New Studio - Seeking Design Advice

Hi Guys, This is my first post to this forum. Hope I posted this in the right place ... my questions kind of cover design, construction and acoustics so I wasn't 100% sure. I look forward to your advise and expertise! I'm in the process of building a new studio in a big empty warehouse space. I've included a basic diagram of the layout. Originally I was going to keep it open and not build a separate control and tracking room, but based on several people's educated opinions (thank you if you're reading this) I've decided to create the two rooms. All the walls in the diagram already exist with the exception of the wall between the two rooms, I'll be building that next week. That said, I'm looking for advise or suggestions on how this can be improved, or any concerns you may have, etc. Here's some basic info about the space: 9' Wooden Ceiling (joists every 8 ' running L-R) Concrete Floor Side Walls are Brick Front and Back Walls are Drywall Wooden Posts (12' apart, running every 8' down the length of the room) I did some room mode calculations ... and I'm not exactly sure I'm reading them properly ... but based on plugging in some numbers I ended up with a control room of 36'w x 26'l x 9'h, and a tracking room of approx. 34'w x 36'l x 9'h (it's an odd shape due to the location of the iso booths). From what I can tell that should produce a couple rooms with acceptable modes. I can't really afford to mess with the width of 36', or the ceiling height of 9', so they're sort of a constant. Obviously I'm on an budget (which seems to grow daily), so I'm trying to work with what I've got as much as possible. I'll be putting in a 6' x 3' window between the rooms, and plan on installing a couple of sliders (one of each side) that were donated. I've also got some free wood laminate flooring (probably about 6-800 sf). All the doors (except the closet space) I'm building myself as they're huge, heavy, and it's way cheaper that way. I also plan on putting windows in the doors to the iso booths so anybody in them can have eye contact with people in the live room, or even with the control room. That was a big factor in where I decided to put the iso booths in the layout. Once the construction phase is over, I plan on building some sort of cloud structure for over the mix position and over the drum tracking area (probably somewhere in the middle of the live room). I'll add a mix of bass traps and mid/high absorbers around the control room as necessary. Probably try to add some diffusion to the back wall as well. Don't have as many ideas for the live room yet. Sorry for the novel, just thought it would be helpful to include more info rather than not enough. So ... (breath) ... a few questions I have are: 1) Does where I positioned the dividing wall make sense? And since I'm installing a window should I build 2 separate walls with a space between rather than a single wall? 2) The room is full of wooden posts which I can't remove for structural purposes ... will this be an acoustical nightmare? Should I cover them with something absorbent, and if so ... any ideas what? I can get some moving blankets for cheap which don't look bad, but will they do anything? 3) Other than the clouds, any recommendations on how I can soften the ceiling a little? It's a huge space, so obviously I can't afford to cover it entirely. Also, there are sprinklers running the width of the room, about every 8' (centered between the joists) so I can't obstruct them too much. 4) Wood flooring ... I planned on putting some down in the control room between the mixing desk and couch. This is really just for aesthetics ... is there any sonic benefit to making an area of it in the live room? Maybe beneath where the drums would be? 5) Tracking room ... this will mostly be for drums, but it's certainly large enough to handle more than that. Will this require bass trapping as well? Would you recommend diffusion here .. and if so, where? Please feel free to comment on or suggest anything I haven't mentioned ... I'm certainly very far from a professional studio designer. My last studio worked very well, but this space is much larger and provides a whole different set of challenges. Of course budget is always a concern, but I'm a big DIY guy and can handle just about anything that falls into that category. I appreciate your expertise and experience as I'm trying like hell to not make too many mistakes ... thank you in advance!!! -Eric D

Location? http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=17 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231 :? You've a confusing user name for me (think for some others too) ... I'm often referred as Eric D as well.

Sorry ... I don't do the forum thing that often. I've updated my profile to include my location. Thanks for the heads up!

maybe something like this?

very cool Glenn :D