Need some help with design

Hello all, I've been reading over the posts for several days now and have found a wealth of information. I have just acquired a space to finally get my studio underway. I'm going to need some help in designing this thing. First the room is on the second floor above a bar downstairs (jukebox noise can be heard). The floor is concrete with a commercial glue down carpet down. Three of the main walls are outside cinder block walls. On the one interior wall there is a HVAC? unit of some kind behind a 4x5 drywall bump out into the room. The current ceiling is a drop ceiling at 9 ft with approx. 3 ft. of space above it. My main goals for this room is a control room, small iso booth, and large live room. My sketchup skills are non-existent as I've just downloaded the program, but I did manage this basic box, I hope it helps. Thanks in advance, Kevin

The two doors shown are interior doors to storage rooms and hallway. There are also 4 small windows in the room. Noted by the very detailed squares on the walls. Thanks, Kevin

Anyone?

networkconsulting wrote:

Anyone?

Network, you give no information what so ever on your room or needs - and yet you seem surprised that no one has responded. Perhaps you should read this thread first: http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7572 and then this one: http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231 Note that for this exercise - the 2nd is more important than the first - pay attention to bold. Then - rethink your post and give the site some questions that can be answered instead of just a blank sheet of paper...... Rod

Ok, lets start again First the room description – Dimensions are approx. but should be fairly close (within a few inches) 33 ft. wide x 28 ft. deep. The drop ceiling is about 9 ft. from the floor, with an additional 3 feet above to the actually roof. Of the 4 walls, 3 of them are the outside of the building and are hollow cinderblock with drywall over metal studding inside. The inside wall is simply a standard 2x4 wall with one layer of what appears to be ½ drywall. The inside wall also has the HVAC exhaust or return framed and finished inside of a 4 x 5 bump out into the room. There are 4 windows, approx 2x3 insulated vinyl replacement windows in two of the outside walls. (See pic) There are also 2 hollow Luan doors on the inside wall. One is the actually entrance into the space, the other is just to storage and can actually be removed and walled up because there is another entrance into that storage space. There are 8 – 2x4 florescent fixtures in the drop ceiling for the only lighting currently in the room, the walls are all finished ½ drywall in good shape and floor has a gluedown commercial carpet over concrete, probably about 20 oz. face weight. The room is located above an existing bar, so we have jukebox noise coming up at night, don’t know if it’s through the floor or the HVAC system? The HVAC system however, is only for downstairs and there are no vents in the room. We currently have two small window units for AC, and a small electric space heater for winter. I am wanting to build a control room, small iso booth, and a large live room. My questions are these: 1. Where would the best placement for the control room to be? To utilize the existing outside walls or just completely build a new room inside of this room? 2. What would be the smallest size control room (within reason) I could get away with so as to maximize the live room’s space. 3. About wall treatments and the ceiling, could I remove the drop ceiling, put in a wood floor and get a much better room sound? I’m really not a fan of complete dead space. I would rather strip and tune the room plus I like the looks of the metal ceiling, bracing, etc… BUDGET, is always tight. I have a pretty ample supply of basic construction products that are available for free. (Drywall, 2x4’s, 2x6’s, wood flooring) The parts I’ll be buying or making would I guess be acoustical treatments. As you can tell my sketchup skills are non-existent, but good enough to tell which walls are which. Please let me know if this information helps. Thanks, Kevin

Still no ideas?

The room is located above an existing bar, so we have jukebox noise coming up at night, don’t know if it’s through the floor or the HVAC system?

What would it take to find out? Realistically these types of noise infiltrations need to be addressed. I would suspect that the hvac chase is a conduit for the sound coming from below. Only one way to identify this and that is to open up a piece of the wall around the bump out. You may find that there is nothing to stop the transfer of sound from behind the wall to your area. Personally, I do not have, like nor want flourescent lighting. And the older the ballast is the less I like it. They are noisy and I cannot really see using them:) It reads like, overall, you are OK with whatever sound is coming into this space. If it can come in it can also exit. This is when we find out how tolerant our neighbors are:) I can't help ya with design but no mention of isolation was made...so I made some:)

networkconsulting wrote:

Still no ideas?

tell us about the space: how much noise is there? what type of recording do you intend to do? neighbors? etc...

Thanks for the response, I opened up one side of the HVAC bump out, it is basically a big pipe (maybe 10 or 12 inches) running through a hole cut in the floor. I would suspect that this is definitely where the noise is coming up. Neighbors are absolutely not a concern, as I said downstairs is a bar. (Old guys drinking Old Milwaukee beers until about 10 pm.) The type of recording I'm planning on is demo to full CD production. I have a couple of potential clients that I've told I should be ready around mid-spring 2008. Which means I really need to get busy. I hate florescent lighting also and I plan on trashing the existing lighting, just wondering if I can get away with trashing the whole drop ceiling? Again thanks for the help. Kevin

if you can strip out the existing ceiling and clean up the space then you could build something pretty decent. the HVAC - if its only for downstairs i'd work with the folks downstairs to get it blocked off as you're going to provide your own AC.

The best I can do with HVAC is completely wall around it / soundproof it. I would love to rip out the entire ceiling. Maybe put some drop lighting or build a cloud with some built in lighting?

can you post a photo or two of the space - and hopefully whats above the ceiling?

Sure, I'll go over there this evening and take some pictures. It is currently our practice space, so the live room must also serve this purpose for a 9 piece band.

i might do something like this... take advantage of the height to build some nice sized rooms.