Basements studio ideas

Hello! I am building a house and have made certain to leave a useable space in which to build a studio. After reading these forums quite a bit, Ive some up with some great ideas, which I'll be happy to post, but I'd really like to see what those with more experience might do with the space. The room dimensions are laid out in the drawing. There is a load bearing wall down the middle of the open space and I can have headers added wherever I'd like (up to 48" each). The ceiling will be about 8'9" aside from a ventilation trunk line down the middle of the space (right below the wall). I'm planning a control room, live room, vocal booth, and possibly a machine room. The goal is to be able to mix without disturbing anyone in the house, and to track loud instruments without disturbing the neighbors. I would love any input and ideas. Please let me know if I've left out any important info. Thanks!

I've got ideas, but I'm sure someone can improve on them.

I think picture3 would be right on the money. I'd only consider the entry to the machine room as possibly leaking noise into the booth so maybe put the door into the back CR corner instead or plan on building a nice tight isolation door on the machine room.

Thank you for the input! I see what you mean. If I were to move the machine room door, should I be concerned about not being able to build any bass trapping into the CR rear corner? I could get an Iso-rack for the MR, or even for the CR. The Glyph drives are plenty quiet to live in the CR with me, but I haven't yet received my Mac Pro. If they're as loud as the G5s were it'll need its own room! Will the single sliding glass door be sufficient for isolation between the booth and the CR? I designed it this way rather than mass air mass in order to preserve useable space. The size of the rooms (at their center points) are as follows. This will be built as a room inside of a room on the existing slab. No floated floor. Any red flags? Control Room: approx L13'2" x W10'10" x H8'5. Iso: approx L9'6" x W6'3" x H8'5 Machine room/Storage: whatever's left. The other half of the unfinished area will remain for future use.

you could leave the machine room door where it is, just make sure its seals well so you keep the booth as quiet as possible... the single slider should suffice in most cases where you're doing vox or acoustic work. probably less effective with a guitar amp or bass amp. with a single wall structure you just as likely to get sound through the wall anyways...

Good point about the STC of the single wall. Thanks! How about the ratios of the CR and iso? The design can be tweaked from here on out, but I need to commit to where I place my headers in that load bearing wall to allow for a window from the CR to the future live room.

give yourself an extra half foot on either side of the CR window for the beam so you have room for adjustments if need be. with the ceiling height, you should be able to use a larger beam to get the span needed. otherwise things look good and if don't already have Rod's book on home studio construction, get it.

Thanks. Rod's book is on the way already. I am currently planning a 48" header, 6'6" on center from the existing wall on the right of the floorplan.

It's coming together. Each square equals 1 sq. ft. Any suggestions?

you could put an opening for the tape machine on the back wall to sit in.

I think this may be the final layout for my rooms. Each grid square is 1 sq. ft. I've seen some beautiful renderings of rooms that some people around here have created with measurements clearly layed out. I have no idea how much or how little time they take, but might anybody be able to put one of those together for me since I have no clue how to go about it? :oops: Also, I'm not sure if my wall angles and speaker soffit angles are correct. This will all fit into the 19'5" x 14'11" room.

looks like a good layout. to render it in sketchup only takes a little while but to do all the detailed drawings, material lists, etc can take quite some time. here's a close sketchup rendering based on your latest plan. with the back wall you could make it mostly absorptive so you can save some space. the vox booth and CR could have the walls closer. #3 is how i would approach it - it gives a bit more space and wider angles on the walls.