Studio With Piano in Control Room

Hi-- My name is Doug Robinson, and my wife and I are building our first house in central rural Mexico (San Miguel de Allende). The house will have a separate recording studio, approximately 850 square feet. Building costs down here are around $75 per square foot. If I can get what i want within 750 square feet, even better, but I don't want to make a mistake and cheat myself out of as much space as I need. Speaking of needs...I have some special ones, so most of the designs that I've seen--all designs, actually--won't work for me. I will lay out my way of working and then my needs (and my 'don't needs'), and then post two drawings--one of the control room and one of the live room--which I want to use as a starting point from a function point of view. I also emailed John privately, but I read something about his server crashing--John, if you didn't get my email please let me know and I will re-send it. I would be interested in hiring you as a consultant for a couple of weeks to get this ready for my architect. I know how I want to work in the studio, but I'm not sure how to achieve it. MY WAYS OF WORKING 1. I am a composer and true multi-instrumentalist, which means that I play a lot of instruments, including piano, bass, guitars and drums. I am most often my own engineer as well. My current studio is a one-room 450 sf affair--I've been working in a horsehoe setup with my piano, my recording setup (Logic on a laptop with a physical controller) and my synth rig surrounding me. When I need to play drums, I walk 10 feet and go hit 'em. For these projects where I play all of the instruments, a one-room studio is the best, but... 2. I also record my acoustic and electric groups live in the studio. I can record soft jazz this way with minimal isolation, but I'm ready for some bonafide isolation. In some cases, I will engineer, but it's more likely that I will bring in someone else a few times a year, so I can focus on my piano playing. So...I need a control room where I will spend time composing, mixing and recording solo piano, plus a live room with a drum booth, a bass booth (acoustic bass) and a small booth for a sax player, guitar amp, etc. I will have to roll my piano out of the control room and into the live room for these sessions. NEEDS AND DON'T NEEDS 1. The house and studio will be in the middle of 5 isolated acres--blocking sound from the outside to a professional standard is a very low priority. Likewise, keeping sound from leaking out is an even lower priority. Construction down here is usually solid brick. 2. I need to use my 6' grand piano in the control room, and then be able to roll it into the live room (I've got the industrial caster setup) to record with my groups. 3. I need to have clear sight lines from the control room to all the players in the live room, and they have to have clear sight lines to each other--most of my work is jazz, and eye contact and a sense of intimacy are very important to me. 4. I am not opening up a commercial studio--this is strictly for my own projects. The live room has to be big enough that I can fit a sring quartet in the middle. But it doesn't have to sound like Carnegie Hall. I've done a couple of drawings which I'll post--this is my first time ever posting drawings so I hope I've done it right. First, the Control room...

Wow, that actually worked! And now, the Live Room:

I just noticed that the dimensions might be a little misleading. The overall footprint for both the control room and the live room is 25' wide and 40 feet long. The live room is about 25' by 25', and the control room is 15' by 25', with a 4' pop out srea along the room which divides the CR from the LR. My ceilings can be anything I want, but I'm assuming they'll be around 15' feet. Let's see, what else? Wood is impossible to get down here, so I want to use polished concrete for the floors. The walls will be brick but I can plaster over them. The booths in my drawings are made by using two sets of non-parrallel sliding glass doors. Thanks for your thoughts and comments! Doug

Doug - I replied to your email - did you not receive it?

Hi, John--no, I didn't get it for some reason. Would you mind trying again? It's [removed]. Thanks!

John, now I'm worried that you've sent a second reply that I didn't get. If that's the case, please let me know here. Maybe it's an AOL/Mexico/Australia thing?

I've tried again cheers john