Weird Space for studio

Hi folks... I've been trying to plan this out for a few months...but would love your suggestions. How can I fit one large control room (5.1), large live room, 1 5x7 iso booth, and a smaller studio B/Office in this weird layout. I'm allowed to take out one wall. Can you folks give me some ideas? thanks soooo much!

Aloha and welcome to the forum! :D Congrats on your studio build! Any chance you could please:

Edit your profile to include your location. This is very important, because this is a worldwide resource, and as such, material costs and availability vary widely. For example, masonry is cheaper than gypsum in some parts of the globe, whereas it's the exact opposite in other regions.

You'll probably get more of a response by doing so and this will really come in handy two or three posts down the road. It's also part of the forum guidelines: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7572 Thanks! :wink: Also, have you any prelims drawn out (other than the empty space) to give an idea of what you're considering? Looking forward to your build! Aloha 8)

Thanks Kendale! I updated my profile, but I wasn't even considering the materials yet. (I'm not that advanced!). I'm hoping someone smart can help with just basic layout (ie: where would YOU put the control room, live room, and iso booth)? It's a second floor suite in a commercial building. I've already spoken to the structural engineer of the original design and we calculate the PSF etc...and everything is good to go. Live Load 50 psf Partition 15 psf Dead Load 35 psf Currentely, I lease only the right side of the image (unit 4) but in Jan, I'm also taking over the left side and would like to include this space. Right now, I have a 5x7' vocal booth sitting on the bottom left of Unit 4, and my mixer etc is in the large area. On the other side of the crude partition I drew, is my studio B and fridge, office. I want to build a large live room where my current mixer setup is, and move STudio A and B to the other spaces. The only main important thing is that I have as large of a live room and studio A control as possible. hope this helps! thanks again!

Aloha, Thanks for updating your profile. :wink: So, what is your ceiling height? Aloha 8)

kendale wrote:

Aloha, Thanks for updating your profile. :wink: So, what is your ceiling height? Aloha 8)

We're only at a standard 8'

Although...I'm still a little nervous about the whole thing crashing down to the first floor. Even though the structural engineer of the building said I was fine (after he calculated the PSF of my live room + an upright piano). I'm OK right? I guess the city inspector will also have a few things to say.

rdolmat wrote:

Although...I'm still a little nervous about the whole thing crashing down to the first floor.

If it does, make sure you have the tape rolling. That would be gold. :wink:

Bass Rocks wrote:

rdolmat wrote:

Although...I'm still a little nervous about the whole thing crashing down to the first floor.

If it does, make sure you have the tape rolling. That would be gold. :wink:

:lol: :lol: :lol: But, what if the producer wants to punch? You know, just to make sure s/he got the best take. Anyhoo, I have some temp rough (aka: amateur) design ideas....any comments?

Aloha, Nice drawings! :wink: Sorry this took so long, but FWIW here's a quick/rough idea. Given your 8' ceiling dimension + M.M. Louden's room ratio of 1.00 x 1.40 x 1.90 (H x W x L) I came up with 8’ x 11’2” x 15’2”. It looks like you could fit 2 control rooms at that size plus your large live room, 5x7 iso booth and office. Doors need to be placed and massaged overall to taste. Hope this helps, Aloha 8)

Wow! That's a great idea. Thanks so much for the work...but...the building manager said I can only remove one existing wall and the little closet thing right in the middle of the floor plan can not be moved either So I'm kind of limited to working with the existing walls. These are the only walls that can be removed...(i've circled them) Thanks again Kendale for your input. Very appreciated!

I think I got it... how's this? (remember too, that it's the second floor of a commercial building I'm on, so the live room construction is still under the PSF quoted by the struct eng.) But I'm afraid to build all rooms-in-rooms to not overload the psf.

Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka! (Merry Christmas!) I really like the renderings your software produces, and it's nice to see what kind of ideas you've been tossing around. There are a few design points that might be helpful to you that's been covered throughout the forum. http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

For an instrument to sound good you must hear a balance of its high and low frequencies. If your room is too dead in the high frequencies the instrument sounds lifeless and tubby, whereas if it's too live in the high frequencies the instrument sounds distant and has no presence. To balance a room you must have a true balance of the high frequencies and the low frequencies with the right amount of deadness to liveness.

So what size should a control room be? These days people are building bigger and bigger control rooms because so much happens in the control room now. Often the bass player and keyboard player actually sit in the control room. I often have the vocalist singing in the control room while the bed tracks go down, so a good size control room is a good idea. So many people think that you need a big studio and end up putting a poky little room at the end and call it a control room. I suggest that a control room ideally should be at least 6m x 5m with a minimum ceiling height of 2.4m. This size room means a good sized working area with space for the musos, friends and hangers on. Also because you don't want rear reflections to interfere it is better to start with a longer front to back dimension than the side to side dimension. i.e. 6m x 5m. The studio, on the other hand, requires a different set of considerations. The first to consider is do you want just one room or more? The trend nowadays is for more than one studio so the you can get isolation between players and different acoustics for each room. The acoustics you want for a live drum sound is totally different than you want for a vocal for example. I recommend at least 2 rooms. You can put drums in one, guitars in the other, keys , vocals and bass (DI) in the control room or maybe the band in one and the vocalist in the other. Getting separation between guitars and drums is usually OK in a good sized room but keeping them out of the vocal track is hard if they are all in the same room. Just a note here - the kitchen is an important room to consider. Gallons of coffee and tea are drunk in studios. An engineer was once asked - how do you normally have your coffee? "Cold with a fly in it !! "- was the reply. Also a kitchen allows for a fridge for the beer and a microwave for the pizza, vital ingredients in every album recording session. Toilets (bathrooms for you in the US) are also a vital service a studio should offer. The coffee and beer has to go somewhere.

Control Room - • Use a room mode calculator to help determine room dimensions/best modal spacing possible • Soffits angled 30 deg. in from a flat wall result in speaker baffles being perpendicular to the two legs of equilateral triangle comprised of two speaker centers and a point about 10" behind your head • The baffle extension (the face of the soffit) should be as large as you can make it, up to about 45" in each direction from the woofer in a system with a LF cutoff of around 45 Hz - There's a formula based on LF cutoff that ensures full 2 pi response for the woofer if the baffle is at least the size obtained in the formula's solution - • Monitors should NOT sit on the console but behind, placed on heavy decoupled stands - console placement causes early reflection problems in most cases, unless the console is slanted down in front a LOT. • Distance to wall behind speakers will change response drastically - there is a wall bounce calculator on the Acoustics forum that's fun to play with (needs Excel) • Moving either speakers or your head by as little as an inch or two can sometimes make drastic changes in response, due to modal peaks and dips. • Left/right room symmetry (at least within a foot or two of ear height) is important for good stereo imaging. • Roughly 38% of total room length from the front wall • Equilateral triangle formed by left, right mix position • Monitor angles 60 degrees • Monitor height – woofer at ear level (avoid mid point of floor to ceiling measurement – either sit higher or lower if necessary) If monitors are more than 3’ in height off the floor, they must be angled down. • Angled side absorption panels – left/right of mix position • Side walls 6-12 degrees • Ceiling 12 degree slope • Avoid sitting in peaks/nulls • Most acoustic treatments recommended "live floor, treated ceilings" Live Room • Use room mode calculator to help determine room dimensions/best modal spacing possible • Avoid parallel walls - use acoustic treatments where necessary • Most acoustic treatments recommended "live floor, treated ceilings" Vocal Booths Steve (Knightfly) mentioned that "4' x 5' x 7' inside dim's is about the best modal compromise for a small booth." Modally, with a 6'4" ceiling you'd do well with wall dimensions (inside) of 5 and 7 feet. That combination shows no modal problems at all. This means that vocals in such a room shouldn't be "colored" by the room. You would want to keep the upper half, including the ceiling, absorbed with such as rigid fiberglas insulation boards, covered with a light plastic film (they shed) and fire proofed cloth (they're ugly) - you'd likely get better vocal sounds with the singer seated rather than standing, since otherwise they will be nearly at the ceiling. Being that close to a boundary (especially if it isn't absorbed) will cause comb filtering due to early reflections. Mode-wise, a 5 x 6 x 7 (inside) booth looks very good. It will also fit into an 8 foot ceiling area if necessary, and is big enough for 3 (very) friendly vocalists or 1-2 with a guitar, so that's what I'm going to start with. Once I finish (don't stop breathing while you wait, I have 'way too many projects still open) you could change dimensions to suit, just do NOT make any two dimensions the same, or more than one dimension in even # of feet. Useful Links http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2125 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7572 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5842 Hope these are as helpful to you as they were for me. Aloha 8)

Wow! Thanks sooo much for putting all the major points together....you'll probably not hear from mr for a while now! Much reading and studying to do! Thanks again and have a great Christmas holiday! I'll see you in the new year ;)