New Studio in Thessaloniki - Greece

Hi everybody....i'm Nikodemos, sound engineer and studio owner in Greece for the past 14 years. This summer we're planning to re-build our recording studio from scratch.....so here i am!!! I found out about this forum a couple of months ago and i'm spending 3-4 hours a day reading your posts.....i discovered very usefull things and guidelines and so the first thing i want to do is to say CONGRATULATIONS!!! I decided to start a topic regarding our forthcoming studio project because i feel i can get lots of help from all of you great people!! In the next few days i'll post my design ideas and floorplans plus full info on our project. For now, let me tell you once again thanks for doing what you do and for your time. Respect Nikodemos

Here is a "non detailed" floor plan and some sketchup views of the project the way i'm thinkin of... The location is a 3,80m high basement with 1,50m of it above the ground. The ground floor is an empty parking space(unused-no cars) and then there is the first of 4 floors with residences. The basement is about 360m2 and i'm allready using the 180 for my old studio...i'm planning to build the new one in a 160m2 area...i have enough relaxing space in my old studio so i don't include something like this in my plan. I'm planning to build a 22,5m2 Control room with a 55m2 recording room (divided in a live room and a booth - probably seperated by sliding glass doors) plus a 25m2 rehearsal room(with options for recording usage). My main designing problems are the 2 concrete walls in the midlle of the space and the thing that there must be an easy way to the rest of the studio(the old one)....I'm planning to use the existing rooms in my old studio for a dedicated mastering/post production suite plus a design room(since we run a small record label too) and another rehearsal room. I have a lot of "construction" questions but first i must make my mind with a final design....So please tell me what you think....all opinions will be very apreciated. I will include a sketchup file for you to take a better look at my design if you want. please let me know what details you need to know. Thanx in advance.....and please forgive my english!!! Nikodemos

i forgot to say that i haven't included any "acoustical treatment" in my design but i'll do so...especially in the control room!!! i just thought that it would be easier to start with more "clean" and standard shapes

So here is the details: We're planing to build a studio with a centered control room of about 22,5m2 and two live/recording rooms(a big one about 50m2 and a smaller kind of booth about 15m2) plus a rehearsal room. Our main isolation goal is to be able to work in the recording studio while a noisy band is practising in the rehearsal space. We also want to be able to use the rehearsal as an aditional live room so we are going to have all possible wiring compinations between the rooms. Our main designing problem is the 2 concrete walls right in the middle of the space....in my design idea there can be no optical connection between the control room and the rehearsal room but that's not a big deal and after all a window would bring some extra noise to the control room. The control in this starting design has a "clear" shape because from what i've read is easier that way to understand and calculate the acoustical problems of the room and then deal with them(or i got it wrong?). I'm planning on using the space between the control room, live booth and the outside basement wall as a sound lock and as an entry to the existing studio(not pictured here). The big live room and the booth will have a glass door(sliding or part opening) covering most of their separating wall. I'm thinking the same for the control room - live room combination for easy access through the rooms but the option of a big window is here too. As i mentioned this is a basement build with reinforced concrete and i'm thinking to use the existing concrete walls as the first leaf of a Mass-Air-Mass wall system. I still have a lot of questions on that so i'll wait until i have a final plan on my mind to throw them on the table. The reception room is quite small but since we already have a lounge room in the existing studio we only need this space as a reception plus a place for showcasing our cd releases since we operate a small record label too. As i mentioned above our main sound isollation challenge is to completely seperate the rehearsal room from the rest of the studio. I thought that the best way would be to have 2 completely seperated wall systems ....my main question here is how big should be the space between the 2 wall systems in order not to act as a 4 leaf wall but as 2 completely different walls? in this design i have a 80cm of air space betwwen the rehearsal's outter wall leaf and the studio wall.Is this enough or it would still be a 4 leaf system with all the dissadvantages i 've read here and in Rod's book? Well i'll get back on this as i'm still searching for all the available info in this forum and anywhere else i can... I hope you'll find the time to check my project and i would love to hear lots of ideas and proposals.....if i'm not describing something right please let me know...and i'll do my best to fix it!!! Thanks again....i'm waiting for your replies Nikodemos

