JWL's studio design

Greetings all, my wife and I are now under contract to purchase our new home, which has a separate one-car garage on a concrete slab, measuring approximately 12x20. My goals for the studio are to create a cozy yet comfortable space for making music, with good-sounding room(s), and good isolation. Neighbors are not much of a factor (we will have 2 acres), but my wife and daughter go to bed early and I am a night owl. I need to be able to work on music at night without disturbing anyone in my house. I play mostly acoustic guitar, and my electric rig is based on amp modelling, so I won't get crazy loud at night. Any full-band tracking sessions can be scheduled carefully so as to not bother anyone, but ideally I'd like to have enough isolation that it won't matter. I do have Rod's book (and a few others), and I've been reading up on this and similar forums for a few years now. I read regularly, and contribute as often as I can where I feel I can help out. I feel like I have a solid layman's understanding of acoustics and studio construction, enough that I am confident to begin work on my space. Knowing that the experts here are available for any glitches that come up is a great comfort to me. As far as the building itself goes: There is a garage door on the east wall of the building, a normal door on the south wall, and windows on the west and north walls. As soon as I am able I will post photographs and a diagram. My goal is to teach myself to use Google Sketchup by drawing out my space in as much detail as I can. In a room of this size, I'm currently debating whether or not to use a one-room design, or to split it into a control room, a live room, and a vocal booth. There are of course advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. And if I do choose a multiroom studio, I will need to design it very, very carefully because it's hard to get small rooms to sound good. I definitely want it to sound good. Lately I've been digging on the one-room concept, the current studio I run (not much more than a corner of a basement with a bit of acoustic treatment) is a one-room design. At the moment, there is no electricity or HVAC of any kind. I'm debating on whether or not I want AC since I live in Maine and might only want AC for a month or two out of the year, if that. I'm not worried about heat; a portable space heater will probably be adequate given the amount of insulation in the room. A friend of mine is pushing me to investigate geothermal designs, apparently where you dig a hole into the earth and bring cool air up from there. I dig the whole off-the-grid ethos, so I'll check it out for sure. I'd love to have some alternate power sources for the studio as well (solar?). I don't have a specific budget in mind. Short of an unexpected financial windfall, this work is going to occur gradually over a long period of time. As in, "hey, I have $50... that's 5 sheets of drywall!!" LOL I plan to do all of the work myself with friend-helpers (as much as I can, anyway.... I'll get a licensed electrician to wire the breaker box, etc). I really enjoy this sort of work and am eager to build a high-quality studio that works well with my own hands. I want to document everything thoroughly in the design and construction of this studio. This first post will get things underway, even though there aren't a lot of details here yet.

OK, I have more thoughts about the one-room design vs. the control room/live room/vocal booth design. I should warn people in advance. I tend to either a)wax philosophical or b)spew constant streams of bullshit depending on your perspective. So be warned. I'm verbose, but I try to be clear. Certainly I mean well. :twisted: Basically, the real question is this. Can a control room and a live room, each roughly 8x12 with splayed walls, sound good? If so, then I think I want to build 3 rooms. If not, then I'll go for the one room design. By good, I mean a well balanced control room, perhaps on the dead side (my own preference, especially in a smaller control room), with bass nodes under control and strong imaging with soffited speakers (I will be soffit mounting a pair of passive speakers I build years ago back when Dynaudio sold woofers and tweeters). I want my live room to sound AMAZING with acoustic guitar and drums. Not huge, but just... good. Resonant in all the right places. I plan on building this room using only slot resonators as acoustic treatment.... I'm intrigued by Len Morgan's comments about how differently-tuned slot resonators in his room affect the tone of the recording. I want a really nice room like this, so I want to think carefully about room shape, resonances, resonator tuning, etc. Many people argue for a one large room design (ie, see the EQ article with the studio plans by Ethan Winer and Wes Lachot), but I know that many studios on this forum use small rooms. If I do go with a one-room design, I'd like to incorporate slot resonators like Len's. But it seems to me that it'd be difficult to do that well in a control room, you want a control room to be as even and symmetrical as possible.... Opinions? Thoughts?

i'd go with the single room that sounds good rather than struggle trying to get 2 or more small rooms sounding good. besides, if you need to divide it up later because you need an iso booth, you can do that later. i'd also start out with inside-out walls to give you the isolation and the beginning of the treatments. instead of just making them flat walls though I'd angle them to get the symmetry and reflections under control. the back wall by the main garage door could be an absorption wall with a poly diffuser to keep it from being dead. i'd remove the garage door and frame it inside-out to add more air space between the exterior wall and interior (also inside out) wall. should be plenty of isolation for your needs. put up a small shed for garden tools and the lawn tractor :-) edit: now that i've seen photos... i'd just insulate the interior walls (you'll need that in ME :-)) and go with the inside-out wall approach. i think it will be easier to construct than trying to beef up between each stud on the existing walls. on the ceiling - if you could beef the ceiling up and keep the open space over the trusses that would be great but if not, again insulate the roof space and drywall on the ceiling joists. if you have someone with a drum kit who can swing by and beat on them you can take some measurements (once you close on the property :-)) or some loud PA type equipment... if you're thinking commerical use of the space the extra meter and separate line works, but if you can upgrade your electric to 200 amp service and then just bury a conduit from the house to the garage it may be better in the long run. get a qoute from the electric company and the electrician to determine costs versus someday wanting to upgrade the house mains...

Hi gullfo, wow, THANKS for that. I am about to fire up Sketchup to learn what it can do, and I can use your skp file as a template. Will make life easier to be sure. I just upgraded to v6. Of course this means I have to reboot into Windows, as normally all my computing (except music making) is done in Linux.... I hate Windows. :evil: Anyway, I'm gonna start laying out the plans I've sketched on graph paper. At the moment there are three of them in the running; two of the three are quite similar to your approach, gullfo.

Also, I like the idea of inside-out walls very much. It seems like a good use of space in a small room like mine. However, I don't quite grok how they fit together airtight. I've been poking around the forum for a long time and have been unable to locate a detailed drawing of, say, a tri-corner assembly. That would help me tremendously. Anyone know of one?

Regarding the inside-out wall assembly, my questions have been answered in this thread. I can now easily see how inside-out walls can be assembled, almost preassembled, in modular form, and made to fit together while preserving airtightness. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to build out the slot resonators from the inside-out walls, particularly the way they are angled. doing an individual slot resonator for each oc assembly on the frame would be relatively easy, but making larger ones at odd angles that are airtight and tuned to specific frequencies will require quite a bit of forethought and math. I've pretty much decided to go the inside-out wall route though. Basically, using inside-out walls will give me more volume inside the resonators, which should lower the frequency at which they are effective, but at the expense of less airspace between the two leaves. So it could hurt my isolation a bit. Anyone have any thoughts on this? We're only talking a few inches here, but I wonder how big of an effect it will have. I'll have to think through the specifics though. Like: with only a few inches between the inside-out walls and the the outer building walls to navigate during the assembly, should one somehow temporarily attach the inside-out ceiling to the upper ceiling, put the inside walls in place, and then unattach the ceiling and let it rest on the walls? Things like that.... On another note, a small snag in our home-buying process. The test for the water came back with high levels of Radon. Now, radon in the water itself doesn't harm a human; the harm comes when the particles go airborne. So, for example, a shower or doing dishes can cause Radon to enter the lungs. We have a specialist going out on Monday to assess the situation. Worst case scenario is that a special unit (that is about 30" cube, and must be heated, ie, inside) may have to be installed to filter the harmful gases out of our water supply. By all rights, the seller will be willing to take care of this before we move in, but like everything else in a home sale it is up for negotiation. So everyone, keep your fingers crossed for a quick and relatively painless resolution to this snag. I've started playing with Sketchup, but I'm not having much progress. It's really hard to boot over into Windows, when I so drastically prefer Linux. As a result, I don't spend as much time in Sketchup as I would otherwise. :roll: Note to the Google Spiders, Messengers To The Almighty Google Gods: PLEASE RELEASE A LINUX VERSION OF SKETCHUP!!!!! :twisted:

Just an update. The well water tests came back with high levels of radon. Luckily we have reached an agreement with the seller to install a radon mitigation unit, so that problem is behind us. Just more paperwork ahead, then we will move in. This is great news. The details of the radon situation are over in my construction thread. This is one of those gray areas where I'm not sure which thread to put information in, as I don't want to be redundant. Note to the moderators: perhaps a new sub-forum is in order, for build diaries? This way, we could combine design/construction into one thread? Just a thought.....

jwl - the Build Diaries is a good idea mate - thank you for the suggestion. here's a thread at the sketchup forum on running sketchup with linux http://forum.sketchup.com/showthread.ph ... F+SKETCHUP cheers john

John Sayers wrote:

jwl - the Build Diaries is a good idea mate - thank you for the suggestion.

John, you are most welcome. Thank *you* for reading my thread. Perhaps you could create a new studio build diaries forum, and leave the current design and construction forums for specific questions. It might involve a bit of reorganizing (some threads will have to be moved... these are mostly in the construction forum though, ie, aaron's, sharwards, all the myriad of others...)

