Backyard Standalone Studio from Scratch - Rough Sketch Up

[GlenEchoStudios]

Hello incredible forum,

After years of bopping around in various studios in town and mixing in my apartment, I finally purchased a house here in Nashville, TN so I can build my first studio in the back yard, and I'd love some input.

PLEASE NOTE: At this stage, basic structure and shape are the most important things. I'll be here lots for advice on the acoustics.

I'm no novice, but also far from an expert, so I'd like to lay out what I plan to do so those with experience might note rookie mistakes and set me on the right path.

Here's the plan. (all in feet)

20x35 in total, one big live room (20x22), control room around 13x20 with a small toilet in one back corner and a small vocal booth in another back corner.

This is a back yard, and neighbors are definitely a concern. I want to proof for loud rock (live room for sure, control room not as vital)

I want to have the following 5 things done professionally:

-Concrete foundation (20 feet by 35 feet, wall 13 feet in to separate control room)
-Structure (ceilings staring at 10 feet on the sides and rising to 16 feet in the middle)
-Roof
-Siding
-Basic electrical

That'll leave me with insulation, a/c, lighting, doors, walls, treatment, etc.

I plan to use the concrete block, after staining and polishing, as the floor.

WALLS - PLEASE CORRECT ANY MISTAKES

-I'd like to insulate with basic fiberglass, then use isomax clips to separate the first layer of drywall from the studs, then a layer of green glue, then another layer of drywall. I plan to use the same technique on the ceiling.

-Angles: Here's my idea (both rooms). use little 2x4 blocks to slowly introduce a grade in the wall. I want no parallel surfaces anywhere, so basically the distance between the stud and the isomax clip increases at each stud. The manual recommends 12 degrees, which means i'd be cutting into one corner of the room by about 54 inches. That's a lot of lost space! Is that vital? I'd love to cut in less. I'd do this along 2 walls out of 4 to eliminate parallels.

-control room: similar ideas of using blocks to introduce angles to walls. See attached rough sketch to see what I'm talking about. I WILL move to sketch up once I have a better idea of the realities.



Finally, Where should the door to the outside go? The current outside door is now planned as the small toilet, with a symmetrical shape to the vocal booth.

Thank you all very much for helping. I'm serious about this, and I want to break ground within the month. My ideal budget is about $30,000, but I would say i have the ability to hit $50,000, and I'll be doing most of the work myself. I'm truly very handy. My contractor buddy and I priced out the concrete slab, structure, roof, and siding at about $15,000.

[Soundman2020]

Hi there "GlenEchoStudios", and welcome.

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

so I can build my first studio in the back yard, and I'd love some input.

Nice! I love "ground up" studio builds, since there is a lot more flexibility, and no restrictions from existing structures.

PLEASE NOTE: At this stage, basic structure and shape are the most important things. I'll be here lots for advice on the acoustics.

That's what we are here for!

20x35 in total, one big live room (20x22), control room around 13x20 with a small toilet in one back corner and a small vocal booth in another back corner.

700 square feet is a VERY nice sized space for a home studio. Much larger than most, and similar in size to many pro studios. This can be a really great space. And clearly, if you are planning on building something that big, you have a good budget to go with it. Excellent!

This is a back yard, and neighbors are definitely a concern. I want to proof for loud rock (live room for sure, control room not as vital)

Can you put objective numbers to that? How loud do you expect to be (in decibels), and what are the legal limits for noise in your area (also in decibels)? Those numbers are critical for choosing the correct construction materials, techniques, and dimensions. If you under estimate, then the place won't isolate well, and your neighbors will still be calling the cops on you all the time. And if you overestimate, that's fine from the neighbor point of view, but it does mean that you spent a lot more than you needed to on materials.

Since isolation costs increase exponentially with isolation level, that's a rather important consideration!

