Drawings finished... Is there anything I've missed?

My wife has helped me draw up my future 30'x30' detached studio in Tennessee using AutoCad. So far the only construction finished is a footer that's ready to pour. Foundation will be concrete block for the first 4 feet, and standard 2x4 exterior wall with siding the rest of the way up. We've made the entire studio handicap accessible by leaving the right distances between doorways, etc... Material budget is under $10k. Myself and friends / relatives are doing the work. The studio will be about 400ft from anyone else and about 80ft from the road (a small road with little traffic). I'll be recording a lot of styles from bluegrass to loud rock. I also score video projects and will probably dive into 5.1 mixing soon. Walls are room within a room construction (2x4 studs) with 6" airgap between most walls except where noted (such as angled walls). I'd love opinions such as room ratios, wall angles, layout, etc... That's the area I feel the least comfortable with. All interior ceilings will be 12 ft finished. Thanks very much Nick

The layout doesn't make much sense to me. The control room shape has not been optimized, for starters. You're going to want to use a proven control room design. The tracking room has way too many parallel walls. The iso booth and the sound lock/vestibule make sense. Have a look at some of John's designs, and rethink what you have going. If you're gonna go through all the trouble of spending the money and doing the work to build this, you want to do it right.

Thanks jwl. I have looked at several designs of John's. I know there's a rhyme and reason to the angles he uses and where he puts them, but without knowing how the room dimensions and layout interact with the different angles and offsets, I'm still at a loss. I could put twice as many angles on every wall, but without guidence, it would just be a guess and I'd be in the same shape I'm in now - gambling constuction funds on unsure ideas. Also, there is a direct correlation between angles and lost square footage. In a small studio, I have to make sure that I have the right compromise between the two. That's why I've come here for advice. Any specific pointers would be appreciated. Many thanks, Nick

OK. There are many people on this forum more expert that I, but I can get you started. First thing: go get Rod Gervais' book. Seriously. It will pay for itself many times over, and more importantly you will have a much better studio when you're done. Let's start with the control room. This is arguably the most important room, and the one I can speak the most about. Your room is roughly 11.5x18 based on what I can see. First off, you'll want to think about ideal dimension ratios for your room. p 28-29 of Rod's book goes over those, good ones are: 1:1.14:1.39 1:1.28:1.54 1:1.6:2.33 1:1.40:1.90 1:1.3:1.9 1:1.5:2.1 See if you can get your control room to be one of those ratios. Next, I'd rearrange the room, basically turn it 90degrees from where you have it. have the monitors firing into the long part of the room. It's a good idea to have the side walls, at least from the listening position forward, splayed by at least 6 degrees. Make as much of the room as possible symmetrical from left to right, certainly everything from the listening position forward MUST be symmetrical. One good rule of thumb is to place your listening position 38% of the way back from the front wall. Then place your speakers (whether on stands or in soffits) such that they form an equilateral triangle with the listening position. You can worry about acoustic treatment later, but you'll want to start with an optimized room size/shape. That should get you started....