Help Needed for the Design of Our New Studio.

Hello, First of all, I'd just like to say that this site has been so extremely resourceful and helpful in the research and design of our new place. Sketch Up has also been such a vital tool. ... thanks for the link!! Second, we're moving into a new space next month and have been carefully working on our design. We would be incredibly grateful for any help or insight. Once we get the o.k. from you John on our design, we are good to go! The jpeg posted below is to scale. It doesn't represent the various wall structures we'll be using, and the point where the Control room wall meets the live area will not look like that. The small area in the lower right hand corner of the control room is the iso booth. The area below that, directly to the right of the entrance, is for storage. Our goals: To have a comfortable-sized control room, an iso/vocal booth, a small lounge/kitchen area and the largest live room we could afford. Also, to minimize noise to the east, west and especially the south of us. Some specs: We're on the second floor of a solidly built commercial building. Ceilings are 11' high. Ceilings are painted concrete. Floors are Hardwood, installed over concrete. Existing walls between units are single frame, steel studs, pink fiberglass, layer of 5/8 sheetrock on either side. Important factors/issues that influenced our design: 1. Noise from the live room needs to be minimized on all sides of us, except at the back walls (northernmost walls). Most important is minimizing noise at the southernmost wall to protect our neighbor accross the hall. Sound doesn't travel well from floor to floor (Loud drums are just barely audible on the floor directly above us, totally inaudible in the restaurant below us). Noise from moderate/loud level playback in the control room is acceptable now, even with no treatment whatsoever. 2. The farthest back wall (accross from the entrance) has an old water radiator running accross it, so building anything there is not possible. 2. The couch in the control room is next to a large concrete pillar. The pillar was difficult to work around. This was the best compromise we came up with. 3. The only window in the space is on the closer back wall, in the control room. Sound escaping from that window is not really an issue. 4. We would like to keep our budget as close to 6000$-7000$ as possible. A contractor will be doing the work with us in exchange for recording time, so that amount is for materials, exclusively. 5. We're not looking to soffit mount our speakers, as both pairs are active nearfields (Spendor SA3000 & Event PS-5). Maybe we'll do it in the future, if we get some bigger mains. Some specific questions we have for you: 1. We plan on building double-framed walls all around the live area, including the wall that is shared with the right hand side of the control room. The left hand-side of the control room will be a single leaf wall with sheetrock on our side, open insulation on the other (not shown as such in jpeg). Will having a double framed wall on one side and a single leaf wall on the other affect monitoring/imaging inside the control room? 2. Doors. Would you recommend keeping the door to the control room where it is, or moving it to the lounge area? It might be important to mention that the right-hand control room wall would be a double frame requiring two doors, while the back of the control room would be a staggered stud wall, requiring a single door. 3. For the control room, we used the 1 x 1.4 x 1.7 ratio which we found on THIS PAGEIs 1 x 1.4 x 1.7 an acceptable ratio? That's about it for now. I'll add more questions as we think of them. Thanks so much! Cheers, Adrian

Hi everybody, Your help is urgently needed... we MUST begin the construction of our new studio this Wednesday... we only have about a month to do everything and can no longer afford to wait. HELP! Feedback would be so greatly appreciated... we hope that we haven't overlooked anything in our design or comitted an error that could jeopardize everything. Again, thank you for all of these wonderful ressources and this amazing website! We'll be sure to donate! Cheers, Adrian

I saw nothing about permits. This is a commercial building with other tenents, no? Have you submitted your plan to BID(Building Inspection Department) for a permit yet? They are the final arbiter of design. At least when it comes to meeting code. fitZ

adrian - could you post the skp file please? - if it's too big remove all the couches etc. and purge the file. cheers john

Hold on John... I'm purging it right now... shoudn't be too long!

Thank you, John... just in the nick of time!

Adrian - I'd go for this alignment of the control room - no post problems and a better sized booth. cheers john

Thank you, John! This looks fantastic. I love how you worked around the post. Questions: 1. Is the 3 feet you left above the control room to allow for a sloped ceiling? 2. What about the two long parallel walls in the live room? Would you just treat those with bass traps, slats, etc? Thanks a million, Adrian

1. Is the 3 feet you left above the control room to allow for a sloped ceiling?

No it 's just the height of the cut'n paste model I inserted. ;)

2. What about the two long parallel walls in the live room? Would you just treat those with bass traps, slats, etc?

yes - break up the parallels with angled slots etc. cheers john

Hi John, I came up with these 2 possibilities. I calculated 1' out (pertrusion) for every 10' of wall (similar to fishscales) to avoid parallilism in the live room. What do you think? I really love where you put the control room and how you worked around the post... brilliant! Thanks again and again John, Cheers! Adrian

yes - that's the idea Adrian - either one would work. cheers john