SharpNine Studio Design!

Hey all! Here’s a couple sketches of my existing space for a future basement studio. The first one is a basic floor plan and the other is a 3D sketch that shows my HVAC considerations and the existing framing. Currently these rooms are part of a completely finished basement. Any recommendations or thoughts on an approach for this space whenever anybody has a chance? Thanks a TON for any input! My main goals with these rooms will be for recording a lot of guitar based music in various styles ranging from Jazz & Blues to Country & Bluegrass to Rock & Progressive Metal. If possible I would like to try and design the live room to enhance the sound of mic’ed guitar amps and cabinets as well as mic’ed steel and nylon string acoustic guitars. I have a pretty small room there so I might have to just make the room dead? Not to mention the square shape of it! At this point I’m planning on stained and sealed concrete for the floors and the usual recommendation of absorption on the ceiling. I will be working alone quite often and will be using lots of MIDI sequenced samples for drums and other instruments although I may occasionally have real musicians over from time to time. Isolation requirements are very important as I would love to be able to "open up" louder amps, or as mentioned, accommodate the occasional drummer etc. I do have neighbors about 50 feet to the north of me and bedrooms directly above. My isolation design will be based heavily off of Rod’s book. I will be doing plenty of demo to achieve this after which, an assessment will be done to see if any existing construction, such as the wall framing, may be utilized. The two windows on the north side can be walled over but the one in the west wall must be accessible and operable. (That one’s gonna be tricky.) For the control room I was planning on using the larger room since I will be spending most of my time there. I would also like to use this room for transcribing music from various different styles and instruments for the guitar. A kind of guitar laboratory. Would the standard mix position type setup be appropriate for this application? This will really be an important requirement and consideration for me. I have a few ideas I’ve been kicking around but could really use some suggestions. I am slowly starting to learn the fundamentals of monitoring position layout in regards to wall angle, room symmetry, positioning and such although the actual reasons for which I’m still pondering. I hope I didn’t make this too long so if there is anything at all I should add or is unclear let me know and I will get on it! Thank you, Chris

nice drawings! is it possible to replace the load bearing wall with an i-beam to support the upper floor? this way you could simply swap out that wall for an angled one between the 2 rooms. if not, you could still add the angled one in the cr but is just means more treatments needed in the live room to reduce any direct reflections from opposing walls.

Thanks gullfo! Your drawing is very helpful and already giving me ideas! I was wondering what you had detailed on that south wall in the CR? I did look into replacing the wall with a beam but just couldn’t fit it in the budget($3K). It sure would be nice though! The HVAC is looking like the biggest expense. I’ll have to use a super door and maybe a small window since along with the beam goes the sliding glass. According to the inspector, I’m limited on what header size I can use there. I guess I was thinking of building a couple isolated boxes and then treat them after. Should I really be trying to build in some angles where I can? I was wondering about maybe using John’s inside-out wall design for the south wall in the live room. Although, in reading the forum, it sounds like isolation will suffer slightly with that approach. I do need the iso on that wall since the furnace/air handler and other utilities are directly on the other side. I’m using 3 layers of 5/8" everywhere for the inner leaf so it might be a little tough to move that wall into place after it’s constructed though! The utility room side of the wall already has ½" drywall and I was planning on adding mass between the studs since plumbing runs prevent adding more layers directly to that side. So far, here’s a sketch that gives an idea of dimensions after the isolation I was thinking of doing, as well as my amateur attempt at the monitor position. I do have some parallel walls to deal with still and trap placement yet. If I’m way off on my thinking let me know! Thanks, Chris

that looks like a decent design - i'd make the south wall trap deeper to get more bass trapping there. on the door - make it a pair of glass doors so you don't need a window. you could use John's inside out walls as shown, you could bulk up the existing wall with a layer or two of drywall and make the new wall a couple of layers as well and with the angle you have some air gap in there.