Studio Layout Questions.

Hello all, I have just moved into a new space, and am trying to get a rough layout down to then work on the actual planning. Any help is greatly appreciated. Basic Info/Wants... I share this space with a friend. He lives downstairs, the upper floor is mine. We are in a residential area in Brooklyn. The building is full of DJ's as well as studios, so neighbors being bothered isnt too much of an issue. However, I would like to minimize the possibility as much as reasonable. The space actually has pretty good isolation from the other spaces in the building. I record mainly rock music. I would like to have a control room, and a live/drum room. If an iso booth could be also fit into the equation for acoustic/vocal recording, I am a happy man. I would like to leave as much room open as possible for live area, and this will also basically be my living room. My thoughts are small control room (as in, enough space for me and small couch/seat for someone else). I record to a computer, so my equipment is the comp, a small rack bag for my interface/mic pre's, and my monitors. I do not mind a bit of noise coming into the space, I do not mind a bit leaving. Just trying to make the most I can of the space. I am 100% willing to compromise when I have to (ie. window in the control room adding a bit of noise, etc.). I am NOT a fulltime professional studio. I record friends bands, and projects. I do like to record often however. The roomate is not an issue at all. I also have to sleep in the space. Right now, I am just shooting for a rough idea of layout. I want to make sure I have the right BASIC idea before getting down to the endless specifics. My budget is (somewhat) flexible. I would like to keep it under $3000 USD. I have attached below a .skp, to scale, of the space. The Space....(Sketchup Attached) The space is 32' x 21' with 11' ceilings. However, as you can see, this includes the bathroom and kitchen. The walls are brick on three sides. SOME of the brick has been covered with a drywall section about 3-4 inches thick. The back wall has the entrance, this wall is quite thin, and is the weak point for sound. Another issue is the front windows. They introduce some noise, however, the subway rolls by every so often about 1500 feet away. Its not loud, but you can hear it a bit. It does not seem to introduce vibration. The ceilings are a bit thin, I can hear walking occasionally. I do not know the exact structure, but they are drywall. I would like to keep from driving my upstairs neighbors nuts as much as possible. The floor/basement ceiling is about 3 feet thick, made of wood. Is not solid, more of a wooden box frame, with drywall for the basement ceiling, and wood flooring upstairs. There is an opening towards the front door with a spiral staircase descending. There are two rooms currently built upstairs, of dubious quality, and will be torn down. We can do any work we desire on the space, it is no problem with the owner. The Attached Sketchup..... Is to scale. It shows the top floor in detail. You will see the brick on the walls, where there is no brick, those are the sections covered in drywall. You will also see piping on the ceiling. The hole in the floor is the spiral staircase. The rectangles drawn on the floor are the locations of the current rooms. Paper thin drywall walls. There are two layers in the document, one of the space as is, the other is a proposed wall as detailed below. The Proposed Wall.... On the second layer of the .skp is a proposed wall. This wall (I figure) will seperate the kitchen/bathroom from my space, as well as offer some isolation from the front wall and downstairs (most of the sound travels thru the stairwell). Inside the wall is the space I have to work with. The Attached Photo..... The photo is a rough layout I was thinking of. In no way is it necessarily to scale, just a simple sketchup to see what kind of space I am dealing with, and basic vision. My thought were this (and I bring this up to give you guys an idea of what I am thinking)...the glass door is the iso booth. That leads into the control room in the corner (enter/exit control room thru booth). The ladder goes up into my loft (bed), which would sit over top the iso booth (or whatever). I don't expect you guys to help me plan that, but I will need to sleep somewhere, and I would love to get it out of the way as such. This plan also leaves me a good amount of room for drums/amps setup, and a sitting area to live a somewhat normal life. Let me stress that this is rough. The "control room" in this is just a box designating the footprint in the room (also, a bit too small). The internal shape of the control room I was planning on following one of the small control room plans here. I am in no way attached to this plan (if you could call it that). I include it solely to illustrate what I am thinking of. As you can see, I am trying to fit this space together like a puzzle. Questions..... 1. My main question is where the control room would be best, as its position determines the basic shape of the "live" room. Two long rectangles? A more square control room in the corner, leaving an L shaped "live room"? This is my hangup. Is one preferable over the other? 2. How would you guys layout a space like this? 3. Any major problems with this basic plan? Again, I am just trying to get a basic layout in my head (as in, shapes on paper, I can use the forums to find appropriate control room ratios, etc.). This forum is a tremendous resource, and I will use it to the fullest to plan the specifics. Thanks, and let me know if I left anything out, or included ENTIRELY too much. Ryan Steele.

