I'm building a new studio

Hi I took the important step and decided to build a home studio. The project is only at the baby phase, but I have made up some basic design specifications that I've placed on my web site at: http://www.dog-on-blues.co.za/dob_studio/dob1.html I will ask for lots of advice as the project progress. I'm still trying my best to get hold of an architect and acoustic engineer to advice me on the project. It does not seem like this is such an easy step as I thought!

Well you have come to the right place. John is an exceptional studio designer, etc.... Take a GOOD look around the site and I am sure you will learn quite a bit about what you are looking for. Bryan Giles

Thank Bryan I had a good look around here. I joined here because John is giving such great advice to the people. Unfortunately I'm not very technically inclined and half the stuff you guys are talking about is way over my head. I will be learning fast as the project progress though! -Eric

How deep down the rabbit hole are you going? Do you want a temporary space mod or a permanent build? Then we can guide you accurately. Bryan Giles

This is going to be permanent. I'm gonna rebuild my garage and soundproof it. I post only a link to the photo here to save John's bandwidth (100kb) http://www.dog-on-blues.co.za/dob_studi ... _view1.jpg This is only one option. The more detailed work that needs to be done is in the link above, but at this stage I'm only at the "soundproof walls"etc. stage. I will see an architecht on Tuesday morning. I had some discussions on the phone with the acoustic engineer, but he does not sound very enthusiastic. Hope to check both of them out next week and decide on making appointments. I'll wait for their opinion and will test it with you here çause I'm not so sure if any of them really know what they are doing. Only if you guys tell me it's OK I'll trust them with anything.

What is missing however are the Dimensions. be sure to include ceiling ht Bryan Giles

Eric, Well, you definitely have your work cut out for you. Acoustically speaking, your garage dimensions are very nearly the worst imaginable! :) Small = bad. Width = Height = Length/2 = very bad. But you've come to the right place. I'm sure everyone here will help you make the best of it! :D So, what is your budget and how far are you willing to go as far as construction? Also, do you have any major noise considerations?.... like noise getting in from the outside, or sound getting out and disturbing neighbors and family? Thomas

Yeah, the dimentions is a stinker. Good I've come here before starting to change anything. Maybe I can still do a little about it. I have to close the garage door, but do not necceserally have to build the new wall in the same place, do I? By moving that wall inside a bit I can solve the one problem (WX2=L). The current ceilig is plywood and can be moved up or down, but that would not be solid. The roof is a tiled roof (standard triangular type). If I go this route, how much should I move the wall in and the ceiling down? I saw the guidelines here are about 1 : 1.14 : 1.39 (HWL) or making maximum use of the length I can use 1 : 1.6 : 2.33, but this will lower the roof too much! Another general guideline I saw is to make the inside absorbant (dead sounding) for such a small space. If so, I can still ask the designer to incorporate that part easilly. Does this all make sense or am I just confusing myself?

Sorry, just after posting the above message I though of another better sollution: I can add another partition inside for a vocal recording booth to change the dimentions. What would the best way be to go about? I was thinking about a thick double glass partition. Would that work at all?

The one possible design I like is a design John posted in another post here. My garage is a lot smaller than the one mentioned in that post, but I want to play around with that idea a bit.

Still waiting on those room sizes.... meters or feet we all convert. LOL Bryan Giles

OK, here they are, measured this morning with a measure tape Inside measurements: W=296, L=535, H=280 (cm) I want to build a new entrance to the studio from the home, measurements still negotiable: Some idea of the finished product.

Hey, Bloodhound - you mentioned 24cm thick walls - what are they made of, and are they airtight? Any other details of roof, ceiling, floor, etc, will all help reach a solution. And you're right, do NOT rely on local help to "get it right" - unless they have successful studio type construction experience, or at least the willingness to listen, odds are they will screw up your project if allowed to make decisions... Steve

The ceiling is the "standard" ceiling board nailed to the standard wooden beams. I think it's only about 1cm thick (haven't been up there). The roof construction is (from the house plans): Cevering: concrete tiles Battens: 36X36 @360mm Rafters 114X38@685mm Pitch 26 degr (Not that any of that makes sense to me :? All I know it is triangular shaped if viewd from the entrance side.

So a room that is 17' x 10' roughly. <img src="http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/images/Garage%202.gif" /img> Is a cool design to use, just adjust it to fit. I'd do a minimum of 11' for the control room depth and the remainder for the vocal booth. Makes a tight vocal booth but you have decent room to work in the studio. My CR was 13x10 and I have enuff room for about 5 people (I did a session of this size) and it worked pretty well. Tight but effective. So 2 people will be cool. Bryan Giles

Eric, Since you're willing to build that entrance, how about going even further and extending it as working space in order to make a nice size control room? The red dashed line represents where you would tear down the wall and span a structural beam to bear the weight of the roof. Thomas

Bryan & Thomas, thanks for these design. Bryan, when I had a look at the SAE designs, I thought about a combination between the garage 201 & garage 202 designs. The new door however got in the way with both. Then Thomas came up with an even better plan. That is a great way of looking at it. It will add cost, but there may be a payback. Initially I thought I'd be able to go for the short extention as that will not be necesary to extend the roof on that design. Had a chat to the architect today and he recons I should just use a flat rooftop for the extention. Bad news is that he os not interested in taking on the job (too small job for him). He will however give me the right references to acoutic engineers to do the job myself. Budget wise, I got a rough idea now (+- SAR 50,000, i.e. +- $10,000). That is still pretty much within the range I can afford, but somehow I think I must be on the safe side and budget for more. I'm getting a second opinion next week. Now that I have some idea which way to look, I want to start to explore the materials. Should I post that in a seperate new post? What I basically want to know is: "How much STC is required?". That is the the sound absorband value for the inner walls. I can pretty much figure out that about the 50's is the norm for the various wall designs, but is there really a big difference between 48 or 52?

I MOVED IN :D :D My new studio furniture and new computers will arive next week. In the mean while I moved my old desk into the studio. The control area: The recording area: Check out the progress from start to finish

Server says a bunhc of the photos are missing Bryan Giles

It display fine here. Try the link. http://www.dog-on-blues.co.za/studio/photos/Studio1.htm Maybe this server will not allow direct links to photos.

everything from April 14 on down just shows broken images Bryan Giles

Matter of fact here is the msg I am getting Not Found The requested URL /studio/photos/Apr25\P1010006.jpg was not found on this server. Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Thanks for reporting that. I just checked it and it works for me. Do you use Mac or PC? I wonder if my naming conventions are compattible with all browsers. Alternatively the problem may lie with server bandwidth (the server is located in South Africa). I'll drop a note to the ISP about this as well.

I can see them just fine, but here are the pics I'm seeing: http://www.dog-on-blues.co.za/studio/ph ... 010013.jpg http://www.dog-on-blues.co.za/studio/ph ... 010008.jpg I don't see any reference to P1010006.jpg at all. Bryan, maybe Eric updated his post and you need to hit refresh? Thomas

I have my furniture (most of it) and my computers now!! The mickey curtains are temporary only :lol: