Need validation of new basement studio design

While this is my first post, I’ve been reading this forum for a long time. What a wonderful resource! I’ve read and re-read Rod Gervais’ book on studio design and construction along with several of Everest’s books. This is the 3rd studio I’ve built, but really the first studio where I’ve got the chance to start with a clean slate and do it right. I’m in the final planning stages and want to get my design validated before the contractors begin work. This is primarily a personal use studio, but I occasionally have outside clients that I want to be able to accommodate. I spend 95% of my time in the control room. My objective is to have a quiet, excellent sounding, 2 room studio in the basement of my home. This is a new home with your typical basement – concrete floor and walls, support poles and I-beams to work around and wood joists and trusses in the ceiling. The entire basement is about 2200 square feet and we plan to finish off approximately 1500 square feet. Roughly 600 square feet will be dedicated to the studio area (the remainder will be for a lounge, home theater, bathroom, kitchen, etc…). We do not have a finite budget for the project. While money is not unlimited, our intention is to do this right whatever that might cost. Isolation is very important to me, both keeping sound in and keeping sound out. I’m mainly concerned about isolation from the living space above, not quite as much for the surrounding areas in the basement. I do not intend to float the floor. Walls will either be double wall construction with 2 to 3 layers of 5/8” drywall on each leaf or staggered stud walls with 2-3 layers of 5/8” drywall. The ceiling in the control will most likely be independently framed resting on the walls of the studio with 2-3 layers of 5/8” drywall. The live room has duct work running through the middle of the ceiling that will have to be boxed in. As a result I’ll probably insulate, use resilient channel and 2-3 layers of 5/8” drywall. Ceiling height is 8’ 9” to the bottom of the joists. For all of my room ratio calculations I assumed an interior ceiling height of 8’ 6”. I did my best to construct my room using one of the “golden ratios”. I actually have 2 designs for my control room. The one listed here uses the ratios 1:1.5: 2.1. The second one simply increases the size of the control room a bit to another “golden ratio” 1:1.6:2.33. The live room doesn’t quite nail one of the golden ratios, but gets close. The interior room dimensions are: Control room – 17’10” (L) x 12’ 8” (W) x 8’6” (H) Live room – 20’8” (L) x 12’6” at one end and 8’9” at the other (W) x 8’6” (H) The control is intended to have bass trapping in the rear corners, soffit mounted speakers and bass trapping in the front corners (30 degree angles in each corner), slot resonator walls on the sides (roughly 7 degree angle on each side for a total of 14 degrees of splay) and a window in front of the console into the live room. The live room has bass trapping behind the angled wall (I’m still working on what other treatments I’m going to need and where). The reason for my post is to try and validate my design. I’m pretty comfortable with the construction aspect of the project, but I want the design to be right. My specific questions are: 1) Have I optimized the room sizes or should I consider other dimensions? 2) Have I angled the walls appropriately? 3) Are there any other layout suggestions that you think would make more sense? 4) Am I missing anything in terms of the design that I should consider? I’ve included 2 pictures here (hopefully sized correctly). The first one is a tight image of the studio area only. The second one shows you the entire basement so you can get some context and see what else we’re building down there. These are just jpegs of some Visio drawings and I know some of the dimensions are hard to read. I’m not a Sketchup expert so forgive me for the lack of cool, 3D drawings. Thanks in advance for your feedback. Jeff

I don't mean to bump this message for the sake of bumping it. My concern is I'm scheduled to start construction in the next couple of weeks and I would appreciate any feedback you can offer up. I read through the FAQ and tried to be as complete as possible, but if there is more information I need to provide, please let me know and I'll be happy to do so. Thanks in advance! Jeff

North wall in live room....why not try splitting in half - with 6 degrees + out from centre. See my post "SongCave" stickied. Also CR rear wall, I would tend to bring out the centre with more treatment. Possibly extending the bass traps. Hope this helps - you have done this more than me so you can take it or leave it depending on what youare after. Looks great mate!

if you move the rear wall of the CR back - per sideshow's recommendation as well - you can increase the trapping there. on the live room, what mechanicals do you have there?

gullfo wrote:

if you move the rear wall of the CR back - per sideshow's recommendation as well - you can increase the trapping there. on the live room, what mechanicals do you have there?

If I move the rear wall back, it would seem to me that I would be falling outside of one of the "golden ratios". My understanding is that my interior walls should represent the proper room dimensions and then my treatment walls are inside of that. Is that correct? I totally get the idea of spreading out the bass trapping on the rear walls so that it covers more, if not all, of the rear wall as opposed to just being in the corners. The mechanicals I show in the drawings are the electrical boxes and sprinkler system control box. My thinking was that a) I didn't want to create a way for sound to escape (or get in) by creating some kind of door or access panel and b) I needed an angled wall in the live room anyway. Laying it out the way that I did allows me to keep the live room isolated and I can access the electrical box from the storage area in the other part of the basement. Is there a better way to layout the live room?

Sideshow wrote:

North wall in live room....why not try splitting in half - with 6 degrees + out from centre. Also CR rear wall, I would tend to bring out the centre with more treatment. Possibly extending the bass traps.

Good suggestions. Thanks!