Basement studio "from scratch", in Colorado USA

[barleyguy]

Greetings all. I'm a lurker making a first post, for probably the typical reason. I'm planning to put up a factory built home, with a basement studio, in the next year or so. I did a rough draft, and I'd like some advice, opinions, sage knowledge and/or witty banter.

Location: Longmont CO USA (suburb of Denver)

Overall size: 26 feet by 48 feet by 10 feet exterior, about a foot smaller interior

Construction: Floors and exterior walls are concrete. The house above the ceiling is mostly wood (white pine). I'm planning pine studs with 5/8" drywall on the interior walls, stuffed with either fiberglass or rockwool. I was thinking for the control room I'd do a "live end-dead end", with the front half being laminate and the rear half being carpet. For the live room I'd love to do wood flooring. The iso booth will probably be fairly "dead" for a mix of vocals and guitar amps, possibly carpet.

Isolation needed: About 70 dB to and from outside world, less needed internally. You'll notice I took an "enclave" approach, using double leaf on the boundary of the 3 room space. It will primarily be used for music recording. My best connections are in hippie rock/jam bands/acoustic rock, but I'm open to all genres.

Constraints: The upstairs floor plan calls for a stairway opening about 19 feet in, and there will probably need to be a landing to make it the 10 foot height. Also, I need a central location for a forced air furnace. Other than those two things, everything is negotiable.

Wants: I'd like a large control room that doubles as a theater; I'm planning to hang a retractable movie screen and do 5.1 for the midfield monitors. I'd like a large enough live space to record jam bands that like to play at the same time. I have a Ludwig drumset and a Baldwin upright grand piano. I'd like windows between the spaces. The lounge space will have a chill area, maybe a sink, microwave and small fridge, and a pinball machine. It should technically be "living area" because the zoning laws in Colorado limit home businesses to 1000 square feet. So the "business" officially starts at the control room.

Budget: Target budget $20,000 not counting gear. If that's not enough I may be able to put some in the house mortgage.

Again EVERYTHING is open to suggestions, other than the things in "constraints".

Thanks.

EDIT: Some specific questions, to encourage input...

1. What do you think of the floor plan? Is there something I could do to make it better? Is there a totally different way I could do it to make it cooler?

2. My construction plan is something like this. What do you think?
a. Have the home builder pour a standard concrete foundation, except 10 feet deep (alternatively, I've considered a walk out basement, partly because I'm not sure how to get a piano into here, other than dropping it in before the house and never being able to remove or upgrade it).
b. For the exterior single leaf walls, green glue sheet rock directly to the concrete
c. For the dual leaf walls indicated in the plan, use the dual leaf construction discussed other places on this site, with two layers of studs with sheetrock on the external faces but not on the inside. Then do fiberglass or rockwool in the dead, with an airgap "spring" in the center.
d. For the single leaf walls in the interior of the plan, do a standard sheet wall with sheet rock on both sides, except use dense insulation in the center and use green glue to attach the sheet rock. (I'd prefer to save the thickness of dual leaf inside the "enclave". Comments welcome, including "no, that's a bad idea".
e. For the floors, I am planning to do wood, laminate, or carpet directly on the concrete.
f. For the ceilings, I am planning to do a "soft" approach to treat flutter echos, but also some isolation from the upstairs, primarily to prevent sound through the upstairs to the neighbors, not so much because I care about noise upstairs.

3. If I don't float the control room floor, how do I run cables under it? I want to run a snake to the live room, and balanced cables to the Iso Room. Is this a good reason to raise the floor?

4. Anything I totally missed?

Thanks,

Harley.

Rough plans:

(Removed... New revision below.)

[barleyguy]

Here's a another shot at a floor plan. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Harley.

Harley_Studio_Take3_2D.png

Harley_Studio_Take3_3D.png

[Cold]

Hi,
Please add your location to your profile.

Looks like a good amount of space to do a nice studio build.
I'm not sold on your layout though.

