Basement with heating pipe obstruction

My second post: I’ve browsed arround many times – I must say I was a bit intimidated by the “don’t post until you read” command. Now, I hope that my reading has brought me to the point where I can get some feedback on my project. This forum is astoundingly friendly, information packed, expertly attended and I look eagarly forward to sharing this build. After moving to Conecticut, U.S.A. from Jamaica in 2005, I’ve finally got a basement. My wife and moved into our 1925 colonial in July ’06. I’m way past ready to get back to that which brings me closest to sanity, my music. I’ve attached a couple of illustrations of my basement which is mostly reserved for laundry, Oil heat, and my wife’s painting studio. The corner that remainds, is big enough for what I need, a control/midi/live room, and a small iso booth for percussion and voice. The booth is a welcome afterthought that occurred once I started trying to place the control room in the available space. Any suggestions for a better layout would be greatly appreciated. Control room sound is my most definite priority. I really enjoy mixing, so I’ll be engaging my strongest effort to make the room acousticaly transparent (yet live). Here are a couple of issues my basement presents (those I’m unable to express in sketchup): 1. Height - Our house is heated by oil via hot water radiators, which means that I have lots of pipes that navigate aroround (not through) the floor joists above the baseement. So that even though the bottom of my joists are 7’6” from the concrete slab, there are points in “my corner” where the pipes come as low as 6’8”. With that in mind, I’ve tried to arrange the room so the pipes can reside inside or behind the isolation walls. There will remain some pipes in the “booth” which due to height constraints, go thruough the iso walls and reside inside the room. a. With such a low ceilng I will be forced to minimize the height of a floating floor. I’m thinking about a “floating” bamboo floor floating on rubber or some other decoupling material. Any thoughts about this? b. Pipes will cause problems through sound transfer in the “booth”. Any suggestions for material that might maximize stc while still being flexible enough to navigate the eriatic pipe behaviour? c. I remember reading in one of the threads about someone using metal I – beams for installing the ceiling in an attempt to reduce the thickness of the isolating ceiling. I’ve searched but can’t find that post to look at the issues. Can someone send a link to that post? Otherwise send suggestions? What’s the studio for? I’ll use it for my song writing, jingle and advertisment production, as well as audio post production for television & internet. Genres I most enjoy producing are reggae, dub/electronic & re-mixes, dancehall, and rock fusion. What was once full time will now be night job and most needed hobby. Budget This is a pay as you go DIY project, hopefully the material costs will not go too far beyond US$3K – 5K. All of the labor will be mine and willing friends’, with the assistance of at least one licenced electrical contractor (with general contractor experience). I give thanks for friends with varied experience. There is more to come, but I’m anticipating your support. Thanks in advance. G.

hi dude ur room looks similiar to mine, what are its measures?