Not all "decibels" are equal, because it is a logarithmic scale. A typical house wall isolates to about 30 dB, and increasing that to 40 dB costs a few tens of dollars per square meter. That's a jump of 10 dB. But if you had a place that was isolated to 80 dB and you wanted to increase that to 90 dB (also a jump of 10 dB), well, that would cost you tens of THOUSANDS of dollars per square meter.

In other words, getting those numbers right is critical for your pocket, and also critical for neighbor relations....

I want to have the following 5 things done professionally:
-Concrete foundation (20 feet by 35 feet, wall 13 feet in to separate control room)
-Structure (ceilings staring at 10 feet on the sides and rising to 16 feet in the middle)
-Roof
-Siding
-Basic electrical

Smart move! All of those are things that require specialized tradesmen with experience. If you don't have that experience yourself, it is a smart move to pay the extra cost and get it done correctly. Any part of the process, from initial concept to the final coat of paint, where you don't have the knowledge or the experience, it is VERY smart to hire someone with proven experience to do it, rather than run the risk of doing it badly yourself, then having to pay even more to get it done again, properly.

I plan to use the concrete block, after staining and polishing, as the floor.

I think you mean concrete slab, not concrete block: two different things. Concrete slab is the floor under your feet. Concrete blocks are like very large bricks, made of concrete, for building walls.

But yes, a concrete floor is about the very best studio floor you can get.

WALLS - PLEASE CORRECT ANY MISTAKES

-I'd like to insulate with basic fiberglass, then use isomax clips to separate the first layer of drywall from the studs, then a layer of green glue, then another layer of drywall. I plan to use the same technique on the ceiling.

Correct! That is, indeed, the best way to build interior walls. But what about the exterior walls? You didn't mention those...

I want no parallel surfaces anywhere,

Why not? It's a myth that you must have non-parallel walls in a studio. They waste space, and are NOT necessary.

There are only three valid acoustic reasons why you would want splayed walls: 1) to eliminate flutter echo. 2) If you are building an RFZ, NER, CID or similar design philosophy of control room, where the acoustic response depends on having angled walls. 3) Because it looks cool!.

That's it. There are no other reasons. #1, flutter echo, is normally the "reason" most people give. But in reality, flutter echo is very easily controlled with simple acoustic panels on the walls, and since you will need those anyway (no doubt at all) for other reasons, there is no need to angle the walls as well. It just wastes space, and also complicates your construction, since you need to cut ALL your lumber to strange shapes at the corners, and you need to do it accurately, in order to maintain good isolation. Why complicate life? It is complicated enough already.

Reason #3 might be valid if you just want a studio that impresses the hell out of your friends, or if you want to perpetuate the myth, but apart from that, there are other ways of making your studio look cool.

Reason #2 is the only one that is actually valid, and that only applies to control rooms that are built to very specific design concepts. I'd recommend that for your CR, absolutely, since there are very, very worthwhile benefits to that (pretty much all of the control rooms that I have design in recent years are based on the RFZ concept), but there is no reason at all to angle the walls in your LR. It might still happen as part of the design, to better follow the walls of the CR if they are angled, or for other reasons, but my point is that you do not "need" to angle the LR walls, for acoustic reasons.

If you don't believe all of the above, and insist that studio walls must be angled in order for them to "sound good", then I'd suggest you take a look at some of the best regarded world-class studios on the planet. Abbey Road, for example: Nobody would say that their rooms sound bad, yet there is not a single angled wall in any of them: They are all rectangular. Case closed! (Also look at concert halls, theaters, top quality rehearsal halls... most of the best ones are rectangular... Case closed again!)

