New Studio (hopefully)

Hello, This is a fantastic board. I've been lurking for a couple of years, but now i might have a chance to build out my studio in an existing business, and I thought i would ask for some input. right now, the room is just a big open space with a couple of editing stations for two people to work on post production. It might be switching to one person (me) in the near future. and I'd like to be able to record as well as do the post prod. thing. so I've included an image of the room and a sketchup file of my preliminary idea. If anyone has the time to look at these files and provide some input, i would really appreciate your advice. some things to consider: this room is in the ground floor of a brownstone in new york. it is sort of a half basement about 4 or 5 feet below ground level. the floor is hard wood and below that is an unused basement. above is an apartment, and it is probably the biggest sound leakage concern. the long side walls are brick with a slat and plaster covering the short wall on the right is uninsulated drywall and very thin. behind it is another filmmakers studio, another sound leakage concern. the fireplace does not work but it shouldn't be covered. it might provide for some interesting (or horrible) acoustics in a live room. I would probably need to "stuff" something in the opening to avoid leakage. the wall on the left has large windows and a door leading outside. this will most likely be a lounge/office area. Id like to be able to fit 3 or 4 clients in the controll room comfortably, (although it's always better to have less people in the room) I'll probably be recording acoustic instruments and vocals mostley, but it would be nice to be able to mic up a guitar amp once in a while. in summary, I'd like a versatile studio with minimal (if any) adjustments to the existing structure. the bulk of my work will be editing/mixing film and TV, some foley and VO. but Id also like to be able to record myself and a small ensemble and small bands here and there. right now, i'm mostly interested in planning the layout in 2 dimensions, to get the most efficient use of the space and to make the controll room as big as possible, while still having a live room big enough for, say, a string quartet, or a small rock band. i'm not really thinking about budget right now, but I could see spending $4000 on it, hopefully less, maybe more. thanks for looking.

here's a pic of my idea. anyone have any better ideas of the layout? thanks

Hi, What height is the space? cheers Alan

Hi, here's a slightly different idea, i moved the vocal booth so you can see from the control room through the live room into the booth. i don't know enough to give you any great advice on treatments etc but this may give you something else to think about hopefully kendale or gullfo will be around soon, they have the knowledge. hopefully this is helpful in someway cheers alan

oh yeah, i forgot to mention, the ceiling height is 8'6"

medboyle wrote:

Hi, What height is the space? cheers Alan

thanks alan, that's a nice idea. i was trying to figure out how i would see into the booth and this seems to work. another thing i was wondering doe's anyone think the control room would be better if i turned it 90 degrees so that is longer and narrower rather than short and wide.

Aloha,

I was wondering doe's anyone think the control room would be better if i turned it 90 degrees so that is longer and narrower rather than short and wide.

Yes, that would be a good idea because

you don't want rear reflections to interfere it is better to start with a longer front to back dimension than the side to side dimension. - John Sayers

Perhaps something like this for starters? If this works for you, we can then add in the doors and windows. Aloha 8)

i'd make the office small (maybe setup to be converted to a booth someday...) and the live room a nice space with access to the fireplace for either aesthetics or acoustics ;-) and a nice sized control room. a booth with the windows will still let in light... the small space adjacent to the fireplace could be storage...

Thnks for your help everyone. I've combined some of your ideas into my own. and I'm liking it. what do you think of this? now if i could just take over the business......

Aloha, The layout works, but I would go with a hardwood or laminate flooring instead of carpeting in the control room, live room and vocal booth. You could then treat the walls & ceiling to handle the absorption tasks. One point to consider is how much isolation do you require between rooms? Aloha 8)

thanks for the tip. thats true. actually i was just staring at the thing so long that i got so sick of the wood patterns in sketchup, so i needed a change of scenery. as for isolation. the bulk of my work will be sound editing, so i'm not looking for the absolute quietest sound for the live room. (although i might change my mind about that.) it would be nice though to be able to put a cranked up amp in the booth and not hear the thing in the control room. thanks