My new recording studio (needs some help)

Thank you guys for such an amazing site. I really wish I would have found it sooner, however, since I haven't started building I thought I would post some of my initial ideas and would love to have your input. I live about 20-30 feet from my nearest neighbor and was planning to build a personal recording studio in the back of my house from the ground up. I will mostly be recording bands. In addition, I will be building in a small storage space for lawn mower, tools, etc.. One of my challenges is cost. Since last year's hurricanes, the cost of materials and labor in Louisiana have gone through the roof. I want to make sure that the design is not only sonically good, but will be as affordable to build as possible. I would like to be below $50K if possible. A friend of ours drew up these plans for me. I am not sure if this is the best room layout. Secondly, I'm not sure if having a vaulted ceiling is the best way to go for sound or cost purposes. Any suggestions??? Thanks in advance. Regards, Rick Baton Rouge, LA

Anybody??

Welcome to the forum! I'm not the expert around here, and I'm far from a design guru. Hopefully John can chime in with some thoughts when he can. Off the top, I'd say your 2x6 walls are not sufficient. You should do double framed walls -- using separate 2x4 frames for each side. Also, the farther apart the frames are from each other, the better isolation you'll get. If they're five inches apart, your leaves will be 12" apart (3 1/2" stud, plus 5" of space, plus 3 1/2" stud), filled with insulation of course. Have you seen some of the designs that John has come up with over the years and some of the "tricks" he uses to get things symmetrical in control rooms without wasting a lot of square footage? He's a genius when it comes to that stuff. Often you can come up with an idea, and he can make it better with a twist here and a tuck there. Buy Rod's book. You'll be so glad you did. I wish it had been available when I started my planning -- it would have saved me a lot of painful hours on the laptop! Consider isolated slabs in your case, with deep (12"+) footings along the edges of each room. This is covered in Rod's book. Also, up the depth of the slab to 6" and use rebar, not a wire mesh. And just for fun, throw in some fibermesh! That's what I did in my project. Hopefully that's enough to at least help you feel acknowledged ;-) and to get you book buying. And hopefully others will contribute as well. (Bear in mind we're coming off of a holiday weekend here in the states, so that may explain the lack of action on your thread thus far.) --Keith :mrgreen:

Hi Keith, Thanks so much for your reply. I will order Rod's book soon. Question for you: In regards to your suggestion for the double framed walls: is this purely for isolation or will it also help the sound inside of the room? The reason that I ask is that I will be about 50 feet from the nearest neighbor. My other thought was that I would use brick for the exterior to help with sound leakage. Of course, I know that going with the double walls will also help with isolation between the control room and live room. I may re-lay out the entire design especially if John thinks there might be a better layout for me with the amount of space I am working with. Thanks again for the input, Rick

Rick - couple of suggestions. 1 - you have to get your skins correct. The studio skin should be totally isolated from the rest of the building as I've drawn. There's no need to isolate the bathroom or the mower storage. The dividing wall I've included should go floor to ceiling and is connected to the outerwalls. 2 - put some angles into your rooms as I've drawn. cheers john

Thanks John. Couple of questions for you: 1. Do you think I need to go double frame on the walls? Is that what the black lines indicate? THANKS for your time. 2. Is the vaulted ceiling going to be better for sound than a regular 12ft ceiling? Regards, Rick

Yes Rick - I was following your plan that had an internal frame 6x2. I'm just suggesting it's a waste of money to isolate the other area of the building (bathroom etc) The high vaulted ceiling would be nice in the studio but it's expensive following all the angles. I wouldn't bother in the control room if you can get 12' ceiling height. - your plan doesn't show the wall heights.