First things first:

You can't attach drywall directly to concrete. You have to properly insulate and frame it.

If you don't use proper double wall construction your control room will never have proper low frequency separation from your live room. You won't be able to truly hear what your mics are picking up. Why go to all this work and do a half assed job?

What are you doing for the ceiling? Are you planning an isolated ceiling?

Have you picked up a copy of Rod's book?

About the design:

Can you move either the stairs or the exit door so that they are at the same location? There is a ton of wasted space in the way this design is layed out.

Is there any other reason to have such a large lounge area?

If the outside access door has to stay where it is, at least flip the live room with the control room, get rid of the hallway and use back to back doors,put the iso booth where you have a clear site line into it.

Regarding the double duty for your control room as a home theatre. I have given this some thought myself. In the end I am going to to put a projector and screen in my live room. There was no way I could set up a screen in my control room without gear obstructing the screen. It won't be a great home theatre, as my priority is live room first, home theatre far back second, but it was the best option.
It also means musicians can use it for movies and video games while work is being done in the control room. I can also use it for voice over work if I want.

So I think you should go back and give your design a complete rethink. You have a beautiful blank canvas,make the most of it! Get a copy of Rod's book, study some of John's and other people's designs, think about foot traffic and sight lines, make it a great, fully usable studio!

Steve

[barleyguy]

Hi,
Please add your location to your profile.

Done.

Looks like a good amount of space to do a nice studio build.
I'm not sold on your layout though.

First things first:

You can't attach drywall directly to concrete. You have to properly insulate and frame it.

- Noted. I have a friend who's a general contractor, and they build insulated basements with wooden furring strips in the concrete walls, to which they directly attach drywall. But outside of that case, I'll plan to add framing and insulation.

If you don't use proper double wall construction your control room will never have proper low frequency separation from your live room. You won't be able to truly hear what your mics are picking up. Why go to all this work and do a half assed job?

- Good point. I added a double wall between the control room and live room in the plan.

What are you doing for the ceiling? Are you planning an isolated ceiling?

- Yes, I'm planning to isolate the ceiling, but mainly for interior acoustics rather than isolation. The stock ceiling will essentially be the floor joists of a manufactured home, set directly on the sill of the basement. So any isolation will be part of the studio build. I'm not that worried about sound getting into the upstairs, and though I do want to plan to overall isolation, the site I'm working on buying is 2 acres, which is about the size of 4 city lots. So though it's a quiet residential neighborhood, I'll have some distance. Also, the nearest neighbor is a good friend.

Have you picked up a copy of Rod's book?

Not yet, but I've read most of it online. (It's previewable on Google Books and Amazon.) I do plan to buy it though.

About the design:

Can you move either the stairs or the exit door so that they are at the same location? There is a ton of wasted space in the way this design is layed out.

Not really. The stairs go to the house upstairs, and the exit door goes to the garage (or maybe outside if I don't build a garage with the house). I did change the plan to a straight stairway though, which allows making the lounge a little smaller.

Is there any other reason to have such a large lounge area?

Yes. The first is zoning laws, which limit the size of a home business in Colorado to 1000 square feet. The second is because it's supposed to have a "living room" type feel, and the things I plan to put in there will take up about that much space. As noted above, I did shrink it a little though.

If the outside access door has to stay where it is, at least flip the live room with the control room, get rid of the hallway and use back to back doors,put the iso booth where you have a clear site line into it.

There is a clear line of sight to the iso booth from the mix position, if I turn my chair to the right.

(The planned mix position is equidistant from the front and rear speakers, which is the right way to mix surround sound.)

Harley_Studio_Take3_ChairView.png

There are a couple of things I like about the hallway:

- It keeps people from walking through the control room to get from the live room to outside.

- The "ideal" proportions for room modes are 1.0x1.4x1.9. You'll notice that the control room is 10x14x19. Removing the hallway would make the room bigger, but it might also make it sound worse.

