New studio in Upstate New York - Update 12/30/2006

So, it's my first time actually posting, and i've got a pretty ambitious project coming up. So here goes - I hope i can give enough information and don't break any of the rules. Our warehouse/studio building and land were just purchased, and since we're on a month to month lease, the new owner's plan doesn't include us. Now we're being relocated and we've found a great new building with twice as much space and it's just better built. Now the only problem is constructing a brand new studio from scratch in an empty space. Here's what we've got to work with: Location - Upstate NY just outside of Rochester. New Dimensions Size - 43' wide by 42' 6" long by 17' tall. This is the area that is going to be dedicated to the studio. The constraints within this are a couple of doors on the exterior walls that we need to fit into the plan - That's it. It's free open space - no wiring, no pipes, no poles, no columns, no nothing - just clear area. The floor is thick poured concrete that is smooth as glass. For cost issues, we're talking about staining the concrete short term before we go full bore with floor treatments of carpet and hardwoods. The long walls are interior walls that separate this planned studio area from warehouse space. The whole building is roughly 60' deep and 200' in length. The long wall that contains an opening is our entrance into our warehouse. The facing long wall with no openings in it is not currently built. It is going to separate our area from the building owners personal space. If it needs to move a foot or 2, it's probably not the end of the world, but the building owner might get angry if we keep muscling into his space. The short wall that contains an opening is the entrance into the studio from the parking lot. In the rear of this space are 2 bathrooms, a utility area with water heater that will be turned into a kitchenette, and a loft office area. This portion of the building will remain unchanged. We talked about running a 5' wide hallway from the bathrooms, around to the utility area, and then down the "warehouse wall" to the front corner, and finishing just to the side of the entry door. Kind of like a big rediculous S shape. The only thing we don't like about this is the amount of lost space to hallways - but we don't want to have to walk through multiple rooms to get places. We have a couple floor plans, but nothing that we're very happy with so far. Goals: We would like to fit a really nice control room, primary tracking room, 2 isolation booths, and a lounge area within this open space. If not possible to fit 2 isolation booths, than one large iso will probably suffice. Traffic flow and isolation within the structure are important - sound leakage to the outside world is not necessarily a concern. The entire building is post frame on a poured 6" concrete floor. Lots of insulation throughout the structure. We're talking about starting construction within the next few months to have a studio that will be ready to track bands by late 2006. Most of the bands we deal with are local metal and rock acts. The budget is up in the air - it's kind of going to be a "whatever it takes" kind of thing. We've roughly budgeted $10,000 USD for materials and doing construction ourselves. If i need more information, let me know - I've included a sketchup and a picture for those that just want to look. We're looking for anyone to give us some input to push us in the direction of what to do. The layouts we have come up with aren't bad, but again, we're not really happy with any of them and we're looking for fresh eyes to approach the project. If anyone wants, i'll include sketchups of our latest "design", but i'd rather get new input instead of trying to rehash what we've thrown around. Thanks in advance, Brian[/b]

Hi Brian - yes the hallways really restrict the area if you want, as you should, access without going through the rooms. Here's my take on it - something along these lines. cheers john

Definitely a new take on what we've been running through our heads.. Let me ask a couple questions though if i might and see if we can work it into the plan. The only thing missing, and again this is due to space constraints, is our band lounge. They've got bathrooms, they've got a kitchen.. yet they don't have any place to go to get the heck out of my control room when I'm trying to get those awesome drum takes. Two thoughts: Can you work up a plan that perhaps does the hallways in a different fashion, or if given just the open blank space, what would you do. And, does moving the control room to the corner where the drum room is gain us anything in terms of freeing up more space. There is roughly 18 feet along that front wall where the entrance door is to the outside wall. this counts the lightswitches (that can be moved around if necessary.) I'm having a hard time getting it to sketchup the way i wanted.. I'll try and work on one tonight to show you what we had originally envisioned. I'm thinking that th elounge is going to cut into the design way more than we want it to... perhaps i can relocate it on the other side of the firewall into the warehouse area. We've got an area about 48' by 59' on that side that i could probably relinquish a small section over there for that duty. Let me know what ya think. And if we lose the hallway or at least some of it, what would you propose. Thanks again. I know it's a lot of brainwork. - Brian

