loft space

Hey all, I'm getting ready to have a project studio built on the 2nd floor of my Father's new 2-car garage. The room's dimensions are 40'L x 24'W x 9'H (in the middle of the room -- see attached pictures). As you can see, the basic framing is pretty much finished, and the steel siding is starting to go up. My goals for this project are to have a well-isolated control room, and a live room for tracking and rehearsals. The band rehearsing in the space plays mostly rock music (2 guitars, bass, drums, vox). My construction knowledge is limited at best, but I can tell you that the walls consist of 6x6's spaced 8' apart, and the 2x4 studs are spaced 2' feet apart. The walls and ceiling will be covered with drywall and painted, and I will probably (but not for sure) go with a laminate for the floors. The stairway is located in the SW corner of the room. The open area above the ceiling will probably just be filled with insulation. My original plans involved building a wall parallel to the N and S walls, 10 feet from the N wall. This would create a 10'x24'x9' control room, and a 30'x24'x9' live room. That way, the room would be symmetrical, and the construction would stay very basic. I would like to treat the control room with absorptive materials as recommended by John, but the short E and W walls and angled ceilings make it difficult, especially for corner absorbers. So, my questions are: - What is an ideal size and location for the control room? - Because of the limited wall space on the E and W walls, would it make more sense to go with Ethan's style traps and mount them on the 45 degree angled walls or ceiling instead? - Is it more beneficial to have the wall that separates the control room from the live room be non-parallel with the N and S walls, or to have a perfectly symmetrical control room? Our budget is $3000-$4000 CDN for everything (floors, walls, lighting, etc.) Please let me know if I've left out too much info. I'm grateful for any help/advice you guys can give to me. Thanks, Mitch

Can you provide a simple drawing of you thinking for laying out the space?

Hi Mitch- Congrats on starting a new project! This is a great place with tons of info for the picking. 1 - I'd recommend purchasing Rod's book from Amazon. Great info that will answer a lot of your questions and put a lot of info you read here into context. 2 - I'd say you might be best served starting this first as a design thread in John's Design forum, getting a solid idea and drawing of how you'd like to build out and then come back with that info. That will give folks here a lot more info to work with to help you. Also, you mention steel siding, is this exterior? Basically, my suggestion would be to leave as much "unfinished" in the space itself untul you have a very clear idea of how you're going to build this out. It'll save you the time and money involved in undoing something that doesn't jive well with your goals. I hope this helps a little. Good luck!

I just got sketchup and haven't really figured out how to use it, so forgive me for the crappy drawing. Mitch P.S. the log carpet represents where stairs will be. :oops:

Thanks for the replies , everyone. I have done a great deal of reading and researching project studio design. If I were building inside a completely rectangle building, I wouldn't need nearly as much advice, but since the shape of the room is rather unique, I decided to turn to this board for some more assistance. Yes, the steel siding is exterior. :) I've got F. Alton Everest's "How to Build A Small Budget Recording Studio From Scratch", and that's got some great info too, but none of the designs are similar to what I have to work with. Thanks, Mitch

You may also have the challenge of gravity, being that you're not building on the ground floor... :roll: ...so be sure you calculate everything very carefully so that you not overload your floor and end up having it crash down into the garage in a most horrific engineering disaster! :!: I'm not kidding. Please be careful. Perhaps isolation is not a concern -- your comments/questions so far have to do with treatment rather than soundproofing... :roll: --Keith :mrgreen:

I hadn't given that serious consideration... thanks for the advice, Keith. I asked about treatment because I am less clear on what my course of action should be in relation to that. It would be easy to use on of John's designs if the ceiling was 9' no matter where you stand, but the short walls and angled ceiling create confusion as to how the trapping should be handled. While a well isolated control room is one of my goals, it's also something that I have a better grasp on how to accomplish. I've also thought about having my monitors face the North wall, and splaying the E and W walls, creating a wide control room as opposed the long design I originally planned. That way, I can keep the CR symmetrical. Does any of this make sense, or am I a helpless case? :roll: Thanks again, Mitch