New studio design in England

My aim is to create a commercial recording facility, that would appeal to the semi-professional to cover both recording and audio visual markets. The total floor space is 1600 sq. ft., and after some thoughts, I have come to the basic layout below :- See studio layout below. Also upadated design included (Version 2). The materials budget is 10k approx, excluding all equipment. Some savings will be made where possible by self building with appropriate materials. For ease of our discussions I have split the design into the following areas, and I will try to be brief. Space Plan ---------- Given the shape of the space with no load bearing walls in the way, I have placed the control room with easy access to toilet / kitchen. In my past experience, this is the area most visited, so recording can continue uninterruped if visitors arrive. There is also a back entrance, doubling as a fire exit, so that both studios can be accessed while not disturbing the control room. The existing roof structure is a corrugated steel constrution on wooden joists, sloped to one side, so there is a head height issue once build has been taken into account. I have created a service corridor that will be useful for maintainance, and will use up a little of the less useful space, as shown on the diagram. The service corridor will be used to maintain ventilation and useful for cable runs between areas. Given my layout, this does mean that the control room cannot (easily) be symmetrical to the ceiling height, this is a compromise that I think I will have to live with, to ensure that the control room faces towards the studio. Any readers have a different layout, I would consider. The control room is ratio 1.28:1.54 (length to width), for Sepmeyer 2, but the height is variable, so there is a certain amount of correction to be considered when built (but not too much, I hope). The drum booth also acts as a practice room. I am hoping to achieve isolation so that the practice room can be used at the same time as studio 1A/B for recording. Can this be practically achieved ? If not then the back studio would be a drum booth only, visible to the control room via a camera system. Basic build ----------- The existing building is very leaky, both for sound and air, so I am assuming that the building is providing shelter from the elements only. The interior build is (at current thinking) based on a concrete blockwork outer shell, with a studwork interior shell. I have taken the decision not to float the floor. I have no party walls to consider, other than soundproofing the building itself, i.e. nothing below, above or to sides. Note that the area is a mixed business residential, so I should allow for working to evening night without significant sound spillage to neighbours gardens. The road is offset from the building some 20 metres or so. I have decided not to cut the concrete between control rooms and studios, as I suspect that the concrete base is quite thick. Thus I am relying on the weight of the flooring to as floor isolation between rooms. See basic layout below. Each doorway has 2 doors, one set in each shell. I intend to carefully build fire doors into each structure, rather than purchase pre-built units. As good as these are, I think pre-build units would push the materials budget out of range. Base traps as shown (T) in each area. Ventilation ----------- I am assuming that fresh air is available within the basic building structure, so no external vents will be required. However, vents will be required through my internal structures, so I have taken some inspiration from a small cinema I recently visited. One side of the room provides air intake, while the other side sucks out the air. This provides a flow of fresh air through the structure. To maintain the sound insulation, the air intakes are through 4 inch flexible ducting, with two 90 degree bends in each leg. Each fan is build into an acoustic box. These are expensive, but maybe I will purchase one and use this as a template to build my own. See ventilation concept below Air conditioning ---------------- I am considering a through wall unit, split system. Externally mounted is the condenser, while the air handling unit is on the inside wall. Speaking with some air conditioning installers at work, Dakein are the quietest. Flexible rubber couple between internal and external units is not easy, as the refriderant corrodes the rubber, so a certain amount of noise transmitted from the external unit is inevitable here. I am taking the pragmatic approach that cooling will only be required in the control room. The other rooms will have to do with ventilation only. Given that the lowest noise floor is required in the studios, I am hoping that this approach will work. Heating ------- Panel electric radiation heaters. These are inexpensive as well as providing silent operation. Lighting -------- Probably track, incandescent, no dimming. Electrics --------- Three phase electrics will be installed :- Phase 1 - HVAC Phase 2 - Studio / control rooms + their lighting Phase 3 - All other non studio power and lighting All cables to be screened, and earthed from distribution end only. All power cables to be run 100mm minimum from non power cables, radial circuits installed only. All boxes / face plates screened. All mic/midi/audio connections panels to be screened. I intend to install screened connections to broadband, and a hub for computer interconnect between studios. Add to this a fire alarm system, security system, video cabling, and this adds up to a fair amount of wires. All rack mounted equipment to be installed in the control room bay, with heat sinking out at the back. This outlines the basic build. Any comments welcome. Thank you.

you might flip the pix1 CR and studios so the CR backs to the practice studio. this would readily enable you to use that second studio for a recording session and possible add some more isolation from the practice space to the recording space. also, load in from the entrance would be into the studio rooms instead of through the CR.