- The hallway is an additional "acoustic space", that could be used for creative purposes.
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Regarding the double duty for your control room as a home theatre. I have given this some thought myself. In the end I am going to to put a projector and screen in my live room. There was no way I could set up a screen in my control room without gear obstructing the screen. It won't be a great home theatre, as my priority is live room first, home theatre far back second, but it was the best option.
It also means musicians can use it for movies and video games while work is being done in the control room. I can also use it for voice over work if I want.

I did think about visual obstructions a lot. I'm going to go with a low profile console. The highest thing in the center part of the control room will probably be the nearfields.

That is a cool idea of putting a projector in the live room for voiceover work, and also scoring. I could do that.

Argosy_G20-EAS_4M-1T-3R9.jpg

560d8efd_home_theater_072011.jpg

( I'm planning to put Zu Druid Credenzas in the nearfield position. The 5.1 midfields are 2xEvent ASP8s, 1 ASP6, 2xPS5s, and a Tannoy sub.)
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So I think you should go back and give your design a complete rethink. You have a beautiful blank canvas,make the most of it! Get a copy of Rod's book, study some of John's and other people's designs, think about foot traffic and sight lines, make it a great, fully usable studio!

Steve

I appreciate the input, and I will definitely be thinking a lot more about the design, and may change it around again.

Thanks,

Harley.

Harley_Studio_Take3b_2D.png

[Soundman2020]

Hi Harley, and welcome to the forum!

Several comments on your design, in no specific order:

I was thinking for the control room I'd do a "live end-dead end", with the front half being laminate and the rear half being carpet.

The LEDE concept ("live end-dead end") for studio design is from the 70's, and is very seldom used these days. It passed out of fashion as better and more pleasant acoustic design concepts replaced it. Today, the one most favored here seems to be RFZ ("Reflection Free Zone"), which is an extension of LEDE in some ways, while in other ways it is quite different. So I would suggest that you should re-think your basic design concept, moving to something more modern, natural, and neutral sounding.

For the live room I'd love to do wood flooring.

Laminate is an excellent choice, for all three rooms. Carpet is seldom used in studios these days (except for proper acoustic carpet), since common carpet has unpleasant, erratic, unpredictable and random acoustic properties that tend to be the exact opposite of what small studios, such as yours, really need.

Isolation needed: About 70 dB to and from outside world,

That's a pretty tall order! Why do you need such a high level of isolation?

and do 5.1 for the midfield monitors.

Technically, there's no such thing as "midfield". You won't find a solid, objective definition for it anywhere. That's more marketing hype than an accurate acoustic term that can be defined in useful terms. Ask six different speaker manufacturers for their definition of "midfield", and you'll get six wildly different and mutually incompatible replies.... But I digress: The term is somewhat stuck these days, and mythical "midfield" monitors seem to be all over the place. In any event, trying to set up a 5.1 mixing room with "midfield" monitors might not be the best approach.

because the zoning laws in Colorado limit home businesses to 1000 square feet. So the "business" officially starts at the control room.

Would a home theater be classified as "business space" or "living space"? I guess you see where I'm going with that: If you could get your live room set up as a "home theater" and classified as "living space" not "business space", then that would open up a whole new ballpark of possibilities. ...

My construction plan is something like this. What do you think?
a. Have the home builder pour a standard concrete foundation,

From this, I gather that the house has not yet been built, and the plans are still in the early stages, and very flexible?

b. For the exterior single leaf walls, green glue sheet rock directly to the concrete

Green glue is not actually glue at all! It is not meant to be used as an adhesive, and would probably fail if you tried. Green Glue is an acoustic tool that can be used to improve isolation in some frequency ranges, on some types of wall. Technically, it is a visco-elastic polymer that acts as a constrained layer damping compound, and can be used between two sheets of flexible mass, such as drywall, or plywood, etc.

