Basement studio build in a new construction home

Greetings all! this forum is absolutley amazing! I'm hoping to get some feedback on layout ideas for a basement studio I'm building in my new home which is currently under construction. heres what I'm working with: 15' X 28' (interior dimensions) with 9'4" ceilings. and a budget of about $7,000.00 after paying for regular drywall/insulation/framing. Goals: 1. Large live room used mainly for drums, I'm hoping to do about 15' X 15' or so in hopes of getting big drum sounds. I would imagine that it would be hard to work with room mics in a room much smaller. also possibly working in a small iso both for guitar cabs and such. 2. A decent sized control with whatever space is left. 3. This will be in my house so I'm looking at some ways to reduce the noise to the rest of the house, specifically the room directly above. I shouldnt have much problems with the neighbors becuase the live room area is pretty well under ground. I'm coming from a much smaller space (2 car garage to be exact) so I'm not really sure what to do with the space I'm going to have. Any suggestions would be great. -Jim.

have you checked John's designs on the SAE site?

There are some really amazing designs on the site I just havent come across one that sits iside a space like mine. I'm also pretty curious as to what someone elses take would be on the space.

Aloha, Working on one and will post when through. Aloha 8)

Aloha, By the way, any chance you could please:

Edit your profile to include your location. This is very important, because this is a worldwide resource, and as such, material costs and availability vary widely. For example, masonry is cheaper than gypsum in some parts of the globe, whereas it's the exact opposite in other regions.

You'll probably get more of a response by doing so and this will really come in handy two or three posts down the road. It's also part of the forum guidelines. Thanks! :wink: For more info, check out both of these links - http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7572 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231 Looking forward to your build! Aloha 8)

Aloha, Perhaps something like this? In Rod Gervais’ book “Build it Like the Pros,” http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5670 he points out both L.W.Sepmeyer’s & M.M. Louden’s formulas most widely used in professional studios worldwide. He also notes that the orders listed are (top to bottom) the first to third best ratios in both cases. L.W. Sepmeyer Height Width Length 1.00 1.14 1.39-----------9’4” x 10’6” x 12’10” 1.00 1.28 1.54 1.00 1.60 2.33 M.M. Louden Height Width Length 1.00 1.40 1.90 1.00 1.30 1.90 1.00 1.50 2.10 A few thoughts to consider: - Moving the control room to the far side of the layout will eliminate having to cart large, clumsy equipment through the control room and keep from damaging control room equipment & furniture. - In keeping with your request, the live room is approx. 15' x 15'6". However, having a room that is almost square introduces some modal issues that you'll have to deal with. You may want to consider a something like 1.00 1.28 1.54 which would give you something like a 9'4" x 11'9" x 14'4" layout. Hope this helps, Aloha 8)

Awesome, thank you so much for the calculations. I didnt really understand exactly what those ratios meant but your post cleared things up for me quite a bit. Unfortunatley I need to keep the control room at the front section becuase I think its better to have the loudness buried at the back of the house where it is mainly undergroud. I am very sorry, I should have explained that this is a "Hillside Ranch" designed home in which the basement opens to the back. I should have payed closer attention to the guidelines. Also, I'm located in Central Florida. Once again thank you so much for your input, its much appreciated.

is it better to do non parallel walls in the live room? and if so are there any formulas I should be looking at? I also stumpled across this while snooping around the board: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9339 This seems to be a similar space, I have a little more depth in total so I'm thinking of trying to squeeze an iso in here somehow. what are your thoughts?

Aloha,

Unfortunately I need to keep the control room at the front section because I think its better to have the loudness buried at the back of the house where it is mainly underground.

Okay, we'll revise the design and place the control room there. Is there another entrance or stairway we need to consider? Windows?

I'm located in Central Florida.

Cool. If you could insert that info into your profile (edit feature is located at the top left center) that should take care of the forum requirements. Thanks! :wink:

is it better to do non parallel walls in the live room?

Yes. Actually, that applies to the control room as well (all the while striving to retain symmetry.) Here is an excerpt from the SAE website -

the first thing you must do is eradicate all the parallel walls in a studio design. I believe that a wall must be at least 12 degrees off parallel to stop parallel wall standing wave interference. That's either one wall at 12 degrees or two walls at 6 degrees each. If you can afford to make the angle bigger, do so. Also you can create angled walls within a rectangular room by adding acoustic treatment. (I'll demonstrate that in the pages on wall treatment). (Note: having non parallel walls doesn't entirely stop standing waves - they still form within a room but along different lines of repetition). John Sayers http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

and if so are there any formulas I should be looking at?

