for isolation and thus be able to effectively supervise the construction, you're almost guaranteed to be disappointed. There are many horror stories on the forum here about rushed construction gone awry. I'm assuming that since you don't yet have a design finalized that you don't yet have permits. Don't miss my "Permits, Codes, Licenses -- and WHY YOU SHOULD CARE!" thread. My recommendation is that you slow down and proceed when you're ready. That means telling your "let's start on Tuesday" contractor to chill out so you can get your ducks lined up.

Sharward, Thanks for the great advice I really appreciate you jumping in to help. I have read your thread on your own project and have learned a lot. :) Let me clarify some things on the drawing:

I'm quite concerned about your contractor's drawings... Specifically, the areas I outlined with "universal not" symbols I added below -- the areas between the control room and the room on its left. It appears the leaves are fused together at these points.

The drawing was drawn incorrectly by the contractor per our first design together prior to either of us understanding decoupling. We do plan on having a 2-3" air gap between the two walls and will construct them per all the threads in the reference area. The window between the two rooms will built following the instructions in this thread - http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... c&start=15

I'm assuming that since you don't yet have a design finalized that you don't yet have permits. Don't miss my "Permits, Codes, Licenses -- and WHY YOU SHOULD CARE!" thread.

We do have permits that were approved on the original drawing, I am just having a last minute wish of being able to track drums in the isolation booth area. The good news is that my contractor is a musician who wants to add “studio building” to his repertoire. We both have killed a few trees printing off all the great material form this site. :lol: I am fearful of doing it wrong, and am questioning if I should even make an effort with some of the construction techniques I have learned..

If you rush the construction -- if you allow your contractor to begin building before you've had the opportunity to study more here to be able to design for isolation and thus be able to effectively supervise the construction, you're almost guaranteed to be disappointed.

Agreed, unfortunately no matter how much time I spend on this site I can’t afford to build a real studio. My overall goal of the studio is to have a nice area to learn the art of recording, as you can tell by now I don’t have much studio experience just a lot of questions at this point. Back to the design: I think the way I originaly designed it will be too small for a drum kit. Since you are a drummer your feedback on how big of a room is needed will be appreciated. The drummer in my band wants an 8x8 room to track drums. I think I might be able to accomplish that by moving that double wall a few more feet into the control room. If I do that I'm concerned about having a big standing wave issue by having some parallel walls at the new mix position. (moved to the bay window) So my main concerns are: Is it worth it to have an isolation booth at all due to short cuts I have to make as stated in my original post? I fear that when listening to someone lay down tracks, it’s going to leak over so bad that it is not even worth it. Will having only one wall built per recommendation on this site make a difference? Every one I have asked “in the business” to this point thinks it is worth the effort, I am the one who is paranoid. :? I don’t care if the rest of the house can hear everything going on; I am just looking for a respectable db drop between the two rooms. Any guess at what it will be?

throttle wrote:

Thanks for the great advice I really appreciate you jumping in to help. I have read your thread on your own project and have learned a lot. :)

Glad to help -- on both fronts! :)

The drawing was drawn incorrectly by the contractor per our first design together prior to either of us understanding decoupling. We do plan on having a 2-3" air gap between the two walls and will construct them per all the threads in the reference area.

Outstanding! :D Oh, and by 2-3" air gap, I'm assuming you're referring to the gap between the frames. If you're using nominal 2x4s which measure 3.5", that's 3.5" + 2-3" + 3.5" = 9-10". Since drums are involved, if you can bump that to a 5" gap between frames, you'll have 12" of air space and that's going to give you better isolation at the low end. If you can afford to lose those extra few inches (and, really, I doubt you'd miss 'em), you should.

I'm assuming that since you don't yet have a design finalized that you don't yet have permits. Don't miss my "Permits, Codes, Licenses -- and WHY YOU SHOULD CARE!" thread.

We do have permits that were approved on the original drawing, I am just having a last minute wish of being able to track drums in the isolation booth area.

Kudos to you for pulling permits! 8) And I offer my sincere apologies for assuming incorrectly! :roll:

The good news is that my contractor is a musician who wants to add “studio building” to his repertoire. We both have killed a few trees printing off all the great material form this site. :lol:

That's excellent! :twisted:

I am fearful of doing it wrong, and am questioning if I should even make an effort with some of the construction techniques I have learned.

You'll be OK... Just keep the drawings coming, and when you start building, make sure to post lots of pictures as you go along -- your back is covered around here. :-)

I think the way I originaly designed it will be too small for a drum kit. Since you are a drummer your feedback on how big of a room is needed will be appreciated.

Actually, I'll abstain from answering that, because in reality I have only "tracked" drums once before, when I was a teen. I think the studio design folks around here can better advise you on that. Much may depend on how big the kit is -- obviously, Mike Portnoy's "Purple Monster" would need a lot more space than my set! :lol: I'm also going to leave your other questions for others to answer, since I'm not into "the whole 'recording' thing." That's a whole can of worms I'd rather not touch -- for the time being, anyway! :lol: I'm looking forward to seeing your project come together. Sorry if I came across as a downer there -- but we've seen so many projects rushed on this forum -- and the heartaches that inevitably follow -- that it sometimes takes a little "tough love" to get the points across. Anyway, that being said, my advice to slow things down still applies. ;-) --Keith :mrgreen:

Thanks for the great advice Keith. Based on your advice, I am going to go move forward with a vocal/isolation booth. :D My only question now is how large should I make it? :? Anyone else want to chime in? If I leave the vocal booth as designed (7' by 6') I will have plenty of room to put a couch in my control room. If I extend it out a few feet, my control room will be cramped, plus I will have to move my mix position. BTW - I can track drums in the other rooms of the basement via a long snake. My two other rooms are much bigger 22' by 10' and 27' by 15'. All rooms with 8’ ceilings. Any experienced recording engineers or drummers want to chime in?

Forgot to add... I will defiantly start posting some pictures as I start the project. :D I will also build the wall between the two rooms with at least a 12" air gap. John or anyone else, Any chance you can answer my question on how large to make the iso booth?