OK, time for a ceiling question. I still very much like the idea of inside-out walls. But if you look at how the garage ceiling is constructed: You will see quite a bit of airspace up there! If I use inside out walls, they will have to be below the joists, and I'll lose all that airspace volume. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can still achieve isolation (ie, room-within-a-room design) but not lose all that airspace?

One idea just struck me: I'll have to double-check, but it would appear that there might be adequate room to build out a small amp isolation box or two up there among the roof trusses. Interesting idea.... I'll have to think through how that would work such that I can access the amp iso box and maintain isolation.....

Loading/unloading could get scary. Hopefully someone with better experience can figure out a way to isolate the ceiling while maintaining the current profile.

How about using that space to gain more volume and a non-parallel ceiling? John said that they converted existing trusses in Oasis Studios to scissor trusses in this thread.

It's not hard to do jwl ;) cheers john

A bit more progress on the house.... the attorney should be calling us today to schedule the closing. We're aiming for the 22nd, and unless there is a major snag (fingers crossed) we should be moved in by the end of the month! w00t! There is LOTS of work to do, the yard is trashed, in that there is literally quite a bit of trash on the property that needs to be cleaned up. In addition, there are 2 acres of forest that have been neglected for years. Gardening space to plan, and a new screened-in porch to build, and landscaping, and... and.... and.... It'll be a wonder if I have time to actually build the studio, LOL. In terms of design, I've pretty much settled on the one-room design, with some reluctance. I'll miss having a vocal booth especially, though I can approximate one with the gobos that I've already built. This is not set in stone, but it seems to me at this point that the advantages of a one-room design (cheaper, end up with a larger, better-sounding room, less cramped space) outweigh the advantages of separate rooms (better isolation between tracks). Lately, I've been really digging having a band set up and recording the entire band with room mics as well as close mics anyway. Thus far I've got a design sketched out on graph paper (still trying to learn Sketchup... grrrrr) that is similar to Gullfo's design. The biggest difference are that there are 3 slot resonators on each side, that can easily be constructed in 4x8 modular inside-out wall sections. I can tune each "pair" of slot resonators to different frequencies by slightly varying the internal construction, though from the outside they will all appear to be identical. In addition, the rear wall will probably NOT have a poly diffusor. I have a design for a large rear absorber assembly with shelves behind it; absorbers work better spaced off the wall, so I figure I'd put each absorber on a hinge and have them be "doors" that cover shelves and possibly a pegboard storage area (for cables, etc). Still working out what to do about the ceiling; the main question is whether or not the additional ceiling height will be worth the labor and cost involved in converting the trusses over to a scissor-type design. Though if I leave the ceiling assembly as-is, it will give me plenty of space for HVAC ducting and silencers. In terms of HVAC, I'm leaning more and more toward just good ventilation, with a fan assembly for air exchange. I am in Maine, so I don't think I'll need AC; it will be hot for a few months out of the year, but oh well. I'm not a big fan of air conditioners in general, mostly the amount of power they suck and their negative environmental effects. So I'd prefer to avoid them if at all possible. That said, with all the insulation in the room, I'll definitely want to make sure I can get plenty of fresh air moving in the room. As far as heat goes, with all the insulation I think my portable space heater will be adequate. Also, we have a dehumidifier that will work just fine. Marching on.... hopefully I'll be in and actually be starting work within a month or two. :twisted:

In the redundancy department (I also posted in my construction thread), we closed on the house today! I now own this property.... I'm very excited. We move on Monday. Time to start packing. Glad we live simply; apart from audio gear, books, clothing, and kitchen stuff we don't have much stuff lying around....

Still feverishly packing our stuff. With our 6,305,812 books, it's taking a while.... Also, I got into the garage. I took more accurate measurements. On the inside of the garage framing, I have space for up to 11.5x18.5x8. So a bit less space than I had thought. Yet another reason to go with the one-room design. Once I move in (Monday), I want to go inside the room and use tape to "sketch" out my 3-room design so that I can more easily visualize the amount of space I'd have. Once I see how small that is, I'll likely abandon the 3-room idea for good. Still plugging away at sketchup, but it's gonna be a while before I post anything.