Yeah, lots of places do still angle their walls, but it is either out of ignorance, or out of necessity (existing buildings structure), or for Reason #3... Not for an acoustic reason

(Some people also add a Reason #4: "I will eliminate modes like that". No you wont. You will just move your eigen-modes to different frequencies, and make it much harder to predict what those frequencies will be. Splaying walls does not eliminate modes: it just re-tunes them, or might change an axial mode to a tangential mode, but it will still be there. Some people say "modes are a consequence of having parallel walls". Wrong. They are a consequence of having any walls, regardless of whether or not they are parallel. A mode is just a path that a sound wave can take around the room, to arrive back at its starting point going in the same direction and in phase with itself. Any time you have walls, you have modes. They do not have to be parallel to produce modes. Even the interior of a cylinder or sphere still has modes. If that were not true, then Helmholtz resonators would not work, and neither would the muffler on your car exhaust....)

so basically the distance between the stud and the isomax clip increases at each stud.

... and the construction complexity and structural loading thus also increases with each stud.... If you do want to angle your walls (despite the above), then just angle the entire wall! Just put down your sole plate on the slab at whatever angle you choose, nail your studs to it, then your top plates up above, then put the clips on as normal, add hat channel as normal, attach drywall as normal. Trying to "block out" at each successive stud is a recipe for disaster. Your blocks will be a couple of FEET long at the far end of the wall, and will require gussets or some other form of bracing: Drywall is heavy. The leverage over even one foot of blocking is impressive. Do the math: you won't like it!

(And if you angle your inner-leaf walls that way, then you don't need the iso clips or hat channel either! The leaf would be decoupled like that, so there would be no need to decouple it again...)

The manual recommends 12 degrees,

That is 12° difference in angle between opposite walls. You can do that by angling one wall by 12°, or both walls by 6° each, or one by 3° and the other by 9°, or any other way you like: Of course, angling two walls instead of one makes it twice as hard... and angling four walls quadruples your problems...

You can also angle part of the wall out, then another part back in, then a third part back out again, etc. But that multiplies the complications even more...

which means i'd be cutting into one corner of the room by about 54 inches.

Yup. That sure is a lllllottttt of wasted space! I do have to agree with you there! Which is why, personally, I would never design a studio like that.... Why pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to build a piece of room that can never be used?

I'd love to cut in less. I'd do this along 2 walls out of 4 to eliminate parallels.

You can, indeed, cut in less: you can cut in by zero, and leave your walls parallel, then just treat accordingly. (Abbey road, symphony hall, theater... rectangular...) ....

-control room: similar ideas of using blocks to introduce angles to walls.

Once again, forget that. Just angle your entire walls!

In this case, for the CR, yes, do angle them, but NOT at 12° That isn't enough to produce a proper RFZ. You will need to manually trace the paths and bounces of the HF rays, to ensure that you really do have a true RFZ. Trial and error adjustment of the wall angles will get you there. You'll find that the angle is much larger than 12°.

I WILL move to sketch up once I have a better idea of the realities.

Absolutely! That will make your life a lot easier.

See attached rough sketch to see what I'm talking about.

Move your iso booth into the LR. Never put anything so large and massive in the CR, as it will drastically affect the symmetry, and thus skew your perception of the stereo image, sound stage, EQ, and sanity! Your CR must be absolutely symmetrical as far back as the mix position, and mostly symmetrical from there backwards.

Finally, Where should the door to the outside go? The current outside door is now planned as the small toilet, with a symmetrical shape to the vocal booth.

This is a brand-new ground-up build, so the door(s) can go any place you want it(/them)! Put them in the places that make the most sense, acoustically, practically, and logically. And by the same token, keep them out of the places that would cause problems, acoustically, practically, and logically. Occasionally I have been asked to fix rooms that have already been built, and find that there is a real need to move a door or window, as it is in a terrible place. Moving a real door in the real world costs a lot of money: moving a digital door in a 3D model beforehand, costs nothing at all....

I have designed a few places like yours over the last couple of years, and I'd really, really recommend doing a small entrance lobby, with separate doors from that into the CR, LR, and bathroom, plus also a storage room! Believe me, you WILL need one of those. You can also use the overhead space above the "lobby" for your HVAC AHU, and you can have your main electrical panel in there, with runs to the sub panels in each room. If there is going to be a bathroom, I also often incorporate a kitchenette area as well in my designs, to avoid midnight trips up the garden into the house, just to get a cup of coffee or warm up the stale pizza from yesterday....