As Steve already pointed out, you also should not attach drywall directly to concrete: It won't do anything for you either acoustically or structurally. Your inner-leaf walls should be built as separate stud frames, spaced slightly away form the concrete walls, with one or more layers of drywall on only ONE side of the framing.

c. For the dual leaf walls ... d. For the single leaf walls in the interior of the plan,

Unfortunately, you cannot mix the two types of walls in the manner you show. You would have little isolation like that, roughly the same as ordinary house walls, and certainly nowhere near the 70 dB that you want.

e. For the floors, I am planning to do wood, laminate, or carpet directly on the concrete.

As mentioned above, carpet is not a good idea in studios, unless it is carefully incorporated into the acoustic design of the room, and the acoustic properties of the carpet are known.

f. For the ceilings, I am planning to do a "soft" approach to treat flutter echos, but also some isolation from the upstairs,

You seem to be confusing isolation with treatment. While putting a nice thick layer of absorption on the ceiling will indeed eliminate flutter echo in the vertical plane, and help in other ways with the acoustic treatment of the room, it will do practically nothing at all to isolate the room from whatever is above. Acoustic absorption does not isolate. It's a common misconception that you can stick foam on your walls and increase isolation: in fact, it will do nothing at all. Isolation and treatment are two totally different aspects of acoustics, and are addressed in totally different ways, with different materials. Treating the room will not isolate it, and isolating the room will not treat it.

3. If I don't float the control room floor, how do I run cables under it?

Earlier you implied that the slab has not yet been poured. If that is the case, then embed conduit in the slab to run your cables through. That is done as part of the preparation for the concrete pour. The conduit is carefully laid out and held in place rigidly (to prevent it floating in the concrete). Simple, cheap and very effective. Put in as much conduit as you want running wherever you want.

4. Anything I totally missed?

HVAC? I see nothing at all about HVAC on your drawings, and that is a big part of studio design.

they build insulated basements with wooden furring strips in the concrete walls, to which they directly attach drywall.

You cannot do it that way either, unfortunately. If you did, then you would be creating flanking paths through your isolation system. The framing for the inner leaf wall CANNOT touch the existing walls, nor can it touch the joists above. It must be built as a free-standing structure, or worst case, it must be supported with acoustic sway braces. But there cannot be any hard mechanical connections between the new inner-leaf wall and the existing walls and ceiling.

Good point. I added a double wall between the control room and live room in the plan.

Yes, but you did not complete the isolation. You only did part of it. The isolation wall must extend around the entire live room in order to isolate it.

Yes, I'm planning to isolate the ceiling, but mainly for interior acoustics rather than isolation.

Once again, those are two entirely different concepts. Isolation stops sound getting from "A" to "B". Treatment improves the acoustic properties with a room. Normally, the very fact of isolating a room makes it sound much worse, which is why you need treatment. Think of it this way: isolating a room means that you prevent sound from leaving the room: it has to stay in, since you block all paths for it to escape. So since the sound cannot get out of the room it stays inside, bouncing around between the walls, floor, ceiling, furniture and equipment, until it eventually dies away. Of course, that makes the room sound terrible! It is commonly referred to as "reverberation", and is not desirable. So the isolation causes a major problem, and that is where the treatment comes in. Different concepts, different materials, different techniques.

So any isolation will be part of the studio build. I'm not that worried about sound getting into the upstairs,

Fine, but what about sound coming the other way? People walking around on your ceiling, doors opening and closing, phones ringing, TV, radio, water running, toilets flushing, vacuum cleaners, floor polishers, microwave, dishwasher, washing machine, and a hundred other things that could ruin your best-ever take, or distract you while trying to mix a something subtle. Those things need to be isolated.

There is a clear line of sight to the iso booth from the mix position,

... which is currently in the worst possible location! You show the mix position as being at roughly the middle of the room. That is the point where all room modes are either at their highest peak value or lowest null value: It is the worst possible place to have your ears. I would suggest that you should move the mix position to a more useful location, and also adjust your speaker geometry to the general principles of 5.1, as laid out in the ITU and EBU specs.