OK, time for a small update. We're more or less settled in. Everything is unpacked. I've been warming up my carpentry skills for the studio build by building lots of shelves in the new place, lowering my daughter's loft bed (I built it for her last year), building her a new bench seat for her loft bed, building a new 4'x8' compost bin, etc etc. I'm now starting to turn my attention to outside, meaning both the yard and the studio build. I now have accurate measurements of the garage, ie, exactly where the doors/windows are. I also have a rough plan sketched out on graph paper. I want to recopy this sketch, more neatly, and color coded. I'll then scan it so I can post it here. I've officially given up on sketchup, at least for the time being. Too much learning curve. I have trouble thinking in 3D, I think that's most of my issue. Basically, I've pretty much decided on one room; it's a great shape (11.5x18.5), will allow me to soffit mount my speakers reasonably easily, giving me great placement (ie, the mix position is 38% back from the front wall). Between the soffits is a window, which will have a slot resonator built around it. Behind the soffits, to the side of the mix position will be a 4x8 inside out wall, built to John's angled slot resonator. There will be 2 of these next to one another. Behind those, the rest of the side walls will be inside-out walls with absorption in them (ie, covered in cloth). Then, the rear wall will have lots of absorption as well, along with 3 2x4 panels (haven't decided on more absorption or diffusion), mounted such that they are actually "doors" on hinges that cover hidden shelves behind them. My thinking here is a) it gives me valuable storage space, and b) it gets the absorption out from the wall, which helps the absorption. The ceiling will also be inside-out walls, probably with 2x6 unless I can get away with 2x4, with insulation between joists, covered in cloth or perhaps with a membrane on the edges. I'll make a larger cloud over the mix position. Hopefully I can post a diagram early next week.

were you able to determine the cause of the cracked flooring?

Hi gullfo Not yet. See, this is where 2 threads gets confusing. This one is the design thread so I was focusing on that. The construction thread is where I am talking about the crack. Basically, I'm still in evidence-gathering mode. I'm not sure what the next step is going to be. This slab is only about 2 years old, and the fact that it appears to be cracked into 2 pieces is a bit worrisome. The back of the garage is about 1/2" lower than the front. The front half of the garage, from the door to where the crack is, is level. The rear half of the garage slopes downward slightly, about 1/2". The slab is on the edge of a hillside, out the back wall is a downward grade. It''s possible that erosion caused it. Don't know if there is rebar in the concrete yet. I'm thinking not, or it wouldn't slope so much. Pics soon, I promise.....

thnx. sorry, i did catch it later in the construct thread so keep it there... :-)

OK, attached is a re-sized JPG scan of my graph paper floorplan. I'm not the neatest drafter out there by any stretch, but the sketch is pretty close to accurate size-wise (each square = 6"). The entire inner shell will be built from pseudo-modular inside-out walls, slot resonators in the front half of the room, and broadband absorbers in the rear half. The rear wall will also have 3 diffusors, 2'x4', that will be on hinges, acting as doors that cover recessed shelves for storage (mics, etc). I'm not convinced on the diffusors.... I may build some, the Realtraps diffusors look interesting, or I may just go with absorption. The window that's on the north wall of the garage (the long wall at the top), will be removed and plugged, and I'll re-use the window between the soffits. For rear corner absorption, I will use a superchunks-like design, but rather than cut triangles I'll just put 6 batts of 24" R19 ultratouch in. There are 2 angled slot resonators on each side (top and bottom), but they are built slightly differently. The first one is built as one large chamber, the second one is divided into 2 smaller chambers. This will give me 3 different volumes (ie, resonance frequencies) to work with. I'll probalby calculate the room modes and tune the slot resonators to the room modes. For the soffits, I will probalby also run HVAC ducts behind them. The speakers will probably rest on cinderblock/concrete assembly so it is coupled to the floor, and I will build a slot resonator around it. OK, there it is for your perusal.... kinda sloppy. Wish I could get the hang of sketchup.... I think most of my issue there is psychological resistance to booting into Windoze... :twisted: :roll: :roll:

Aloha, Here's a quick Skp of your layout. There are a few things that need to be cleaned up/adjusted so this is in process. I've drawn the walls to be 8' tall, but they may have to be adjusted. There are a few measurements that need clearing up in order to be more accurate. Hope this helps, Aloha 8)

Awesome, thanks kendale! A few minor things that aren't apparent from my drawing. First, the diffusors on the back wall are only 4' tall, they will not go floor to ceiling. THey will occupy the center 4' of the wall. The 2' above and 2' below will be more 16" thick cotton pieces, laid down horizontally to fill the space, superchunks-style (only cubes instead of triangular). The edge of the absorption will come otu as far as the shelves, ie, the diffusors will be in front of it. The ceilings will most likely be just under 8' tall, as I need to have space to put the inside-out wall assemblies as the ceilings above these panels. Obviously I could then post more details, ie, wood flooring/slats etc. Thanks again for this, it's most helpful! Can you post the .skp file?

Aloha, Something more like this? Aloha 8)