New to studio design and new to forum.

[MaineTracks]

Hi folks,

Dipping a toe in the water here. Not new to recording, from either side of the glass. Now I have the opportunity to build a studio in about 900 square feet in a basement that is 92" deep at its shallowest part. Downloaded Sketchup. Tried to read all the relevant posts about posting, hope I don't offend anyone.

You'll be hearing more from me in the coming weeks.

Thank you all for being here and offering so much!

Davy

[MaineTracks]

Ok, I've begun watching the SketchUp tutorials with hopes that I won't have to splurge for the pro version. But I have a few questions before I begin drawing. Hopefully some of you will weigh in.

I've got about 800 sq ft to work with in a rectangle about 40x22 ft, after accounting for the small toilet room and things like water pumps, plumbing, etc., in a basement. The concrete floor is uneven, but I have 92" depth at what seems to be its highest point. I'm going to go for a control room that's about 20x15 ft give or take, and that will leave me with about a square of 20x20 give or take, barring unforseen problems, that I can use as studio space.

I'm in a rural village at the end of a private road with a lot of 2.5 acres and I intend to do as much as feasible to isolate myself acoustically from lawn mowers, leaf blowers, snow blowers and snowmobiles. Additionally, I really don't want to draw much attention from my neighbors.

The music I make is sometimes acoustic and quiet, sometimes loud rock and roll. I also hope to attract a local clientelle of most any stripe, provided they don't require an acoustic piano until such time as I can afford a 7' yamaha disklavier for the main floor of the house (which would permit me to record piano performances in a 25x25' space with a cathedral ceiling in midi, then mic the piano for midi playback/acoustic recording in the nighttime when extraneous noise will be minimal and I won't have to be paying attention to a drummer's squeaky kick pedal).

I will plan for a humble vocal booth with the intent of using it mainly for scratch vocals, but my question is whether/how often I will want to have a drum booth. Really, I think I want the largest studio I can manage - that's why I'm in the basement and out of the bedroom. I'm willing to build and drag around moveable partitions to achieve some isolation for the drums, but I hate to carve a small space into 2 smaller spaces if I don't have to. Any thoughts and opinions will be greatly appreciated.

Davy

[Soundman2020]

Hi Davy, and welcome!

Tried to read all the relevant posts about posting, hope I don't offend anyone.

Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things!

I've got about 800 sq ft to work with in a rectangle about 40x22 ft,

That's a very nice sized space for a studio. Your floor is concrete slab on grade?

The concrete floor is uneven, but I have 92" depth at what seems to be its highest point.

That's not fantastic, but should be reasonably good. There are some techniques you can use to minimize the loss of height from your new ceiling installation: How do the joist bays look up there? Do you see ducts, pipes, and electrical wiring in the way, or are the pretty clear?

Posting some photos of the space would help.

I'm going to go for a control room that's about 20x15 ft give or take, and that will leave me with about a square of 20x20 give or take, barring unforseen problems, that I can use as studio space.

In general, it is good to have the live room substantially larger than the control room, if possible, for a simple reason: The natural acoustic reverberation "tails" of things recorded in the live room need to last longer than the natural decay time of the control room, or you wont be able to hear them! Of course, that's really a consideration for a professional studio that will be used for commercial purposes, which might not be your situation, but if you want it as good as you can possibly get it, then it might be an idea to allocated more floor area to your live room and less to your control room.

I will plan for a humble vocal booth with the intent of using it mainly for scratch vocals,

That's in addition to the CR and LR, right?

Really, I think I want the largest studio I can manage - that's why I'm in the basement and out of the bedroom. I'm willing to build and drag around moveable partitions to achieve some isolation for the drums, but I hate to carve a small space into 2 smaller spaces if I don't have to. Any thoughts and opinions will be greatly appreciated.

With 900 ft2 to play with, you probably do have room for a drum booth and vocal booth too, if you design carefully. I designed a studio last year for a space less than half that size (about 400 ft2) for a guy in Canada, and managed to fit in all four rooms: CR, LR, drum booth and vocal booth. Very tight fit, and very small rooms, but it works. I'm also finishing up the design for another place about the same size as yours, for a company in the Netherlands, also with the same four rooms plus a machine room, and it is working out quite well. All rooms are spacious, and will work well acoustically.

Another option if you rally want large rooms, might be to leave out the vocal booth and just record vocals in the control room: Many people do that, if space or budget are limited.


- Stuart -

[MaineTracks]

Thanks for the quick response, Stuart.

You seem to be missing a couple of things!

Sorry. Trying my best. No offense intended. Pics, drawings will have to wait a bit. Shared my location. Hope that's what you meant.

Your floor is concrete slab on grade?

The house is set into a sloping grade. North wall, east wall, poured concrete. South wall partially poured concrete, frame beginning near 3 ft above floor as best I can tell at this point. East wall, frame. Poured concrete floor that meets grade on west wall. Home is precut machined 6" log construction on the single story.

How do the joist bays look up there? Do you see ducts, pipes, and electrical wiring in the way, or are the pretty clear?

Southern 'half' of the basement was 'finished' including 4'x8' sheets of OSB nailed and screwed to joists. Demolition underway, but incomplete at the moment. Haven't seen what lies between those joists yet. Probably wiring, not much plumbing which is mostly limited to NE corner and West wall. Duct work hangs below joists. A large oil burning forced air furnace (think 2 Marshall double stacks) owns a big foot print, but my plan is to replace the indoor central heating with vented propane units by Rinnai, 2 in bsmt, 2 in main floor. That may or may not be a great plan - open to suggestions. Northern 'half' joists are pretty clear.

it is good to have the live room substantially larger than the control room...Of course, that's really a consideration for a professional studio that will be used for commercial purposes

I'm in total agreement here, for the reasons you state and because I want as big a live room as I can manage. Trying my best to not parse up the space available for live room. I'll concede to a small but good vocal booth. I'll do most anything to avoid a permanent drum booth until someone can persuade me that this is great folly. I do intend to offer the studio to the public for hire about 2/3 of the time.

As I begin drawing I have a question about the 3 lolly columns down the center of the bsmt and evenly spaced north to south which support the main beam (composed of three 2"x10"s). I had thought I'd rather try using iron I-beams to relocate all the columns to carry the load of the main floor. Now I wonder about 'sealing' off a couple of them acoustically. I plan to float the floor. I realize that I have the option of letting the lolly's define divisions of the space. I don't find that very attractive. Please advise.

Thanks again,
Davy

[MaineTracks]

my first (public) attempt at drawing my bsmt with SketchUp.

[Guest]

You know, the more I wrestle with this, the more I know that Lolly columns are going to have to move. Surely one will. Maybe all will. Which I suppose means steel I-Beams suspended between others, more favorably placed. Ugh!

[MaineTracks]

Sorry. The above was posted by me. Still learning my way around. But I do have to lose some of those Lolly's. Lally's. Supports.

And I realize the dimensions of the wash room are too big in the drawing. Sorry.

Davy

[MaineTracks]

Still working on drawings. I will offer another improved drawing of the existing space soon. Got a couple questions as I create a drawing of proposed construction.

Two of my exterior basement walls are poured concrete I'm guessing them to be 6" thick or whatever passed for building code requirement in a town under 2000 population in the year 1980 in rural Maine. They are the north wall and the east wall and are located at the right end and the bottom of my crude drawing.

The other two walls seem to be completely frame construction: 2x6" plates, studs, and then 1"x8" tongue and groove pine run horizontally on the interior, presumably plywood on the exterior, covered by 1x4" tongue and groove pine run vertically. R19 paper sided fiberglass batts between studs.

As I design multiple rooms for the studio, do I consider the concrete to be a single leaf and the frame construction to be double leaf? Do I plan to remove the interior tongue and groove on the frame walls, remove the batts, replace them with non paper batts and then build walls 1" (or further) away from the existing walls with 2x4 studs and plate, then batts followed by gypsum board?

I've read a thread now on floating floors that seems to discourage the floating of a floor on a concrete slab. I'm willing to forego the expense and effort of floating a floor but I'm concerned about the considerable unevenness of the slab currently. Can I get away with pouring new concrete over old?

Looks like I'll need a structural engineer to guide me through the relocation of 4 Lally columns - I'm hoping to use Iron I Beams to bridge the load of the main beam.

Kinda shooting in the dark here a lot - hope that I'm sufficiently caught up on prerequisites to posting so that I'm worthy of a response.

Thanks for your time.

Davy

[rsmooth]

Davy,
Looks like you have your work cut out for you! Doing structural work with the lolly columns is a big undertaking and yes, please have engineers spec everything out according to your local code.

I am no expert but hope to help as much as I can. The concrete exterior walls are considered 1 leaf so build your new walls away from them with drywall (several sheets) on the interior sides. The walls with timber framing, the exterior plywood would be your outer leaf. Remove the pine from the interior and yes, build your new wall away from that with several sheets of drywall on the interior.

I would advise against any sort of floating floor. Stuart gave Andre great detail in his post as to why (Another current basement studio project) http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 8&start=15. You will be happy to save the headroom! You should be able to level the concrete with a self leveling concrete product. Just be aware of any drainage associated with the current slope of your floor. This may or may not affect it but is pretty common practice.

Hope this helped.

Ralph

[MaineTracks]

Thanks, Ralph.

Andre's thread was the one I read, too. I was thinking that a floating floor would be advantageous given that I might be trying to enclose those Lollys to cut down energy transfered from them into the rooms. I'll put aside my nightmares about a floating floor for now.

You know I was shoveling snow from my girlfriend's deck today and got to thinking that I hate shoveling snow from my deck too. This led to thoughts outside the box of my basement.

Now I'm wondering what size of financial investment would yield a 22'x15' addition on the south end of the house. As I see it I'm looking at pouring a slab of concrete, perhaps at a slightly lower grade, then building a 'shed' that could have a shed roof as high as 12' above the current grade and then build my live room into that. The reason I'm considering that is that I'm already facing some expenses for plumbing to move laundry up to the main floor, removal and replacement of an oil burning furnace and all its ductwork, removal of a large oil tank, relocation and perhaps replacement of a hot water tank, and replacing the interior stairs with exterior stairs (which would be enclosed if code requires), and relocating and bridging the load on 2 lollys, all to make the northern 'half' of the basement suitable for building a control room. I'm wondering, given the cost of all that, could I build this addition for a similar cost. My labor team consists of one highly skilled family member at $20/hr and me (except when certain specialties and extra bodies are required). It should be noted here that the oil tank and furnace and ductwork were not included in the existing drawing because I've been assuming that removing them was a given.

Anyway, that's the idea of the day

This is something I'll have to price out on my own, but straight-from-hip, ballpark estimates from you all are very much welcome.

Thanks again,
Davy

[MaineTracks]

Something I've neglected is budget.

The thing is that I don't know. My plan is to design my dream within the given constraints, then estimate costs. Having said that, I'll throw out a ballpark figure of $25,000 for construction, materials to include wire, as well as structural stuff and labor. I've got enough gear to get started humbly, but for now I don't want to worry about the cost of additional gear.

Am I close?

Davy

[rsmooth]

Davy,
Interesting to think about an addition. Either way you are looking at a lot of work! Doing all of this on your own with a helper is going to take a long time either way. As far as which concept is better, there are a lot of factors. Cost to value is something you need to determine in regards to resale value, cost of work (remodel vs addition), etc.

Either way, this is more than a normal "basement studio". If it were me, I would be consulting architects and engineers. Also, I think I remember you saying that you were going to running this as a commercial space 2/3 of the time. Might be advantageous to talk to your county about zoning issues.

It depends on where you live but you can usually get a sense of the cost of an addition per square foot. Ballpark $100/sq ft for an addition puts you at $33k for a company to do the work. Food for thought.

Ralph

[Soundman2020]

Hi again Davy! I hope you are still around, and I apologize for not responding sooner: I always have a list of threads that I need to reply to, but something got screwed up in Firefox and I lost my list! I've been trying to figure out which threads were on the list ever since...

So if you are still needing help, please respond.

- Stuart -

[MaineTracks]

Hey,

I've been quiet for a year now and what a year it has been! I've missed you all and missed the joys of design of my own studio. Lots of changes, in the meantime I've recorded (on remote) and mixed one full length CD for a client, mixed a 5 song EP for the same client, and reconsidered my prior plans extensively.

Next step is to get back to design of what will ultimately be a control room in half my basement. I've again taken measurements and in the coming weeks will be reacquainting myself with sketchup.

Cheers to all!

Davy

[Soundman2020]

Good to see you back, Davy! I was sort of wondering what had happened to you. Looking forward to seeing your build move forward!


- Stuart -