new studio space = blank slate

Yay! We bought a house that we take possession of at the end of July. The studio will occupy part (most) of the garage, which is separate from the house. (Southern Ontario, Canada) Here are the specs: it is roughly 12.5' by 24' and is of concrete block construction with brick exterior. The roof is currently plywood and shingles, with full rafters/joists at the top. Yes, I'll need to give consideration to the ceiling, as I also want to use the area up top as an attic for storage. The garage has its own breaker, located on the 6.4' wall on the right side of the tracking room. I have attached a pic below. There is a side door, and a window on the one side. Here is a picture of a proposed layout below. The front area is going to be storage, as the property does not have a garden shed, and my wife would rather not have a shed.... you know.... with the big garage and all. :lol: I would like to have a drop-down staircase, or a ladder or something to get things into the attic part above the studio for storage. Our canoe, maybe? If someone is able to get into the big wide front garage door (or even the side door for that matter), they will have another locked door to contend with before actually entering the studio. Another interior wall between the studio and the big garage door means one more layer of wall and airspace that sound would need to travel through. With the tracking room where it is, there is then TWO walls and significant air spaces between the tracking area, and the biggest structural sonic leak - the large garage door. The rest, divided into the mix area and the tracking area has the slanted wall for two reasons. 1. Sound reflects off it unevenly, minimizing nodal build-ups, etc. and 2. The window, being an escape route for sound, is a better feature in the mix area than the tracking area. The two tables in the mix area feature two computer monitors, and two Yorkville monitors. The other thing on top of the desk is going to be my keyboard. (Korg) The thing sticking out from underneath the desk is a portable (on casters) low-rise home-made rack thingy that rolls and is stored underneath the desk. My rack gear and mixer sit not quite horizontally (slight angle upwards for ergonomics) side-by-side, so I can roll it out to put it where I want it to go (depending on cable lengths, etc.), and so I can roll it around and get around back so I can patch-repatch things as needed. The squares along the wall represent either doors or windows. It should be pretty obvious which is which. :wink: I'm thinking a pair of thermal sliding patio doors to enter the tracking area to allow for some visibility, easy access, etc., as well as sound control. My goal is to have a decent usable space that will not be sound-proof, but sound efficient, in that I will be able to run a session in it (perhaps even with a full band), without making our neighbours mental. Some noise is okay, but I need it to be pretty subdued. The dimensions are approximate, and will not yet take into account the thickness of studding/insulation/drywall, etc., so maybe subtract 6 inches all the way around for those. Am I on the right track so far? Any foreseeable problems? Any better suggestions? Thanks! (yes, surely more questions and discussion to follow ) Chris

It was pointed out to me elsewhere that the angled wall - especially facing the mix position monitors, would result in L/R balance anomalies. I considered the idea of putting the mix position so that the speakers point along the longer dimension, but my desk doesn't fit in that space, unless I make the tracking room smaller. Certainly easy to do in the design stage, but I want to make sure there is enough room in there to put a drum kit and mic it up. I'm wondering what the effect would be on sound and space issues if I shortened the tracking room wall from 9.75' down to, say, 8 ft. I would still have an angled wall, but it would only angle about a foot and a half over a distance of 12.5 ft, which isn't much, I don't think. But, only 8 ft. to set up and mic a drum kit... would that be big enough? But in doing that, my 6 and 12 foot walls are starting to get pretty close in dimension to being multiples of each other... a condition that I think I was avoiding by the more pronounced angle of the dividing wall. Oh, my.... Chris

Aloha and welcome to the forum, Congrats on your new home and studio build! Since acoustics is/are :?: three dimensional, how tall are your ceilings? Aloha 8)

Aloha!! :D Thanks! Geez... I thought about measuring the height about an hour after I left. I can probably make arrangements to go back to measure, but based on the photograph, and the guidelines that a standard exterior door is 6'8", and standard garage doors are 6'6" and 7'0", I'd venture that the ceiling height is 7'0". Keeping in mind, though, that it is unfinished. I'm contemplating a subfloor (radiant heat?), and the ceiling will need to be insulated. That will probably happen between the joists, with plywood or something on top of the joists to make the attic up top, but there is drywall or whatever other ceiling product I might use. Guessing finished height to be around 6'8" -ish. Hopefully that helps.... Chris

i'd flip the tracking and CR rooms so load in/out doesn't have to happen via the CR. if you can reduce the storage space a bit you can set up some angled walls to allow entry through the side door instead of trying to get through the garage door. although opening the garage door may prove difficult unless you can adopt Sharward's idea of sloping the wall to allow enough room for it to operate.

That is an interesting idea. Actually, I'm not too worried about the big garage door. It will stay closed, and load-in/out would happen through the side door, and then through another doorway from the storage area. Does the funky shape of that left-most wall represent anything important, or could I just cut it off straight across the room to allow for a more square storage area, and still have non-parallel walls in my tracking room? Thanks for the time you took to create that drawing. I like a lot about it. Chris

are there other doors in the building? if you're not using the front door, I'd just wall it off behind it. if you need the storage, then it would be tougher. the odd wall design was to accomodate storage and let people in through the side door.

I don't need to use the large front door, but wouldn't mind keeping it as an option if I can. With the wall coming straight across, it basically allows for all possibilities. On the other hand, I want to do this as properly as I can afford, and have a clean slate to work with, really - hence the seeking of input. 8) If there is a good reason to wall behind it, I will. As a storage room, though, I don't really care if it is just the concrete block wall. Budget by the way is fairly limited - a couple of grand -ish. I'll do the framing and drywalling, installation of doors, etc. myself, so I'm mostly just looking at materials. Of course, the simpler the design, the less costly I can keep this project. There are three spots in the structure now that need to be worked around -the large front door -the one side door -the one window Chris

Also toying with an alternative idea that would see the mix area made significantly larger by nuking the tracking room altogether. (though mix area would still be in the middle section so it would have the window) If I record a drum kit, it could be set up in the mix area (which is what I do now). The larger space would be good for that. Except the window would allow a lot of sound from a drum kit out. Instead of a tracking area, I might have three iso booths along the far 12.5 ft wall, each being 4 ft. wide, 5 ft. deep, and 7 feet high. I plugged those dimensions into a room node calculator, and they seem pretty friendly. So if I was tracking a band, I could set it up so that people could still see each other. (exterior doors with thermal windows). But then there is the matter of sound containment that lessens as a result of the compromise of having windows. Argh! Chris

fun isnt it... :-) if you don't really need that big door, i'd remove it (carefully) and put in a proper wall with a 3' door. this would effectively give you the entire space to play with. the isobooths can work. i'd make one big enough for drums though and then you can track guitars etc in the mix room and still have isolation for the vox.

I need the storage space in that front section. My wife said so. :oops: It's okay, though, as I still have access to the studio part via the side door, and then another door into the main room. Here is an alternate layout roughly what I was thinking....below I haven't run the mix room numbers in a mode calculator, but the one wall is about 86/94 degrees to the side walls. That will surely confound any regularity of nodal buildups.... at least I hope. Thinking drums.... a search in another thread pointed out a 'small' one at about 10'x10' with irregular shaping. Not too far off from plan #1, but a far cry from this one. No drum kit will fit into a 4x5x7 iso. But then again, a drummer will easily fit into my new larger mix area, and a couple of guitars and a singer could fit into the iso's with no prob, no? But wait... that window is now in the room I'll be tracking drums in.... argh! That was one of the features I liked about the first plan. Thoughts? Chris

Or maybe something like this.... Solves the symmetrical listening environment (somewhat.... or does it?) Allows visual lines through sliding patio doors (thermal glass) between tracking room and mix room. Still allows window in mix room and not in drum tracking room. Clear path from door to tracking room... cuts through mix room, but not really near any equipment. Thoughts? Chris (sorry if I'm being a pain. I guess the early planning stage is the best time to waffle around from idea to idea, though, rather than trying to salvage a bad plan from the first place.)

maybe this works better? or lose the 2 booth - make a single space and flip the whole thing so the straight wall is along the storage, and the tracking room is between the CR and the store room?

The top one (v3), I mostly like better, except it puts the wall right in front of the middle of the window. With the bottom one, we're still doing a really good job of keeping the symmetry of the control room. I'm curious as to how much 'creative engineering' would be required to keep the window providing light. I don't *have* to keep the window. It's not like it is a feature that defines my existence or anything... it would just be nice if I could. (though yes, double-paned thermal glass). What if we switched the whole thing... a variation on v3, where we basically flip the plan horizontally. The wider part of the control room would come out to include the window with the narrower end at the top of the diagram. The tracking room would still be in the middle, and we wouldn't have to contend with louder noises from the tracking room (also flipped horizontally so that the (estimated) 10 ft length of wall is at the top, and the (estimated) 5 ft wall is at the bottom, and the sound from that room trying to get out the window so much. Maybe? Chris

what i would do is put glass block into the wall to allow diffused light into the space. you could keep the split design and add a column of blocks on each side.

