Small Foley Studio In My Garden Preliminary Advice

[8bitantique]

I'm looking to build a small highly soundproofed studio down the back of my garden. I work as a composer and sound designer for TV, over the last year I've been getting involved in Foley work. I'd like the main control room to function as a good sounding mix room where I can also record acoustic stringed instruments with ease in front of my workstation (I'll need to isolate all hard drives and computers etc.) The plan is that when Foley jobs come in I can move into the vocal booth and the entire main room can be utilised as a foley room, obviously Foley studios need to be very dead sounding, I'm wondering is there some way I can flip some baffles or something to deaden it down some more? I want to put in deep 1ft concrete pits into the foundation for dirt, sand etc. I'd like these pits to be accessed by lids that are flush with the rest of the floor. The studio will be 60 ft from my neighbours house so I really don't want to disturb them also there is a relatively busy road 120ft away and constant lawnmowers going throughout the summer and as anyone knows doing Foley any little sound will be picked up once you have the mics turned up to 11. I don't monitor loud and it's rare that Foley would be consistently loud so the output from the studio shouldn't be too high. I'm really a bit clueless regarding studio construction but I am very willing to learn, I just don't want to waste my money by making stupid mistakes. I've put together some rudimentary Sketch Up drawings but I need serious help!! I want to utilise the full height of the ceiling roughly 3-3.5mtrs, It doesn't display that in the drawings. I also have to put a small bathroom down there and also a tiny shed for storage. As my wife says… she doesn't want an ugly bunker down the end of her garden so the windows are there to make things look a bit more cottage like, they don't need to open and will be double/tripple glazed with acoustic glass etc. Do I need to do a double block construction approach to achieve the kind of sound proofing that I need? How do I go about having the pits in the foundation yet decoupling the floor from the outer leaf? Could I use John's small studio layout with a few modifications for the control room? The entire area that I have to work with is 5.8 metres by 4.5 meters and I can build up to a height of 3.5 metres. I realise that ideally Foley studios should be much bigger in order for the sound to develop properly but at present I'm renting bigger studios and closing them down to small spaces with baffles in order to deaden the room so this would be a vast improvement over that. Many, many thanks for all the wealth of knowledge that has been made available on this forum. Link to Sketch Up model: http://mab.to/fE44XQfv7

[Soundman2020]

Hi there "8bitantique", and WELCOME!

I have no idea how I missed your first post for so long, but luckily I came across it while looking for something else. Hopefully my reply is still useful!

I'd like the main control room to function as a good sounding mix room where I can also record acoustic stringed instruments with ease in front of my workstation (I'll need to isolate all hard drives and computers etc.) The plan is that when Foley jobs come in I can move into the vocal booth and the entire main room can be utilised as a foley room, obviously Foley studios need to be very dead sounding,

That's sort of two contradictory requirements for one room! As a control room, the acoustics need to be very carefully controlled to be neutral, never dead. But control room acoustics are also not appropriate for Foley work... interesting challenge!

I'm wondering is there some way I can flip some baffles or something to deaden it down some more?

It is possible, yes. I have designed a few rooms with variable acoustics (devices that change in some way to modify the room acoustics). But those have all be for live rooms and isolation booths. It could be done for a control room / Foley room too, I think, but it would need some vary careful designing, and careful construction too. Hmmm... you got me thinking!!!

I want to put in deep 1ft concrete pits into the foundation for dirt, sand etc. I'd like these pits to be accessed by lids that are flush with the rest of the floor.

That's another issue: Are you sure you want to have sand, gravel, sawdust, water, and typical Foley pit contents in your control room? Do you really want major humidity changes, dust, sand and water around your expensive electronic gear, speakers, console, etc?

You are also going to need an interesting HVAC system to keep all of that under control...

Wouldn't it be better to have a separate room for the Foley pits, maybe off to one side, and perhaps large sliding glass doors for easy access when you are working by yourself?

The studio will be 60 ft from my neighbours house so I really don't want to disturb them also there is a relatively busy road 120ft away and constant lawnmowers going throughout the summer and as anyone knows doing Foley any little sound will be picked up once you have the mics turned up to 11.

Yup. Every so often we have people coming to the forum, saying they want to build a Foley stage in their garden shed, or some such, then they get all upset when we have to explain the facts of Foley to them... So it's a breath of fresh air to have someone who actually understands the issues already! Your place bodes well for success... (Strangely enough, we never hear back from the "garden shed Foley studio" folks... )

Yes, you will need major isolation for the Foley stage area of your studio. Upwards of 70 dB would be good. That's no so easy to do, and not cheap. You didn't mention budget here, but you clearly already understand Foley, so you also know this will take deep pockets to do right. What type of budget do you have in mind?

I don't monitor loud and it's rare that Foley would be consistently loud so the output from the studio shouldn't be too high.

For Foley, it's not so much about sound getting out, as about sound getting in. When you are recording the soft crackle of crinkling paper, or water gently sloshing, or shoes in sand, or creaking leather, then you need very, very quite levels in there, so major isolation. And that includes the HVAC system: air most move in and out very slowly, in order to not make any noise. Foley stages normally need something like NR10 or even better... Not impossible in a home studio, but a real challenge!

I'm really a bit clueless regarding studio construction but I am very willing to learn, I just don't want to waste my money by making stupid mistakes.

Studio construction is actually not about construction: The secret to building a great studio is design. One highly regarded acoustical who posts on the forum occasionally uses the phrase: "Studio construction is 80% design, 20% construction". He's right. Getting the design right takes a long time, because there are so many factors in play all at once, and they all need balancing and trading off against each other, to come up with the best possible compromise. Once the design is finalized, the actual build goes pretty fast, because all of the possible conflicts and issues are already though through and planned for.

In other words, the design phase is where you should be concentrating.

I've put together some rudimentary Sketch Up drawings but I need serious help!!

You didn't mention of this is an existing building, or if this is going to be a "ground up" studio? There's a major difference in approaching those two. With an existing building, there are sever limitations on what you can do, since the basic shell is already there. With "ground up", things are a lot easier, especially when it is something as specific as a a Foley studio, where there are rather unusual needs.

I want to utilise the full height of the ceiling roughly 3-3.5mtrs, It doesn't display that in the drawings.

Once again, is that a limit imposed by an existing building that already has ceilings that high? Or is it a limit imposed by building regulations in your area, on new construction? If it is the latter, you could go even higher: you could dig the building down into the ground a bit, so you have even higher ceilings even though the building itself does not exceed the regulated height.

I also have to put a small bathroom down there

I noticed that, but usually it's a mistake to have a bathroom opening directly into the control room. You need on, undoubtedly, but I'd suggest having a small lobby area that the bathroom and storage room open on to, outside of the isolated area of your studio. I could go into all of the reasons why bathrooms don't belong in control rooms, but it's nearly 2 AM where I live, and I'm really not up to it right now!

and also a tiny shed for storage.

You certainly need that too, but just like the bathroom, that does not need to be inside the isolated portion of the building. Both of those can be built as normal rooms. Isolating a room acoustically is very expensive, especially at the very high levels you need, so you should only isolate the rooms that really need it. The storage room and the bathroom do not.

As my wife says… she doesn't want an ugly bunker down the end of her garden so the windows are there to make things look a bit more cottage like,

No problem. They can be "fake". Or if you put the bathroom, lobby and storage room on that side, they could be real windows that actually open, as they would not need to be isolated or sealed in place.

Do I need to do a double block construction approach to achieve the kind of sound proofing that I need?

You need two leaf construction, undoubtedly , but it does not necessarily need to be block in both leaves. I'd have to do the math to be sure, but from experience I'd suggest that the outer leaf should definitely be concrete block, but the inner leaves of each room could probably be stud and drywall (plasterboard) walls. Two or maybe even three layers of drywall would likely do it, if the air gaps are large enough. But that's something that would be determined in the design phase, after running all the usual equations to ensure that the walls do indeed provide the level of isolation that you need, at the frequencies you need. That's all part of the design procedure.

How do I go about having the pits in the foundation yet decoupling the floor from the outer leaf?

For a Foley studio, I would use a separate slab. The outer block walls and the "utility" areas (bathroom, storage, lobby) would be on one foundation and slab, while the other rooms would be on a second slab that is entire independently and decoupled from that. If you wanted extreme isolation, you could even do a separate slab for each room, but that might be overkill (apart from being rather expensive). Either way, you would pour the pits as part of the slab for the Foley room. It would all be poured as a single monolithic slab, integrating the footers to take the weight of the walls and inner-leaf ceiling, the slab itself, and also the pits. It would need some complex formwork to do that (and careful design!), but I thin it would be the best solution.

Could I use John's small studio layout with a few modifications for the control room

Not for your needs, no. It needs to be somewhat different!

The entire area that I have to work with is 5.8 metres by 4.5 meters

That's REALLY tight to try to get so much in! Considering that concrete block capable of supporting the roof is going to be at least 215mm thick (probably more), that already knocks your maximum possible inner floor area down to about 5.3m x 4m. Then you still need to allow for the MSM cavity and inner leaf, which is at least another 15 cm on each side, so your actual usable floor area is going to be 5m x 3.7m. To be very honest, that's about right for a small control room, all by itself, without any of the other rooms. There's no way you can fit a control room, a bathroom, a storage room, and an nationalist booth into 18 square meters. The dividing walls between those rooms would take up an additional large amount of space, once again due to the high level of isolation that you need.

I'd suggest that you either figure out a way to make this much bigger, or you limit yourself to one single control room. It's not realistic to try to fit all of that into a tiny space. Right now I'm working on the design for a similar studio in Scotland, with a control room, live room, bathroom and lobby, and I'm struggling to fit it all in to 50 m2. There are legal requirements on how small a bathroom can be, and how narrow doors can be, and how small a "habitable room" can be. For a commercial facility, those limits all go up even higher, because the bathroom now has to be handicapped accessible, meaning even wider doors, large clear spaces around the toilet and sink for maneuvering a wheelchair, grab bars, wider doors, wider passages, clear approach paths to doors, etc. The needs for that studio are similar to yours (except it is not a Foley studio), and at 50m2 it's a tight squeeze. So I'd really encourage you to double the size of your footprint if you want to get all those rooms in, or just live with one single control room if there is no way to make the building bigger.

I realise that ideally Foley studios should be much bigger in order for the sound to develop properly

By the time you squeeze in all of those rooms, the actual Foley area is going to be minute, just a couple of square meters. I really can't see it being usable.

Is there any possibility of making this a lot bigger?

- Stuart -