So you should first set up your geometry correctly, then look at sight lines based on where your mix position ends up.

(The planned mix position is equidistant from the front and rear speakers, which is the right way to mix surround sound.)

Well, that's only partly true. The SOUND should arrive at your ears at the same time for all speakers, yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the speakers have to be equidistant from the mix position. Both the ITU and EBU specs for 5.1 and other multichannel rooms do allow for inserting signal delay in some/all channels to produce the necessary alignment. But if you choose to not use delays, then your EARS should be equidistant from ALL of the speakers, and in turn the speakers should be positioned at the correct angles on the circumference of a circle, the radius of which falls in the correct range for the room size. There are several other rules that should be followed for a successful 5.1 room. For example, your LS and RS speakers are at the wrong angle. They should be in the range 110° to 120°, and certainly no more than 135°. Yours are shown as being way beyond that.

The "ideal" proportions for room modes are 1.0x1.4x1.9.

That's Louden's first ratio, but it is just one of many possible ratios, and isn't even the best overall. Sepmeyer, Bolt, Louden and others have all come up with sets of room ratios. Arguably. Sepmeyer's first ratio beats the one you mention for overall smooth distribution. Depending on actual room dimensions, Sepmeyer #1 should give you a smoother Bonello diagram than Louden #1. Of course, your available space might be more suitable for one ratio than another. But there is no such thing as a a "perfect" ratio. Just good ones and bad ones.

You'll notice that the control room is 10x14x19. Removing the hallway would make the room bigger, but it might also make it sound worse.

Not necessarily, if designed correctly.

The 5.1 midfields are 2xEvent ASP8s, 1 ASP6, 2xPS5s, and a Tannoy sub.

ITU and EBU specs for 5.1 rooms state that all the speakers should be the same make and model (except for the sub, of course). At the very least, the L, C, and R speakers should be identical, and the LS and RS speakers should also be identical.

Anyway, you seem to have plenty of space to build a really nice setup, so hopefully the suggestions you are getting here will help you improve the design.


- Stuart -

[barleyguy]

Soundman,

Thanks a lot for your reply. Additional comments inline...

Hi Harley, and welcome to the forum!

Several comments on your design, in no specific order:

Isolation needed: About 70 dB to and from outside world,

That's a pretty tall order! Why do you need such a high level of isolation?

If that's difficult, I probably don't really need it. Since the nearest stranger will be 50 yards away, I could probably get away with much less. When I originally posted I didn't know how big the lot would be, but now I do, and it will be quite large.

and do 5.1 for the midfield monitors.

Technically, there's no such thing as "midfield". You won't find a solid, objective definition for it anywhere. That's more marketing hype than an accurate acoustic term that can be defined in useful terms. Ask six different speaker manufacturers for their definition of "midfield", and you'll get six wildly different and mutually incompatible replies.... But I digress: The term is somewhat stuck these days, and mythical "midfield" monitors seem to be all over the place. In any event, trying to set up a 5.1 mixing room with "midfield" monitors might not be the best approach.

I realize that "midfield" is a just a buzzword. I'm planning to use Event ASP8's, which I know work really well at that distance.

because the zoning laws in Colorado limit home businesses to 1000 square feet. So the "business" officially starts at the control room.

Would a home theater be classified as "business space" or "living space"? I guess you see where I'm going with that: If you could get your live room set up as a "home theater" and classified as "living space" not "business space", then that would open up a whole new ballpark of possibilities. ...

That's a really good point. I should probably just design it the best way possible, and worry about how to categorize it later.

My construction plan is something like this. What do you think?
a. Have the home builder pour a standard concrete foundation,

From this, I gather that the house has not yet been built, and the plans are still in the early stages, and very flexible?