Well fair point, it just becomes further from the CR to the kitchen etc. I will play about a bit with this idea. Thanks, Louis.

Hi Louis, We just built in a simular style place, I think due to the narrowness of the place you can afford to be a little more inventive...... Gonna throw some ideas at you later J

Aloha and welcome to the forum, Louis In pic 2 "Basic Construction" it shows that your ceiling is angled. In pic 1 & design update, it shows your control room facing down the length of your building. Wouldn't this give your control room a ceiling which angles sideways across your control room mix position? I believe this configuration will not give you a true monitoring environment. Perhaps you may want to consider rotating your control room so that the lower side of the angle is at the front of the room and angles up toward the rear of the control room. Food for thought... Aloha 8)

you will want the CR to go from low to high (front to back) to maintain symmetry and it will also add an angle to your ceiling which will help shape the space correctly. I'd run the HVAC on the peak because you can soffit it in and put in large tubes to keep the air flow slow (less noise) and put in some bends between rooms to reduce sound transfers. if you put the CR in middle of a live room and a booth, you'll have a decent sized rehearsal room and/or additional live space.

^ Kinda trapped in your control room in that one really

Aloha, Nice job, Glenn. Aloha 8)

Originally I thought it would be preferably to have CR facing towards studio, but I am thinking along the same lines now (middle CR room), given the ceiling slope which I guess would make an unbalanced shape my way round. I could not figure a way to add a machine room to this config. Thanks, Louis.

Altered Beats wrote:

^ Kinda trapped in your control room in that one really

true, you could add a door in the front to access the hall. otherwise access would be through one of the adjoining rooms. another option is to put the CR on the end and the booth and live room on the left (sort of what I had originally suggested and then failed to draw :-) Louis - I'd make the booth smaller and put the machine room there. I'll re-arrange a bit tonight and re-post.

Hello everyone. Thanks for your thoughts, especially Gullfo. In my younger days, I worked in a recording studio, Advision in central London, so in many ways this is an old hault of mine, albeit I would never have anticipated building a studio such as this myself. I remember for all the bands that the control room was the most visited area by interested parties and general hangers on. Thus I would like to design so that the CR is accessible from the front door, so that there is the minimum of distruption to a session in progress. If I placed the CR at the other end of the building, there would be forever human traffic through the building during the working day. I would also like to arrange for the CR to face towards the studios with a line of vision forwards, not at right angles to it, assuming that there is a window in front. I think that this would be a more comfortable way of working. A machine room is quite essential for computer equipment is noisy and highly nickable, thus should be locked away if possible. And it would also be a good idea if the band members could see each other during a take. My updated (Update 3) design achieves nearly all of the above (not quite the last if end room used as drum booth). The down side, is that the CR is then faced across the building, but I believe that I can make this symmetrical to ceiling by false sloping ceiling structure. The other issue is that the CR is shaped like a coffin, with the walls sloping inwards towards the engineer, not away as seems in most design. Is this an issue, and if so is there a solution to this ? Also, is it possible to test the shape of this layout virtually using a simulator prior to build to get a feel for the room modes ? Incidentally, the CR room dimentions width to length are pretty close to Louden 1 - by coincidence. Many thanks, Louis,

Aloha,

The down side, is that the CR is then faced across the building, but I believe that I can make this symmetrical to ceiling by false sloping ceiling structure.

