ideas for studio

Hi I live in Ecuador and have the opportunity to build a studio in what has been until now a poorly constructed storage space. The structure is built from cinder blocks, using mud as grout. The roof is a tin roof and is sort of resting on the walls and isn´t actually connected. I am going to have to tear the whole thing down and build it back up. I would like to use the same cinder blocks and then cover them with cement (that is the most common building method here). The current structure is 26.5´ by 11.5´, but my wife has given me permisson to expand the second wall to 18´. As I have to rebuild the structure from scratch maybe that puts me in a position to be able to build in such a way that the structure of the building itself lends itself towards recording. Maybe tear down the front wall and make it sort of octagonal or circular? my restricions are the property lines, as it is sitting in the corner of the property. Bad things: I live in a rural area where the farmers have big parties almost every weekend and pay a dj to bring a pa system and the music often goes into the next day, sometimes through the whole weekend. during the week there is very little noise, but i would like to be able to record on weekends as well. Most of the neighbors who play the music are on hills that are above me and sometimes the music is so loud that it sounds like the pa is in my house. I want to record various arrangements with mostly acoustic instruments: lots of handdrums and misc. percussion, standup bass, marimba, guitars, brass, wind, strings, and voice. I dont know how to best divide the space. I imagine one big room would be good for recording live, but that would comprimise the voice and the drums? (i assume this to be the case becuase in most of the plans i have seen these are recorded in seperate booths). any ideas will be much appreciated. thank you

Aloha and welcome to the forum, Congrats on your studio build. It would be helpful for us to know what kinds of materials are available? - do you have any other grout material other than mud" - what kind of material is available for flooring/footings? - what kind of material is available for framing? - what kind of material is available for insulation? - what kind of material is available for walls? - what kind of material is available for roofing? - are your cinder blocks hollow or solid? In the meantime, we can do a basic floor plan for some ideas. :wink: How tall will your ceilings be? Aloha 8)

jaja, there are other grout materials and mud isn´t normally used except in situations when said constructor can´t afford anything else. the cinder blocks are hollow. I´ve read that putting the space of air between walls reduces the amount of sound transmitted, but as i read in an article in the section ¨read all this stuff first,¨ since the cinder block makes like an H the sound is transmitted through the bridge of the H (i hope i communicated that well, and maybe that conclusion is incorrect). i would also like to add that my budget is somewhere around $2,200. tomorrow i am going to investigate the availability and prices of the other materials you listed. are rocks useful? I have to put concrete floors in on certain parts of the building and am alrady digging in order to put rocks down before putting concrete over that (i was told by local builders to do this). After using the rocks i have for that there will still be a lot of rocks. Grapefruit to cantelope sized rocks. the rocks are free. it would great if there was a way to use them.

one other thing: it is really really cool of you guys to help so many people out by designing studios without expecting any kind of compensation. you are all doing great things for the future of music. thank you, muchas gracias, obrigado, kamsah hamnida, ustedes son lo maximo.

Aloha, Perhaps something like this? Aloha 8)

jashwa wrote:

one other thing: it is really really cool of you guys to help so many people out by designing studios without expecting any kind of compensation.

of course we get compensated. you have to post photos of your studio construction :-) that said, you know what they say about free... ;-) my 2¢ - if you really want your studio build to take full advantage of your budget, you should consider giving John a call rather than just assuming that a sketch is going to give you the full story on building a proper studio... there can be a number of very intricate bits to be solved depending on your needs...