Could someone point me in the right direction please.

WOW! THere really is a great wealth of info on this forum. Thankyou John for setting it up!! However, I feel like a little kid who has just walked into an icecream parlor with 15 of his favorouite icecreams available and unable to choose which one he likes. lol. :D Where to start.... I'm on a large farm in Goulburn NSW Australia. I am at the research stage at the moment. I'd like to build a good quality Project studio, and down the track, start doing demos. We have a massive shed on our property - ie 3000m2 with a concrete floor. It was originally used as a grain storage shed. But is now only being used for light fabrication work and storing tractors and farm equipment etc. So there is plenty of room. (hieght wouln't be an issue either) I am thinking about building a project studio inside this shed. So room is not a problem. Also as far as noise is concerned, I'm on a farm so I can play as loud as I want until the cows come home! :lol: My main concern is stopping noise getting in. ie tractors, generators and howling wind through gaps in the shed. As far as existing structure is concerned. The Shed just seems too big and impractical to have any "partial conversion" done (And no I don't have enough money to build a 3000m2 studio) . So I am basically thinking about starting from scratch and using the floor of the shed rather than pouring a new concrete footing. And that way I don't need to worry about making the roof and walls waterproof etc. There is no plumbing, but the shed is next to my house sdo I don't need ammenities or anything- so I was really just planning to have a control room, main room and vocal booth. I also wanted to have drums set up all the time - I have 2 brothers that play drums and would use it as a practice room. So perhaps I might need an extra room for the drums. So basically I am starting with a clean slate. I really just want to get the most BANG FOR MY BUCK if you know what I mean. I am happy to spend around 15-20k (I don't have a dead line, so I could take longer and save more). But I really just want to get the best bang for my buck without going overboard. I was thinking of using Heble block, as it's pretty popular around here, and I don't mind laying it. However I'm still researching and very mouldable. I would like to hear your thoughts. Yeah also If you know any great designs that seem to fit and be appropriate to what I am wanting, I am happy to buy them. There are somany different designs, I just have no idea which direction to go in from here. THankyou very much for reading this. Cheers Ashley Jnr

Aloha and welcome to the forum, Ashley :D Some of the best things to do in order to get your bearings is read, read, and read. The following links will give you an idea of what's ahead, jargon, and points on how to better ask your questions. Many of your questions (known and unknown) have been covered at some point, so a "search" will often prove to be fruitful. Be sure to take note of the "stickies" at the top of each section of the forum. http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7572 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2125 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/search.php Take your time and happy reading, Aloha 8)

Thanks for your helpful reply Kendale. So do I blame you, if I get square eyes from all this reading? :lol: Ok, I'm trying to narrow down my questions. Most of the designs I am coming across are fitting out existing rooms. I have the blessing of being able to make my rooms as big or small as I want. (or whatever shape I want for that matter). So I don't just want to copy someone else's plan who had to fit their studio into exsiting dimensions, only to find that it is a little bit too small or a bad layout if you know what I mean. I have only really done work in one studio before, so don't have much experience regarding "good and "bad" studio layouts and sizes. Hmm.... maybe this question could be helpful or confuse me more but I'll ask it anyway. For those of you who have had alot of experience in different studios. If you could build a studio from scratch. How big would you make your vocal/iso booth? Control room? Room designated for drums? And a main studio room? Sorry if this is too broad to answer. Perharps you could help me ask a better question or point me to a thread where this has been disscussed. (I haven't been able to find a thread yet, but that doesn't mean there's not one there) Cheers AJ

Aloha AJ,

So do I blame you, if I get square eyes from all this reading?

As the saying goes; "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!" :wink:

If you could build a studio from scratch. How big would you make your vocal/iso booth? Control room? Room designated for drums? And a main studio room?

From the SAE website - http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

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.

That said, next consider the overall available space: H x W x L = ? x ? x ? (By the way...what is your ceiling height? :?:) Room Ratios - In Rod Gervais’ book “Build it Like the Pros,” he points out both L.W.Sepmeyer’s & M.M. Louden’s formulas most widely used in professional studios worldwide. He also notes that the orders listed are (top to bottom) the first to third best ratios in both cases. L.W. Sepmeyer Height Width Length 1.00 1.14 1.39 1.00 1.28 1.54 1.00 1.60 2.33 M.M. Louden Height Width Length 1.00 1.40 1.90 1.00 1.30 1.90 1.00 1.50 2.10 This would/could be a good starting place for your control room. Which of the two formulas is your choice. Hope this helps get things started. Happy chewing! :wink: Aloha 8)

One thing that can help you with your decisions on room sizes - knowing how you intend to work, and with whom/how many other bodies. Example - I mostly do "one-man-band" type projects these days, and so I find that a CR laid out like a "jet cockpit" works well for most things - meaning, I have everything I normally need in the course of laying out/finishing a project within reach of my (comfortable) chair, or at least within range of it's respective remote control - it's pretty tricky to achieve this and not muck up the acoustics, but with enough hair-pulling it can be done. Keeping racks, etc, at or below desk height is important for acoustic considerations. Depending on your needs, a larger CR and a vox booth may be all you need - or you may want (as John points out) additional iso rooms if you work with live bands and still want/need control over separate sounds. A typical setup for the "one man band" approach is to have the desk in normal location along with speakers, build low racks into each side under the desk's knee hole for often-used gear, then to one side of the desk a key stack (couple of midi keyboards kept lower than chest height while seated) - to the other side, an electric guitar and bass on floor stands, with floor processor in front, di'd into the board (or interface to computer) - further around (still in reach of your chair when rotated in place) an electronic drum kit (I use the Roland V-drums) and a boomed mic somewhere in this circle - I use such a setup for rough tracks, then replace tracks as necessary once the "feel" of the song(or in my case, usually video) is established. For music beds in industrial videos, I may never progress beyond electronic drums - otherwise I'll play maybe 8 or 12 bars of a pattern on the electronic kit, clean it up/quantize it if necessary and loop it to use as a "click track" - this works better for me because it gives the "feel" I want for that song much better than "tick tock tock tock tick tock tock tock" - then, when the rest of the song's pretty close to what I want I'll re-record live drums and ditch the electronic drum track. Guitar - you can set up remote amps in an acoustic space and still play from the CR if you want - if you're isolated enough, this allows you to hear what your setup will sound like "off tape", in context within the mix. Same with bass, either DI'd or thru a bass amp within the acoustic space. I hope this gives a general idea of one way to work - your chosen methods will dictate how you set up your own studio. Obviously if you're doing "for hire" work, you'll need more rooms/more options/larger spaces... Steve

(By the way...what is your ceiling height? )

I have attached a rough diagram of the shed. (sorry for the quality - it was a done on paint - I tried to have a go on Sketchup but I think I'll need a little more practice :oops: ) Note. there is a triangle in the corners on the side view. These are supporting channels. There is one about every 4m or so. -Hope this makes sense. Also the little circles in the top veiw are the supporting colomns. I'm planning to build somewhere in the top left coner of the "top veiw"diagram. Thanks for the one man band setup advice steve. Given me something to think about. I'm planning on using a Computer DAW. So I was thinking perhaps I could put a small monitor in each room, and use a wireless keyboard and mouse. That would make it easy to do my "one man band" stuff and still have a sudio setup big enough to do "for hire" work. It's still not as easy as a jet cockpit setup though. :lol: Also, would I be looking at a floating floor, If I wanted to keep out a 3 phase genset, grinders, lathes and welders that are operationg in the same shed? Cheers AJ