I was already doing it as I realised there was no lounge and I appreciate the need for a getaway room. something like this. cheers john

Why not incorparate the lounge area with the hallways between the two doors... kinda like shrinking the live room in John's earlier pic to make a lounge in that corner? Is it important for the lounge to be away from the doors? FWIW, Mark.

I'd like to get the lounge as far away from any recording rooms as possible... perhaps to the point of moving them into a different state, or at least another building. :D Here's a mock up of what we had thought about originally. But I'm thinking that the sizes of the rooms might be restrictive? Bear in mind also that the current studio we're working in is nothing close to this. It's a 12x11 control room with a 7 1/2 foot ceiling. The same thing for our drum room, and a 12x24 foot lounge/office/other tracking space. We can still get great results from the rooms we are already dealing with, but i wanted a proper control room. We know how to work it to make the projects sound great, but, i'd rather the room worked for me instead of compensating for the rooms inherent problems. Take a look at the following, and let me know if you think it's workable. I'm still trying to get rid of the lounge in this space, but don't know if that will be possible.

We recently were able to get more space than originally intended for our studio which we hope to start construction of in the next few weeks. The larger space has allowed for a lot of modifications to the original plan, including moving the band lounge to a space that makes more sense and will be quieter. All of the recording spaces can be moved around and we think we came up with a better plan. I've included some sketchups and a jpg of the newer space. The real problem that we have run into at this point is control room dimensions. we were working with a model that was 22 feet long, 14 feet wide at the window end, 18 feet wide at the rear wall, and a ceiling that varied from 10 feet to 12 sloping up from the mix position. Quite honestly, we're not sure what dimensions really work best - from looking at recording studios around the world, it seems that personal taste weighs in more than any real design. Can you achieve good sound from any practical space? In any event, We're stumped. We need some help from the regulars on the forum. It looks like my control room is too big in the sketchup, compared to the other rooms. but perhaps it isnt. I'd also like to fit in one more iso booth - just wasn't sure where. The new dimensions of the overall space that is open is currently: Width: 43 Feet Depth: 42 1/2 Feet Height: 17 Feet In the sketchups and jpg we've allowed a five foot hallway running from entry to lounge - the dead space between lounge and drum room will become either storage for media or equipment, or a machine room. If you need any other information that wasn't in my original post, please ask. I think i included all the forum basics in that one. Oh - just noticed - it looks like i forgot to blow out a window in the control room - just imagine the window facing the drum room... We like this plan, but we think some of you professionals might have better insight. We're gearheads and audio engineers - not design enthusiasts. And we're grateful for any help or suggestions you might be able to provide. Thanks in advance

Starting construction this week. Well, ordering some materials and sizing everything up at least. Pictures will be forthcoming as soon as we get everything laid out. We could still use some help on overall control room dimensions - I understand the optimal ratios - but how does that work when building a room that is NOT a rectangle? Right now we're worried that the control room and drum room in the last design we have (see above post) are actually too big. Is there any such thing as too big when it comes to recording and listening spaces? If you have to have a control room with a depth of >30 feet to reproduce a 20Hz wave accurately, then should we go bigger than what we've alotted as we have the space? or does it really matter? In the grand scheme of things, how much can be compensated for by good audio engineering and proper sound treatment. I used to work in a 12'x11'x7' high box and recorded in the same. We had great results there as well - and no real proper construction with anything. Now we're talking about building it the right way, so we're hoping that results can only improve? I hope we're not headed for disaster :) We could really use some input from everyone here. Till tomorrow (probably), Too many questions... so little time.