That's especially important if you are married, and want to remain that way! Your wife will NOT appreciate stranger musicians wandering around your kitchen at all times of the day or night, looking for the beer, or a mug, or some bread and cheese to make a sandwich...

Just a word to the wise...

Thank you all very much for helping. I'm serious about this, and I want to break ground within the month

No no no no NO you don't! Nope. No. Uh uh. And nope. Whooaaaa!!! If you really are serious about this, then you very much do NOT want to break ground yet.

First, you want to get your design done, completely, in full detail, taking all aspects into account. This I can guarantee: You will NOT be able to do that inside a month. Not even close. Even if you hired an experienced studio designer to do that for you, starting tomorrow, it would still not be ready in a month. Most of my designs take at least a couple of months to do, and for a ground-up design it could be longer, as there are structural issues to consider as well, in addition to the isolation, geometry, layout, acoustics, HVAC, electrical, doors, windows, and plain old practical factors. Now, that's considering an experienced designer. If you want to do it yourself, it's going to take you (realistically): . . . two to four months to learn the basics of acoustics that you will need to know, another two to four months to learn the basics of studio design techniques (which are rather different than typical house, office or shop design!), another month to master SketchUp, then another four to six months to actually do the design (since this is your first one, it will take you much longer than it does for someone who has a bit of experience under their belt).

I don't want to rain on your parade, but the above is absolutely realistic: if you want to design it yourself, allow about a year to do that, and if you want to hire a designer to do it for you, allow two to three months for that. This is reality.

Only once the design is completed, and the plans have been presented to and approved by our local authorities, only then can you start building.

Real-world: if you hire a studio designer tomorrow, you could expert to start building in April. If you do this yourself, expect to start building in April of 2017.

I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear, but it is sound, solid, sensible, genuine, real-world studio building truth, based on experience.

Now, of course, you are free to ignore my advice and start whenever you want! But if you look over the forum, you'll find that those people who have rushed ahead of the normal process, end up one of two ways: 1) they have to stop, go back, knock things down, rebuild them, rinse, repeat, numerous times, and still end up with a mediocre place at best. Or 2) they leave the forum muttering "No way. not true. I can do this in a week all by myself", never come back, and end with no place at all, or a terrible place. On the other hand, those that do wait, take the time to design their place properly (or get it designed for them), end up with fantastic studios. Take a good look around at some of the recent threads, and in-progress builds, and some of the older threads on completed studios.

The fastest build I have ever been involved in was three months and four days, from the day the customer first contacted me until the day he opened the door for his first session. And that was a very intense three months: I was still designing some parts of the place while he had his construction team (yes: team of five people) were already building other parts. It worked out well, but I would not recommend repeating that. And that was a garage conversion, of an existing building. Not a ground-up build.

My ideal budget ... I would say i have the ability to hit $50,000,

That, at least, is realistic! A bit on the low side, but in the ball park. Do the math here too: 50k spread around 700 ft2 means you plan to spend about US$ 71 per square foot. A good budget is around US$ 100 per square foot, but with careful attention to your purchases, doing most of the work yourself, looking around for bargains on construction materials, good project management, you can probably do it for 50k. That's a decent figure, and bodes well for a good outcome. I have done a few similar studios in that size range recently, and they have turned out in that general region.

So from the budget point of view you are OK, and the general overall concept is fine, but not from the time schedule. That needs serious revision!

My contractor buddy and I priced out the concrete slab, structure, roof, and siding at about $15,000.