best bet to help us with design ideas - besides text answers - is to create a very accurate 2D floor plan. if you have enough skill to make it 3D with proper placement of windows, door etc... thats fine. you don't need to add a lot of materials and colors to it. your proposed control room looks square... this will be a problem for any number of reasons you can find by searching this site. given your budget you might find that taking some photos of the place, and using a Radio Shack sound level meter to measure the noise levels will help us pinpoint the right adjustments. things like the subway and other tenant noises, log it and try to determine the sources - windows, ceiling, etc.

Thanks for the response! The .skp (not the photo) I attached in the initial post is accurate as far as dimensions, door/window placement, sprinkler system, and wall placement goes. If I am missing something completely here, my apologies. The photo (as opposed to the .skp file also posted) of the layout was a quick sketch, mainly to illustrate my spacial concerns as far as having to deal with my loft/bed in the same area. For an actual control room plan, I was thinking along the lines of this small plan I found here, attached below. I am in no way attached to this, however. I will run by my local radio shack later today to grab and SPL meter, and will post my results here (along with photos) soon. Thanks again for the help!

ok, thanks. i thought from your information the sketchup wasn't dimensionally correct but just a rough sketch... i'll take a look tonight.

Aloha, 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 11’ x 12’5” x 15’3” 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 Perhaps something like this? Aloha 8)

Thanks for the layout Kendale, much appreciated. After much thought, I'm liking the corner room idea, like the one above, or the corner control room from the SAE site. Since I need to live in the same space, my goal is to leave as much as possible for an open living/live area...so I am playing with variations of this layout to be as efficient as I can with the space. I have a couple questions regarding proper ratio for a room shaped as such. If I have missed this info already posted somewhere, my apologies. 1. To calculate the proper ratio for this room, I am assuming one would measure from the front glass to where the bass trap in the rear begins. For the width, would I measure across the front, then across the widest point, then average them? 2. I seem to remember reading somewhere on this forum that the ratios are not dependent on which dimension is counted as the 1 in a 1 : 1.14 : 1.39 ratio, ie I could have any of the three dimensions be the width, length, OR height. Is this correct? 3. If the above is correct, then with my ceiling at 11ft, one of the ratios I've ended up with is a room that is (in feet) 7.91W X 9.02L X 11H. Which if I have the right idea about averaging the side walls, would give me about 6.5ft at front, and about 9.5ft at the widest point. Is this too small to be functional? 4. Also, I remember coming across John (or someone) saying that in this shape room, the ratios are less important. Since the above seems small, can I disregard the height portion of the ratio, and increase the width and length to a more comfortable size as long as the angles stay correct? As you can see, I am a bit confused when it comes to figuring out ratios in non-rectangular rooms. Thanks again for the help guys!

for non-rectangular rooms, the simpliest method for ratios is simply averaging the dimensions. since the modes will be skewed, you don't have sufficient control over the mode details by just calculating because your room boundaries (the hard walls) aren't rectangular and so you can only approximate. you could use SU and export to CATT and perhaps get some additional information but its only likely to lead to you use broadband treatments until you complete the build and then measure the actual room response and treat accordingly.

Wow :oops: Quite flattered you picked out my design as inspiration! I noticed you wanted a bed and that made me think of this thread: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6180&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=bed&start=180 Mainly this picture :D Food for thought :P Gareth