Hi nik, If you are building a studio from scratch there is no reason to have so many parallel walls. Have a look at some of John's designs in the stickies on this thread. If you are building from scratch you can do much better than so many parallel walls. Good luck JWL

Hi there JWL...thanks for the reply. Well this design is more about deciding the best area for each room in my space and not some kind of a final floor plan. Actually i'd love to hear some ideas on managing the space :D However this "parallel walls" makes me wonder as i've been reading through this post and in some books i've bought recently: Is it better to design and build a studio with acoustical treatment in mind(non paralel walls, common control room shapes etc) or it would be wiser to design and build more clean shapes taking advantage of as much space as you can (even if this means paralel walls sometimes) and then re-design the inner walls acousticaly speaking....i mean i see good and bad things in both concepts: In the first scenario if there are acoustical problems after your design is built it would be too complicated to calculate the rooms acoustics and find a proper sollution(or not? please correct me if i'm wrong). So i really don't know what would be the best approach.....maybe a little from both worlds? Anyway that's why i'm here....to ask and learn....as much as i can thanks Nikodemos

Hi there, keep looking around the forum for other designs. Basically you will want to find a studio that has a similar size to your space and use that as a starting point for your design. For example, something like this seems in the ballpark for your space:

hi there well actually i've downloaded most of the floor plans i've found here and in other sites.....and all the SAE included!!!! So here is a new floorplan i made with actual dimensions. I tried to reduce the parallel walls....My 2 main problems are: I want to have a rehearsal room but i want it to be completely(or as much as possible) isolated(acousticaly speaking) so i included an Iso booth to act as a sound lock between the rooms.....would that work? The 2nd is that i must have a coridor leading to my old studio(not pictured here) which is in the same basement. So if someone could give an advise, a tip, a guideline or just a comment i'd be more than greatfull!!!

using the iso booth as a sound lock is a good idea. the overall layout looks good. not clear on the other studio access but if you have a corridor that meets your local code and your needs, then you should be fine.

I'm glad!!!thanx gullfo well the path to the existing studio is ok with this plan....i just forgot to put an arrow or something to show it :oops: the old studio is right behind the concrete wall on your right(next to the drum booth)... I just thought that since the control room is pretty small it would be a good idea to have a machine room where to put all the noisy computers, power suplies,etc. Does anybody have a clue of the maximum distance could be for computer cables(monitor,keyboard,mouse etc)? I want to finish the design and start thinking (and asking :D ) the best building sollution(materials and stuff like that..)

the control room, the live room, and the drum booth all still have 2 parallel walls. I'd put an angle on the back wall of the control room, basically making a 5-sided room that is still symmetrical at the mix position. You could also easily enough angle one of the parallel walls in the drum booth easily enough. The live room might be a bit trickier, you'd have to pivot the control room a few degrees to make that wall nonparallel. You are getting close with your layout, though. Looks like a good design overall that just needs some tweaks. Though admittedly I'd be very curious about what John would design for this space.... :twisted:

Hey jwl...thanks for checking :) Well.....i think i'm getting closer....I' ll put some more angles in there soon!!! Now that is a question: Bass traps in corners should be part of the inner wall leaf or a completely different construction?That goes for some plain angles too...wouldn't be easier to construct a much more plain shaped room and then rearrange the inner side of the walls? ....and i would really, REALLY love to hear John's suggestions on my project thanks Nikodemos

Hi Nikodemos - you r plan is progressing. Here's a really bizarre option ;) cheers john

Wow thanks John!!! Now that's a quite different approach....i love the idea of the control room being on the right side of the basement because i could retain the winows and have sun light in the room which is a FANTASTIC thing (My old studio in the other end of the basement, where i've spent the last 14 years working, has no windows at all...).Actually my very first concept was to have the control room right there....but i couldn't figure a way to arrange the rest of the space.....but you did!!! I also like the way all rooms are accesible through this coridor,sound lock....great......i just think i would like a bigger live room.....we'll see...having another option is allways a great thing....anyway i'm printing it on paper right now...and i'm going on location to check things....you know....imagine the whole thing in place....i've spent hundreds of hours the last few weeks staring at concrete walls!!! Thanks.....and i'll come back with news soon!!!