1745 Millimetre(s) = 5.7250656168 Feet. Whew, that's pretty tight. Also, having a / \ shaped ceiling centered above the mix position may introduce reflections, cluttering up your imaging.

The other issue is that the CR is shaped like a coffin, with the walls sloping inwards towards the engineer, not away as seems in most design. Is this an issue, and if so is there a solution to this?

The main reason for having angled walls in a control room is because of reflection control of the high frequencies for true imaging from your speakers. The side walls are angled away from the mix position to help direct reflections behind you, to be absorbed at the rear of room. Perhaps you could flip the shape of the room to where the narrower end is where your window is. One other point of note, in your drawing it appears that there is a gap between the insulation and plasterboard. Is this the case or are you planning on having the insulation lightly pressing against the plasterboard to dampen any resonances? Aloha 8)

Hello Kendale, 1745mm is the height of the person (!) average male in UK, as drawing is to scale. Maybe I should have put a horizontal line on dimension to make this clear! And yes having the /\ shape both above the CR desk and around the side walls is not a great idea ... but .. the question is how (bad) a not good idea. Would it be disasterous, or something that would hardly be noticable with some correction. I can make the side walls \ / shape with respect to the engineer, but this means making the CR room even smaller, unless I go back to design update_1 (above in this post), in which case, as has been noted, there is a very difficult path through the CR to the studio. If I make the CR smaller, there would be earlier reflections anyway, so there is a paradox here. I was looking for some mode calculators to try to figure this out, but they all seem to assume a true rectangular room, which for our complex shapes is (I think) not much use. If I flip the CR, then it becomes at the other end of the building (which I am not keen on), but also, unfortunately, looks into the lower end of the building (as there is a sloping roof), which would feel a little claustrophobic maybe. This might also have the effect of forcing musicians to use the area with the lowest head height! By looking into the larger ceiling height, I think this should give the illusion of more space and a less oppressive feel. On the drawing, I am thinking that the insulation (100mm) is pressed to touch the plasterboard, as you suggest. Many thanks for your reply. Louis.

i had re-drawn this but thought maybe make the live room a bit smaller and the booth a bit bigger - but overall this gives your CR access to both the live/booth and rehearsal spaces... CR is sized for 5.1 (in case...)

Hello Gullfo, my first reaction was - wow that's brilliant. Why couldn't I think of that! This opens out the whole space, as well as providing flexibility, and max space between rehersal room and booth. The CR now faces the right way for the space. My only slight reservation is the the CR is not facing towards the artists, but my conclusion here is that this is the compromise to be made in this case. Many thanks. I have to sort out some drainage problems with the building first this month. With the basic layout in my mind, I can actually start to plan the build. I am aiming to complete the basic build by the end of the year, which is actually looking like a lot of work for the time. But that's what targets are for!. Louis

true the CR is sideways. if you put in doors with glass (sliders?) then engineer can just turn their head (either way) to see whats happening. the CR is positioned to take advantage of the sloped ceiling since headspace is tight to begin with. run ventilation soffit across the high point.

I've redone my cad drawings in line with your suggestions. I've moved the machine room, a little larger with space for a 600mm rack and a 800mm machine, sacrificing some space in the practice room, but in the lower head height area, so I'm comfortable with that. I think that practically the engineer will not need a constant line of vision to the musicians, so I can now see that working. I've made all the corridors 1200 wide, this conforms to disabled regs in the UK as well as making it easier for gear/ machine movements. With some blinds in appropriate places, the musicians can have privacy from the lobby. So I think I'm on a much better footing than some of my previous ideas. I've made all the angles, 6,12,30 or 60 degrees. I know the 6/12 is recommended, but not sure about the 30/60. Should they add to 90? I'm starting to think about those sliding glass doors. With the little research I have done on this, these are looking like a costly little number! Any recommendations for specs would be appreciated. Also I've added an fx rack in the CR. In an ideal world this would be build into the room somewhere, but the answer here is not obvious to me. So it sticks out a bit in the corner. Many thanks again. Louis.

