Studio In New House Design

We are about design a new house and we want to incorporate a studio into the design. We are going to be meeting with the architect in a few days and wanted to get some preliminary answers to a few questions I have. The studio will be used for recording and mixing of live bands as well as serving as a practice for our existing band. We will be taking on outside clients so a seperate enterance to the studio is essential. The house is going to be build on 1/2 lot with a a walkout basement. The nearest house will be approximately 30 feet away so isolation is a main concern. Our initital thought was to excavate under the garage for the studio portion and the create a lobby, lounge, and main enterance in a portion of the walkout section. The initial thought is to have a 3.5 extra deep garage. That would give an approximate area of 38-40 feet by 22-25 feet for the studio portion. Also since it would be underneath the garage, a natural sound buffer would occur between the garage itself and the upstairs of the house. Also the majority of the walls of the studio would be concrete foundation. I am trying to determine if this would be more cost effective or it would be better to build ground level off the main house instead. I am thinking excavating under the garage would be more efficient and more cost effective, but that is just a guess. Here are some basic questions. Will this be enough square feet for the control and live rooms with isos? If so, do they have to be that large? The lounge and bathroom can be in another part of the basement so I am not concerned about that. Will this space allow a large enough tracking room for a nice drum sound? How do you determine the optimal ceiling height. A normal high pour in our area is 9'. We have talked to builder about going 10' for the whole basement. That would be not be a problem, it is just a matter of cost. We could also 12' under the excavated part of the garage and then have the rest of the basement either at a 9' or 10' pour to get more height in the studio section. I don't know where the acoustic tradeoff in height is at. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I wanted to get some ideas before we started anything serious with our architect. Doing my initial homework at this stage with a fresh canvas will be a lot better than trying to retrofit something later. Thanks so much.

I suppose the underground basement is part of the American culture, we rarely build basements here in Australia. ;) Unfortunately most of the basements also have inbuilt problems like jack posts to hold up the house, low restricted ceiling heights creating isolation problems because the rest of the house is only one wall away above you, HAVC laundry and plumbing/pipes problems, restricted access for gear loading and aircon fresh air etc. I could go on - get the idea?? cheers john

Is a standalone building out of the question? That's the ideal scenario really.

John, I get the idea about the basement being a problem that is why I was thinking of it being under the garage. There would be no house mechanicals under that space, no posts most likely. It would be a very clear underground space. I was planning on having the studio part have it own HVAC system and electrical that is not tied to the regular house. Yes, we like basements in my part of the country. They are great way to get more space economically. Having a walkout is great also. A stand alone structure wouldn't be allow since it is a residential area and access from the main house would be important for us.

John, I also noticed in a lot of your designs, you create a seperate drum booth. With that design, how is one able to achieve nice roomy drum sounds? Or do you then put the drum kit in the live room and use the booth for another purpose during those sessions? Or do you have it that if you leave the door to the drum booth open that miking the live room will create the desired sound? Thanks.

Just bumping it up. Any help would be greatly appreciately. We are meeting with the architect next week. Thanks.

sorry Joe, and everyone else, I'm laid out with Kiwi Flu (so they call it) running on sudafed and flat out like a goanna. :cry:

John, Sorry to hear you are sick. Summer flu is the worst. I did some research and the builder would Spancrete to create the basement over the garage. With Spancrete there would be no post or bearing poles in the space underneath the garage. I was ballparking a 3 plus car extra deep garage, rought 38-40 feet by 25 feet so. Hope you get better soon. Thanks.

It's winter down where he's at. :) It must be nice to be able to design your house from the start with a studio in mind. ;)

After our initial discussion with the architecht, the studio room is going under the garage. In our area they use a product call Spancrete that allows you to span the entire excavated area with no support posts and can hold the weight of the cars park above. The rough design calls for a space of 39' wide by 23' deep. No posts. Basically a rectangle. Since 3 of the walls will be part of the house foundation, the concrete wallls and the earth will help with the isolation. Also there will be no living space above the studio, just the garage. The pour of the excavated space will be 11' which should allow the ceilings to come in just over 10' when finished.

Do you feel that a 39'x23' space would be enough to create a comfortable control room, so iso, and a really nice sounding live room for tracking drums? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Very interested in John's take on the drum booth question earlier in the thread. Thanks so much. I am digging this forum a great deal.