- The ratios outlined in Rod's book are a good place to start. - Excel Axial Standing Waves Calculator by Dr. Floyd E. Toole It has been stated that once you start angling the walls surfaces, modal response becomes extremely difficult to calculate.

I also stumbled across this while snooping around the board. This seems to be a similar space, I have a little more depth in total so I'm thinking of trying to squeeze an iso in here somehow. what are your thoughts?

Mmm, looks familiar :wink: Okay, we'll add in an iso booth as well. Give me a few, and I'll be back with a few ideas. Aloha 8)

you sir, are the man!

Aloha, Thanks for editing your profile. :wink: Question for you - Is it possible to shift the doorway on the left about 3'? Perhaps something like this? (Vocal booth & live room treatments to follow) Aloha 8)

Thats gonna be a tough one, I unfortunatley need to make this door line up with another that will be across the hall. I'm guessing the difficulty in sliding everything back would be accessing the closet?, maybe I can just make that angled section a wall and just thow a pocket door there with treatment on it to get in to the closet? does that make any sense?

Aloha,

Thats gonna be a tough one, I unfortunately need to make this door line up with another that will be across the hall.

Hmmm, okay.

I'm guessing the difficulty in sliding everything back would be accessing the closet? maybe I can just make that angled section a wall and just thow a pocket door there with treatment on it to get in to the closet? does that make any sense?

Actually, one idea might be using sliding glass doors at an angle to access your closet. You could also use the closet as a machine room for noisy PCU's, etc. You could also use sliding glass doors on the other angled wall as a viewing window and access door. The reason I asked about moving the door was to allow some room for bass trapping at the rear of the control room. Back to the drawing board... Aloha 8)

A machine room is a fantastic idea, my G5 is noisy as all hell. I thinking that sliding glass is definitley the way to go for accessing the live room, I was just worried about reflections off of the glass. if the glass isnt a problem acoustically then I'll do it for sure.

is there an advantage/disadvantage to using just glass doors (wood framed) instead of sliding glass. I would think that it might not let the sound bleed as much and would free up more wall space. just a thought that I wanted to get your take on.

you could use a wood door on the machine room (maybe small amount of glass) to keep it tidy and similar in reflective quality to the opposite wall. just make sure the door seals really well.

do you think something like this might work for the live room w/ ISO in side of it? I apologize for my poor sketchup skills.

that could work. in the corners of the isoroom, build in traps since that space is mostly unuseable.

anyother ideas on the live room, iso booth? We are puring the slab next week, I'll upload some shots of the construction as its coming along.

Well a few things have changed. Unfortunatley after taking into consideration that I have to add a ceiling to my live room (within a room) I'm only going to get about an 8'8" ceiling. I'm leaving the control room ceiling alone so that one will still be 9'4". I have also done away with the hallway (& closet) and that allowed me to get an entrance from the back of the control room. The idea is to build the live room leaving a 5" air gap between the main Walls and the inner room walls, I'm constructing the inner walls as 2X4 framing with mineral fiber (rockwool) between studs, a layer of 2lb Mass Loaded Vinyl (same as Auralex sheetblok but cheaper) and then 1/2' drywall on both sides of the inner wall. The inner ceiling will be the same but with 2X6's to carry the heavy load. I'm planning on laying a prefit snap together type of hardwood floor right on top of the slab, it doesnt seem like floating the floor would be necessarry. After fitting all together the live room will end up being 8'8" X 14'10" X 13'2" (this doesnt really fit into the ratios that I've seen but it kills to me to shrink the room down so small) I'm wondering if this is a room that could be treated to sound good? or is it definetley going to sound bad because it doesnt match the rations? thats a big question that I have. I stuck pretty close to the ratios on the live room. any feedback would be greatly appreciated, I am ordering sound proofing materials now and I'm hoping to get this framed out very soon. Thanks, Jim.

for some reason the pics wont load here but if you go to www.gasstationsusa.com/mms I have some of the construction pics up.

This is a little better. I have angled the walls at the front of the CR 6 degrees as well as the front wall of the LR. I realize that the LR is looking very square so should I angle that back wall 6 degrees as well? any feedback? I'm looking to start framing this in about 2 weeks. -Jim.

Aloha, Looking good :wink: Another way to eliminate parallel surfaces is by using acoustic treatments. Perhaps an angled broad band slat resonator would fit the bill here. Aloha 8)

keep in mind that angling the wall doesn't necessarily solve the room mode problem if the average wall dimensions are the same as the straight walls... the main thing angled walls solve are slap echos or direction of reflections for high frequencies. room modes are solved by picking good ratios for mode distribution and proper bass trapping to correct remaining deficiencies... you might be better off keep the room rectangular and building traps in each corner.

thats looks awesome. is there a good place to look on how to construct those slat resonators?