weird shaped basement, help!!!

Hi everyone, my name is Aaron and I'm from the chicagoland area. I have been recording down in my basement for a number of years now, and I'm finally ready to finish it out. I have about 2Gs but I would like to spend closer to 1G if possible, this is for materials only. I am looking to make a tracking/control room. Goals 1) to mix and track hip hop/rap and hip hop instrumentals (down tempo/electronica). I really want to master the subsonic area. I track a lot keys, samples, guitar, drum machines, percussion. I also want to be able to record vocals. 2) another goal is to seperate myself from the rest of the house. My wife home schools our daughter. The basement is unfinished and is a completely open space with a set of stairs seperating two sides. I would like to start with only one side of room for now. This area is basically 23' by 15'10" (but it is not all useable space!) there is a furnace, water heater, and water softner that blocks quite a bit of space. (I marked those in my drawing) also there is a wierd slope on one side, and also a water pipe sticking out about two feet! (those are also marked). The ceiling height is 7'8" from the joist, 8'5" from the inside of the joist, and the duct work is 6'11" from the floor. There is also a 4 foot window on one side of the wall for fires and emergencies. (this too is marked.) the duct work is basically above the furnace and travels the length of the basement from one side to the other. I dont know how loud everthing gets, I monitor at different levels. However I monitor using B&W matrix 605 with a 4B bryston amp (250!), and Blue Sky-System One "2.1" monitors with the sub, so that I can hear the lows properly. So, I was thinking where the furnace and water heater are located I could maybe put a wall and sliding doors there for access, and where the water softner is another door. This wall could travel down... this is where I could possibly put the vocal booth. After that a storage area and, a space for the water pipe. Since the whole basement is cement (and I dont get complaints from my neighbors now) I thought that I would use a regular insulation on these walls. The exception would be the ceilings and the new wall toward the stairs (a door would go here also), maybe put 703 on this wall and double up on the drywall there? On the ceilings use 703 and drywall? Right now my sitting area measures out at around 7'10 (width) by 10'5 (length), that includes my desk, monitors, sub-woofer(this thing is huge), my G4 in a iso rack and three other rack stacks, of outboard gear. It is three stacks because I dont want to stack them to high, this also has to be portable so I keep these in road ready cases because I share this gear with my partners. This is all I could think of please let me know if I missed something. thanks so much for your help Aaron

something like this?? cheers john

wow, you guys are fast! thanks so much!!! just a few of questions.... first one please dont flame me for asking... is there a diagram some where on this site for the rear trap design in our picture here? (is this a broadband design?) *** Hi John, I did some searching (so much info so little time) anyway I just wanted to edit my post... would the rear trap be something like this? http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm I'm not sure...*** also, on the right side of the desk in front of the booth there is a four foot window. With the way the wall is angled how do I handle the window? (the window is written in with the first drawing I posted...) thanks again! best regards! Aaron

Aaron - check out this studio for the rear absorbers http://johnlsayers.com/Studio/Mainpage/MP-Funky_1.htm The window just needs a ne window frame to be built on the angled wall in the control room - you then have a double window to the outside. cheers john

Thanks John, I need to make some changes..... :? I'll re post them later thanks again Aaron