Hello Gullfo, Do you think this would be acceptable acoustically ? It's one way of adding some rack space in the CR, without it getting in the way. I would only need one, but 2 shown for symmetry. The ceiling height would probably be enough to run the ACU in the soffits (as you suggest) above the seat (not shown here), and could also aid cooling/ venting of the rack. Actually, these racks only need to go to about sholder height, so there might be a design to incorporate your shape fundamentally, with something built-in to this level, as it were. Difficult to draw in 2D. Lower diagram show view to rear of CR. There should also be some space for traps in the ceiling, but have to work on this yet. Thanks, Louis

the main downside to the racks positioned like that would be the rear reflections from them. given how small the CR is, this could be a problem. one option would be to put a drape or soft panel you could slide over the front of the rack - assuming you have other controls for the effects. if not, angle the racks vertically to alter the reflection path. also, I'd put the "producer" couch up on a platform - 6-8". the doors - if the sliders are out of range, consider doors with windows in them as an option. generally speaking though, sliders tend to be fairly welled sealed and plenty of visibility, but can be costly. here in the US they could easily be $600-700 each (and high end ones $2000+). whereas a glass exterior-capable (heavier, better seals) door is less but still (at the low end) $350-500. you could also consider fixed windows (small enough for the budget and large enough for view) and a separate solid door. I think this adds to the construction complexity (seals, gaps, framing, finish, etc) but may be less expensive for parts and may even provide more isolation (done correctly).

Hi Glenn, If I sacrifice 740mm of width, I can get the racks in line with your original positioning. There is a bonus in increased isolation gap between leafs of the CR doors either side. Is this OK? I'm really sold on the sliding doors now, although the quantity of glass could be considerable in the build. If I go the whole hog it counts as ten units; I should get a discount on that, but also it should, as you say, make the build easier, if the units are of reasonable quality. Are there any known good makes to go for, as in the UK they are built with trickle vents for ventilation, which would need modification (I think). If I go for separate window panes and glazed doors, that sounds like a lot more work. Louis.

as long you you build the walls to follow mass-air-mass then you should be fine. the extra gap will help up to a limit. in an STC 63 configuration wall using 2x4 wall you have 7" of air space built in between the 2 layers of drywall. haveing the doors positioned further apart should also help since they will tend to have less isolation than the wall assemblies.

I propose the design in the diagram below. I am assuming that the mass of the new outer blockwork shell will add to the overall M-A-M structure and increase the STC, as well as 'resetting' any effects that the exsiting drywall may have on my new structure. Are my assumptions safe ? Many thanks, Louis.

it should assuming the 2 outside walls are really working as a single wall or your getting very close to a third leaf situation on the back side.

Hello Glenn, Yesterday I marked out the whole studio on the floor in chaulk. Several things have occured to me that were not obvious on CAD. The CR is looking awfully small, especially given the reasonable space I started out with! There is not enough space to comfortably get the sofa in the rear, even although it looks ok on CAD. It's just too close to the engineers chair, and due to the size of the room the engineer looks very close to the speakers. There is nowhere to 'put' anything else in the CR such as customers laptops or user equipment. Also having the racks in the rear of the CR is not friendly for the engineer, and there is (unwittingly) a walkway through the centre of the CR, making any setups here awkard. In short it's too small. There is a lot of wasted space in the sides of the CR the way I have layed out. If I create a hybrid of our two designs, this looks better, some compromises will be required, which is not ideal; but I don't think it's gonig to be ideal. The room is squarer, with dimentions W/L of Louden 1. Some treatments are enivitable, but then the room is considerably larger (this is acutally not obvious), which should help with early reflections anway. Whaddya think?

Hey Louis! Where abouts in Blighty are you? Im based in Folkestone, 15mins from Dover, and my little studio has finally hit the construction phase, after years :lol: :lol: !! Would love to see this place when its done, looks like its gonna be nice!!! My one piece of input into the design, is in a nice space like youve got, Id try and put the biggest control room I could in, as, like you say, its where ppl generally congregate, and as Im working in a small CR at the mo, it can be a real PITA! Anyway, good luck. Oz