Something like this? Would the tracking room be a sensible size for tracking drums? (keeping in mind, too, that all dimensions are approximate, because I have not allowed for the thickness of insulated walls. How thick will my walls be? I'm thinking 6 inches plus drywall, which would be just under 8 inches. Does that sound about right? (wall thickness based on alternating studs on either side of a 6 inch wide wall plate, using 2x4's, so that the inside of the wall does not touch the outside of the wall, except at the top and bottom where the framing would be, acoustic insulation in between) Maybe double-drywall? Chris

gullfo wrote:

what i would do is put glass block into the wall to allow diffused light into the space. you could keep the split design and add a column of blocks on each side.

Hmmm.... that's a neat idea. And that would prevent me from having to make an odd-shaped window well.... Except I'd have to find a way of running a wall up to the middle of a window, and having light on either side. ? Chris

you could put in the double windows (replacing the single window), one on each side of the wall. the mix desk though should sit in the smaller end of the CR. the angled wall move the sound past your listening position to help create a reflection free zone. if you can use double wall construction. not staggered studs. 2 walls back to back (assuming 1 layer of 5/8" drywall on each side - not in between) would be 8 1/4" + you should put in at least 1/2" or more between the framing so call it 9". this gives you about 7 1/2" of air space (insulation counts if its normal wall insulation). if steel framing works for you(meaning cost/effort) it could improve isolation a bit more over wood, but wood works well and most people are familiar with it. another key design aspect - heating and cooling. fresh air. since the garage will have space above, i'd put in the hvac unit there and set up isolated ducts to you don't get sound conducting/traveling through the ducts between rooms... do a search on hvac and then if you need help check in the construction forum to discuss ideas.

Aloha, Would something like this work? Aloha 8)

@kendale Idea might have some potential, as it starts an entirely new angle to the plan, but there is no apparent room for exit from the control room, and that will is back right in the middle of the window. @gullfo Like this (attached below)? Yeah it totally makes sense to have the monitors at the other end. Don't know why I didn't consider that. Doh! How is that tracking area, in your opinion, for squeezing a drum kit into? I also considered - though not fully, obviously - the idea of a staggered stud wall vs. an actual double wall. The double wall, though it takes up more room, has the benefit of one side of the wall not actually touching the other side of the wall.... I guess except for that the frames of each wall will ultimately connect to the same joists. At least they're not touching at the bottom. How might I fare out with 2x4s and drywall over the concrete block and brick exterior walls? Could I expect reasonable containment from that.... as in significantly better than your average house? (ie. drywall, studs, insulation, plywood, brick) Note that now that we are getting closer to a layout, I'm starting to think more of construction.... Thanks! Chris

Aloha, Looks like you got a workable design going :wink: Keep up the good work! Aloha 8)

One observation: the tracking room seems a bit small (about 70 sq. ft); it would be very cramped for more than one or two people and any musical equipment. Perhaps you could put up a storage shed for your wife and usurp the rest of the garage? Miles

here's another idea. was on a plane so couldn't post it until now.. you could use the small room for storage and noisy equipment.

@kendale - Aloha! Thanks! @Miles - I am a bit worried about the amount of space in the tracking room. I'm thinking, though, (hoping?) that it will be enough room for maybe a drummer and a bass player. Guitarists can track in the mixing room. My current setup only allows for 10 simultaneous inputs anyways, so my usual MO is to track drums and bass on the first 9 tracks, with a guide vocal/guitar mix on the 10th track for reference during overdubs. The whole band plays live, monitoring everything through phones. Drums miked. Bass direct. At the moment, guitars either go direct, or one goes down to my basement and is miked up. At the bed tracks stage, sound quality doesn't really matter on guitars, vox, as those tracks are only guides anyways. (Oh, singer sort of whispers into the mic just to help hold a place for later.) With the new setup, I can do drums and bass in the tracking room, and the guitars and singer in the mix room. If the guitars are going direct (through a modeller or something), then the singer can sing all out and it will be fine. Can't do the shed.... see earlier in post. @gullfo - That looks like a neat setup. I'm a bit curious as to what the room dimensions would wind up being, or if I would be even more compromised for space than I am currently. Thanks, all for the input. Grateful for any more.... BTW... just ordered "the book." Chris

Gullfo - the shapes and general layout would probably work really well for a larger space. Here is what the dimensions would look like given the space I have. (see below). My other concern, and this has to do again with the amount of space I would have to put this design, is that there are doors on nearly every interior surface of every room. Where would I put stuff... like a mixing desk? How would people move around once their gear was set up inside? Chris PS - in case anyone is wondering why everything I put up is in inches.... Corel Draw doesn't allow me to make a sheet of paper 14 feet by 25 feet on which to draw, so I make it 1/12 smaller.... one foot = one inch on my drawing. :lol: