New Recording Atlanta, GA USA

[kevspence2]

Hey guys, my name is Kevin. Ive been a long time lurker here and Ive gained alot of knowledge about construction techniques. I built my first vocal booth years ago with information I gained from this site and it sounded AWESOME! I am very appreciative of the info you all give. I have recently acquired a new space and I'm ready to start building a new studio. Im excited but I have a few questions about how to arrange the space before I start. The openness of the space is kind of leaving me stumped. All of my previous studio were in spaces that were defined before me. (Former studios, 15 X 20 room in an industrial building ect.) In this new space its a large open area and Im somewhat at a loss for the best way to configure it.

First Question: The existing walls are exposed brick 12'' thick all around. Is this good or bad. Ive read here that double leaved is the best but I am unsure how to achieve this with a 12" thick brick wall. I've also seen pictures of studios with beautiful exposed brick in the live room (Steve Albini's Electrical Audio) So Ideally I would like to keep the exposed brick a part of the design.

My Budget is 10K-15k max for the build. I will do the labor myself with friends. I will be soffit mounting dual 15" augspurgers in the control room along with subs eventually but not at first. The building is freestanding but there are office type neighbors close by. There is already a bathroom and kitchen / lounge that will remain untouched. There are also existing rooms I will convert into Control Room B and Vocal Booth B so those will not change unless you guys think the spaces would be better served if I knock those out. The open areas are wide open with no support poles. The ceiling is 15' high and the brick walls cannot move with the exception of installing a window between studio b and the vocal booth. See my design below thanks!

BPM Raw Studio Space 1.skp

[Soundman2020]

Hi there Kevin, and welcome!

The existing walls are exposed brick 12'' thick all around. Is this good or bad

That's EXCELLENT! A really good start for isolation. But how much isolation do you need?

Ive read here that double leaved is the best but I am unsure how to achieve this with a 12" thick brick wall.

Correct. Two-leaf is the best way to get high levels of isolation, but 12" of brick is a LOT of mass, and will give you a decent start on that. The question is: How much isolation do you need, in decibels? If you need more than what 12" of brick can give you, then you would build each of your rooms as a decoupled single-leaf shell within the outer shell. You'd also do that id you need good isolation between rooms.

On the other hand, if you don't need high isolation, then you could just use the brick as-is.

So Ideally I would like to keep the exposed brick a part of the design.

Assuming you don't need high isolation, you could leave the live room as brick and just isolate the control room and iso booth, by building a single-leaf wall across that end of the open space, then building each of those rooms as a single-leaf structure on the other side of that wall. That would give you the best of all worlds: your visible-brick but not-so-great isolation live room, and your well isolated (but no visible brick) control room and iso booth.

There are also existing rooms I will convert into Control Room B and Vocal Booth B so those will not change unless you guys think the spaces would be better served if I knock those out.

Did you check the dimensions of those rooms with a room mode calculator? If not, then you should do that...


- Stuart -