3 car garage conversion

Hello! After many hours of searching this forum (many of which should have been spent working!) I think I'm ready to post about my project... Here are the details: I'm looking to convert a 3 car garage into studio/rehersal space... The ideal final setup would be a control room, large "studio A" and at least a couple vocal booths, and if possible, a seperate room for drums. I don't have the budget to complete everything now, so my hope was to get the control room done, and have one large studio/rehersal room, and seperate that into smaller areas later. This will never be a professional recording studio... the recording aspect will be tracking and mixing local, friends bands for fun, so while a good sounding control room is a plus, I don't need to break the bank on it. (For example, i wont be soffit mounting the monitors, mainly because the ones I have aren't all that good, and I wont have the budget left to replace them in the near future) What is important as far as layout goes, is ; A) enough space for at least 5-6 people to comfortably be in the control room with me (couches/chairs behind the consol preffered) and that B) the recording space is large enough to fit a whole (5 piece) band. Now, on to the details of the building... This is a detached 3 car garage located in Wellfleet, MA (on Cape Cod) There is a house about 15 feet away from the front left corner of the garage, but otherwise, we're on an 8 acre parcel of land, and don't have to worry about noise levels at all. My bigger concern is isolating the rooms inside the building, sound getting out of the building won't really matter. The building is set into a hill, and most of it is at least 6' under ground. The back wall and both side walls are concrete block (I don't know if its filled or not) and the front of the building is wood 2x4 framing and garage doors (see photo) the ceiling is 2x10 joists, running left-right looking at the building from the front, and are supported on 2 beams that are about 6" wide and 8" tall. These 2 beams are supported by a 10" wide, 3' concrete block wall at the back of the buidling, and 2 concrete filled steel colums each, evenly spaced about 6' apart (see diagram) The floor is poured concrete, I don't know the thickness. Now, on for the questions... 1) general layout advice... what is the best way to use this space? I've posted some renderings and floorplans of my general thinking (about 1 garage bay for the control room, and the other 2 for the rehersal/tracking space) but is there a better way to orient the layout? the columns and beams in the space seem to be prohibitive, does anyone have any unique ideas? 2) in the example layout, I've only doubled up the wall on 2 sides of the rehersal/tracking room, the wall that adjoins the control room, and the wall that adjoins the front of the building (because thats the one wood frame wall) is there a problem with this plan? Again, I'm not worried about sound transmission to the outside, not that I think there'd be much, since those are concrete block walls, that are mostly underground, but can anyone see a way that this would hurt the transmision to/from the control room? 3) floor... I want to float the floor for at least one of the spaces (control room or tracking room) for cost and time saving purposes, it'd be better if I could just float the control room floor now, and then later if/when I split up the larger space I could then float the floors of those new rooms... Do you think that only floating one floor will still be enough of a benifit to make it worth while? Would it be better to float the floor under the instruments makeing the noise? or is it just as good un the control room? 4) More floor... Since the ceiling height isn't all that high, what are your thoughts on this: rather than the design that is on this site (rubber pads, 2x4 frame, 2 layers of plywood) What if I just glued the rubber pads right to the first layer of plywood, put down the pieces, layed a 2nd layer over it (in an opposite pattern) and then screwed the 2 layers together? it would save a few valuable inches of headroom, are there any reasons not to do it this way? also, if this is OK, should i fill the gap between the wood and the concrete floors with a thin layer of insulation (it would only be a gap as thick as the rubber pads I used) (see diagram below) 4) Ceiling... since, as I've mentioned, there isn't a lot of ceiling height... I was planning on doing 2 layers of 5/8" sheetrock on RC, will that be enough, I think the ceiling is going to be the weakest link in the chain, are there any other things I can do to help it? 5) over all room treatments: I'm thinking of using the inside-out wall building technique described here for the walls, to save some space, and since i don't know how many angles I can get in the room with the beam placement, it'd be easier for me to keep reverb/flutter etc... to a minimum... One thing I haven't been able to find, is that with the inside-out wall, is it possible to build an angled slot resonator in the cavities? if I end up with parralell walls, I thought that John's side-wall-absorber would be a good way to fix some of the problems. Does anyone know of a way to combime that side-wall unit with the inside-out wall technique? I was thinking maybe build the wall with alernating 2x4 and 2x6 studs, lined up on the side the drywall is affixed to, that way there would be an uneven surface on the opposite side? is 2" enough over a 16" span to break up reflections? (I've included a diagram of this idea below) I'm going to stop typing for now, as I'm sure everyone has stopped reading anyway :) Thank you in advance SOOOOO much for your help, this forum has already helped me tremendously, and I hope that my post meets all the criteria. I know for damn sure that my pictures are all 700 pixels across!!! :) Best, Geoff

Here are some more renderings of my layout idea, and diagrams for my construction questions...

we're on an 8 acre parcel of land, and don't have to worry about noise levels at a

In that case I see no need to float a floor - you need all the ceiling height you have mate ;) cheers john

Will that pose any problems with isolation between the control room and tracking room(s)? I want to make sure that I do have as much isolation between those areas inside the building as possible... thanks for the reply! Geoff

Geoff - if you build your walls correctly you shouldn't have trouble with internal isolation. The amount going through the floor is f**k all :D cheers john

John, thanks, that saves me quite a bit of time (and money!) Now, as for the layout, do you have any ideas about the best way to layout my space, getting around those Beams/Columns? if I don't need to float a floor, I can get a little more involved with the room layouts up front... I'd still like to stick with approx 1/3 of the space for the control room, 1/3 for a main "studio A" and 1/3 to be 2 or 3 iso booths, (preferably one of the rooms being large enough for a drum kit) I appreciate your (and anyone else with an idea) help! Also, I've figured out Sketchup enough so that I have a pretty accurate design of the space... (see attached file) Thanks again, Geoff

John probably has some designs for a center control room studio on the SAE site but maybe something like this... you can dress up the "beams" to fit an exposed beam look. since you have a open ceiling put the isolation walls all the way up and then hang bass traps above. with the center cr approach you can also subdivide one of the rooms for more booths if needed. load in/out/entry is thru the 2 sliders on either side. I'd add an overhang over the doors for protection against rain/snow when going in or out and for people on smoke breaks... for HVAC - put a shed on the side of the building (check code) to house the furnace-a/c and just a pad for the compressor. didn't see a plan for a bathroom but with 8 acres of woods around... :-)

Glen, thanks so much for the rendering!!!... do you have that saved in a sketchup file you could post? I'd love to fly around the design to get a feel, and try moving things around... Also, While I really like the center control room design, I'm not settled on having 2 smaller rooms, vs. just one large room, and I think thats a decision that I might make further into the build, do you see any way to rearange that layout with the control room to one side? Also, it seems like it'd be a much more expensive way to build (6 sliding glass doors alone wont be cheap) and I'd like to TRY (I know, it'll never happen) to keep the price down at least a little :) No, no bathroom I figure that people can go into the house for such purposes :) This probably isn't the proper forum, but what do you (or anyone else) think about eletric baseboard heating? The reason I ask, is that we're looking into solar panels for the studio (and house), and if we can get enough power from them, then it would be the most cost efficient way to heat the space. Not to mention its easy to install, which is always a plus! Thanks again for your help and input!