Hi everybody...i uploaded a drawing of the whole basement-project including my old studio. I think now you'll have a better image of my space. After i've finished the new one i'm planning to rebuild some of the rooms in my old studio to fit my future needs....and that's what you see in the image. Most of the old rooms are allready there but some of them have a completely different use at the moment (the design room in the image is actually our tracking room at the moment and the mastering room is our control room...the rehearsal room is actualy a rehearsal room :) :) :) We also run a small record label so we need space for designing and storage plus a music store for our releases in the reception. That's for now....i just thought that i should give some more info on what i do....i hope you didn't get bored to death :) As for the plans...i think i'll go for a bigger live room even if John's idea seems to me much more reasonable....Here in Greece music recording is becoming more of a "homemade progress" everyday and i think a comercial studio should look more ....well comercial with a big live room (big for the greek standards....i know my project is small compared to comercial studios in the states or the uk or i don't know where :oops: ) thanks for your help Nikodemos

Hi everybody....i made a plan of my room within a room design for you to check....i hope i've underestand the MAM concept correctly but that's why i'm here anyway...to learn more!!! I'm planning to use the existing concrete walls as the first leaf of my system and to float the floors. Please let me know what you think thanks Nikodemos

Nikodemos - what ceiling height do you already have?? Floating floors is expensive - may be if you floated the floor of the rehearsal room you could leave the rest as normal. Big Saving. cheers john

well the ceiling is 3,60m high... i thought of floating the rehearsal,the drum booth and tthe control room floors(we're in a very noisy street and the noise from the cars is coming through the concrete floor) instead of everything....but then again you never know your exact needs. What do you think of it overall? Or ,in other words, will this work? Above the concrete ceiling there is an unused parking space(all over the basement) but even when someone is walkin there you can hear it pretty loud in the basement. Do you think that a deadsheet in between the gypsum boards would raise the STC in lower frequences? I'm very concerned in stoping the "noise" from escaping from the studio and i'm willing to do(and pay) as much as possible. Thanks again for checking it Nikodemos

And another question: Do you think that using the existing concrete wall as the outter leaf where possible will work or maybe i should build 2 leaf drywalls everywhere? Thanks(i really,really mean it) N

Hey people....hope you're all doin great!! I know that you all are prtty busy right now but it would be a great help to leave a comment on my "room within a room" plan....so please do :D :D also i need your help in another problem....there is serious moisture problem in my basement, especially on the outter concrete walls....what should i do about this?any ideas? is there some material that i could put on the concrete like some special paint or even a waterproof gypsum board or somehing? And another one: Does anybody knows the price range for the Kinetics RIM floating floor system? Thanx again....waiting for your replies Nikodemos

I have a question regarding the way the walls should get in the ceiling....i've drawned the 2 ways i thought of....please let me know which one you think is the best.....thanx i decided to go for 3 layers of Knauff Piano gypsum boards on 75mm steel studs with a MLV sheet like sheetblock from Auralex between the boards...what do you people think? Nikodemos

I think the right-hand drawing it more likely to seal correctly. you might want to bounce this over in the construction forum as well.

Having in mind the 3.6 m height can you increase the lenght or width ? Something according to the rom ratio 1: 2.18 : 3

well Glenn thanks...that's what i was thinking too....i'm planning to start a thread in the construction forum in a few days....i'm cleaning up the basement at the moment...so in a few days i'll post a "detailed" thread with my design,photos of the empty space, and ny construction plan...hope to see you all there :D :D andrebrito: can you help me a little bit on that? what are the best ratios? my plan is most based on best usage of the space and not so much on ratios(actually not at all :oops: )...is a square (5x5m) control room out of the question?....and last the height will be around 2,80m(with floating floor and the inner ceiling) hope you can find some time and tell me what you think :wink: cheers Nikodemos

I don't have a list here of modes but you can find one easily. This is one that I indicated was withdrawn from a recent study. We have been using ratios for quite a while so there is an immense list. I woud prefer the control room to be as large as possible to decrease the first axial modes in terms of frequency since one thing is to have a mode at 100 Hz, other at 40 Hz ( we are less sensitive at lower frequencies).