Yes, very much so. I'm currently in the process of buying the land. I haven't even picked out a floor plan for the upstairs yet. So everything is very flexible, though I want to keep the upstairs within certain parameters to minimize cost. The main reason I'm planning to have the house built in a factory is to save money to spend on the studio. The studio is why I'm building to start with. If I didn't want a studio I'd just stay in the house I'm renting now.

b. For the exterior single leaf walls, green glue sheet rock directly to the concrete

Green glue is not actually glue at all! It is not meant to be used as an adhesive, and would probably fail if you tried. Green Glue is an acoustic tool that can be used to improve isolation in some frequency ranges, on some types of wall. Technically, it is a visco-elastic polymer that acts as a constrained layer damping compound, and can be used between two sheets of flexible mass, such as drywall, or plywood, etc.

I didn't know that. I thought Green Glue was something like Liquid Nails with better acoustic properties. The name kinda implies that it's sticky.

As Steve already pointed out, you also should not attach drywall directly to concrete: It won't do anything for you either acoustically or structurally. Your inner-leaf walls should be built as separate stud frames, spaced slightly away form the concrete walls, with one or more layers of drywall on only ONE side of the framing.

...

4. Anything I totally missed?

HVAC? I see nothing at all about HVAC on your drawings, and that is a big part of studio design.

I know even less about HVAC than I do about building acoustics. So I'll have to research that.

...

There is a clear line of sight to the iso booth from the mix position,

... which is currently in the worst possible location! You show the mix position as being at roughly the middle of the room. That is the point where all room modes are either at their highest peak value or lowest null value: It is the worst possible place to have your ears. I would suggest that you should move the mix position to a more useful location, and also adjust your speaker geometry to the general principles of 5.1, as laid out in the ITU and EBU specs.

So you should first set up your geometry correctly, then look at sight lines based on where your mix position ends up.

Will do. I read the document linked from this site on mixing surround sound, and obviously misconstrued it.

The "ideal" proportions for room modes are 1.0x1.4x1.9.

That's Louden's first ratio, but it is just one of many possible ratios, and isn't even the best overall. Sepmeyer, Bolt, Louden and others have all come up with sets of room ratios. Arguably. Sepmeyer's first ratio beats the one you mention for overall smooth distribution. Depending on actual room dimensions, Sepmeyer #1 should give you a smoother Bonello diagram than Louden #1. Of course, your available space might be more suitable for one ratio than another. But there is no such thing as a a "perfect" ratio. Just good ones and bad ones.

1.0x1.4x1.9 is the most common ratio advised on other websites that are obviously less knowledgeable than this one.

The 5.1 midfields are 2xEvent ASP8s, 1 ASP6, 2xPS5s, and a Tannoy sub.

ITU and EBU specs for 5.1 rooms state that all the speakers should be the same make and model (except for the sub, of course). At the very least, the L, C, and R speakers should be identical, and the LS and RS speakers should also be identical.

The speakers above are what I have right now. I've mixed on many different monitors, and the ASP8s are my favorites. The mixes translate well. But in the interest of "not half-assing it", I am doing to buy 3 more ASP8s so I have 5 of them. They are very common used and pretty reasonably priced.

Anyway, you seem to have plenty of space to build a really nice setup, so hopefully the suggestions you are getting here will help you improve the design.


- Stuart -

Again, thanks a ton for your advice. I'll do another revision of the plan, do lots of reading and research, and will be back with more questions. A couple years from now I'll hopefully be posting an amazing final build.

Thanks,

Harley.

[barleyguy]

Greetings.

This is moving forward. I found a different piece of land that's 1 acre large (65 meters by 65 meters), and a slightly different house plan that's 46 feet x 26 feet with half being 44.

As far as the floor plan, John's corner SAE plan works really well at that size. I'm thinking about doing it like below.

Suggestions welcome.

Thanks,

Harley.

Corner_Studio_46_foot.png

Corner_Studio_46_foot_3D.png

[mart1977]

Any update on this? Love to see a developed project