Need some input for my dastardly plan (2car detach garage)

Location: West Amwell Township, NJ USA Hi everyone, I’m starting to plan out a design for a recording studio in my detached two-car garage with loft. This will be used mostly for personal projects, but should be able to accommodate a small rock band as well. Here is the link to all the pics and Sketchups I’ve got so far: http://www.failsafenation.com/gs/index.html After debating with myself, looking over this site and others, as well as talking to the engineer at the studio where I interned, I am leaning towards putting the control room in the upstairs loft, and using the entire garage area for live room, iso booths, etc. Isolation from the neighbors is important, because while the garage is at least 50 ft from the nearest house (other than mine), it is a quiet rural area. I plan to use a two-leaf system and de-couple the live room as best as I can from both the upstairs and the outside world. I plan to keep the garage doors in place, but remove the overhead tracking and then frame the doors in. I’m not sure of the best method for doing this. I want to keep as much of the garage area for the main live room, with three small additional spaces. The largest of the three will be the primary iso booth, another will be a small mic and equipment closet that could also double as a small iso for an amp. The third space would be an “airlock” space at the door. You can see the crude drawing for example of this. Right now, the downstairs has rafters across the top at 8.5ft and some plywood above. I think the previous owner had planned to use it for storage. I would like to take advantage of the sloped roof area above this if possible. I do not know if it is structurally possible to remove this section and have more of a cathedral ceiling. Of course, this presents another problem with isolation from the second floor loft. I suppose the only way to preserve the extended ceiling height would be to build a self-supporting structure within this large area, or at the very least suspend drywall with resilient channel. The upstairs room also has a sloped roof, and I’m not sure what would be the best way to situate the control room. Although I understand the it is preferable to have a longer room as opposed to a wider room, the asymmetry of the ceiling I think would create an issue, right? BTW, the highest point of the ceiling in this room is 10.5ft and slopes to it’s lowest point at 6ft. Another concern of mine is visual communication between the upstairs and downstairs. I could easily create a closed-circuit TV/Cam setup, but I would prefer to have at least some kind of control room window. However, I’m afraid it would be difficult and costly to make this happen while adequately de-coupling the lower level from the upper level. So, my issues at this point are: -adequate isolation from neighbors and the upstairs control room -positioning of the console in the control room considering the sloped roof -framing in of the garage doors in an effective way -utilizing the space above the garage to increase ceiling height -HVAC for the two spaces (I was thinking central AC/heat pump) FYI, I am lucky to have a family member in the lumber business so I will be able to save quite a bit of $$$ on materials. I plan to do as much of the work as I can with a contractor friend of mine, but I will most likely hire electrician, HVAC guy, etc for the specialized stuff. I'm also using these books for reference: -Building a Recording Studio by Jeff Cooper -Home Recording Studio by Rod Gervais Thanks in advance for your input!!!

friendly bump?

Hey boss. They usually request that this: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231 be read in consideration for your posting efforts. Then I would give it a few days, maybe a friendly bump after the New Year. Not a loud BUMP either:)

Whoops. Sorry, man. No offense meant. I read the guidelines for the studio design forum, but not the construction forum. The latter has a lot more guidelines. I will post the pics directly as well. I thought a link would be better but I understand the issue with broken links and such. Here is an archive file. Happy New Year everybody!

No offense felt or taken at all;) I just sweep the floors, keep my head down and my eyes open. edit: you got the loud bump part right? New Year...drinking and all that debauchery...?

lol got it! Thanks!

looks like a nice space. with the control room upstairs and the way its constructed, you're probably stuck with the video interface for live room-control room communications unless you can cathedral the ceiling below. that said, maybe you have another option - extend the lower portion of the garage so its a bigger single level. the photos on your site makes it look like there is a bunch of space around the building. maybe adding a new slab and room onto the side of the garage gives you a better shaped control room and leaves the downstairs portion intact, gives you some overhead space above for HVAC and isolation. it also may be possible to add 2 posts to replace the single one if that improves the positioning within the live room. its probably no big deal to have a single post there but some folks worry... the framing of the garage doors would be to build out the frame consistent with the rest of the interior - i'd put in a nice wide door for load in/out - and then (like the rest of the interior walls) layer in drywall or MDF to increase the overall mass. then build new inner walls and ceiling to complete the isolation.

Admiral - upstairs control rooms are a pain in the arse :D you spend all day running up and down. I'd remove the pole and use the downstairs walls to hold up the upstairs or add extra poles and hide them in the wall frames. I'd use the upstairs as a couple of booths with angled windows looking down on the live room, which uses the full ceiling height, so downstairs musos can look up at the musos upstairs. here's a quick layout idea. cheers john

Thanks to the both of you for your input. Both of these posts have definitely got me thinking about this differently. I guess one of my bigger concerns is having a large enough control room. I see so many posts that emphasize how it should be large enough, both for acoustic properties and comfort. However, I see that maybe if I can get the design right, I won't have to worry about it so much. Good point on running up and down the stairs...I'm in pretty good shape, but I agree that it could get tiresome.

I also had a question about the floors. It's a concrete slab, typical garage. Should I worry too much about isolating the floors somehow from room to room, or is the slab pretty "inert", in that it won't transfer too much energy?

admiralfish wrote:

Should I worry too much about isolating the floors

Do not worry about it at all. Andre