Sounds about right. The HVAC system will set you back another few grand, and most of the rest is just ordinary building materials, and labor. But don't forget plumbing! You said you wanted a toilet in there (good idea!), so that implies some digging trenches, laying pipes, hooking up the existing water system and sewer, etc. And don't forget electrical! You can spend quite a few pennies on that, as studio wiring is a bit different from wiring up a house or office. Also, when you priced the slab, did you take into account excavation costs, and the cost of carting away several cubic meters of dirt? Plus possible costs imposed by site access: for example, if there is no way to bring the concrete truck close enough to pour the slab directly, you might need to rent a concrete pump rig to do the job (eg, lifting it over your house and into the back yard). Also plan on some heavy labor costs for this part, as you need a bunch of people to work that concrete and get it smooth, flat and properly finished, before it sets. You only have couple of hours to do that, at best, and it's seven hundred square feet! Plus, since you want to stain your slab later to use as the floor, the surface has to be done with that in mind: you'll need to rent a couple of smoothers, and have good people to operate them... All extra cost. I guess you already factored that in, but it's good to double check: Sometimes a contractor will just factor in "7 cubic meters of concrete fits on a truck, and you need 17 m3, so that's three and half trucks, at X thousand dollars per truck = total". Nope. That's just the concrete itself... excavation, form-work, rubble removal, a team of guys to attend the pour, extra equipment rental (even if it is just wheelbarrows and shovels!), and finishing, are all extra expenses that contractors tend to overlook in rough estimates.

Ditto exterior framing, exterior "beefing up" for achieving your isolation goals, roofing trusses (how will they be lifted from the truck and positioned on your walls? Crane? Hand carried? Site built?), roof sheathing with sufficient mass for achieving your isolation goals, etc. All of those cost details can be overlooked in contractor rough estimates. Ditto electrical, HVAC, etc. Those "little extras" add up real fast, and hit your pocket suddenly and painfully if you aren't ready for them...

See attached rough sketch

With 700 ft2 to play with, I can think of half a dozen ways to lay that out much better, and more efficiently: for better use of space, better sight lines, better access paths, better isolation, better acoustics, and above all for better use of budget. There are many "tricks" that can be used to keep your construction costs down: that's one benefit of getting an experienced designer to do your place for you: the fee he charges you, he can save you many times over by greatly improving the efficiency of the design, and by avoiding all of the common "first timer" errors that can cost you dearly along the way. A simple mistake that requires tearing down something that has just been built to fix an oversight in the original plans, can already save you more than the designer's fee: do that a couple of times in the project....

So that's the bottom line: you have a good basic concept, you have attainable goals, you have a reasonable budget, you have a great space to do it in ... but you have a very unrealistic time-line. I would strongly, strongly suggest that you need to drastically re-think your time line. Push it back by a year if you want to do the design yourself, or at least a couple of months if you decide to hire a designer, but either way, push it back. Trying to break ground and pour your slab inside a month would be a grave error. EG, what happens if you later realize you needed more isolation, and could have obtained it at very little extra cost, by pouring an isolated slab for the LR? Or two isolated slabs (LR and CR)? Or if you realize that you could have run your electrical and signal cables in the slab(s), but now you need to cut into the already finished slab to do that? Or if you suddenly notice that there was a much better way of laying out your rooms, but the slab needs to be three feet wider and two feet shorter to do that? Or that you got the bathroom in the wrong location, and now you need to break the slab to move the sewer lines and plumbing? Or that you did not calculate the wall weights correctly, and now you need to beef up the slab to take the extra load? Or that you....
Well you get my point, I hope....

I'm looking forward to seeing this move forward, as it has great potential! I'll be following your thread carefully: it looks interesting!


- Stuart -
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[GlenEchoStudios]

Hey Stuart -

First of all, sorry for breaking a few rules - I missed those dozen.

Man, I can't thank you enough for providing all this vital information I needed to hear. Don't get me wrong, I want to do this right, and part of the purpose of the post was to plot out my brazen, softly educated plan in the hopes that someone would poke holes in it where it lacked proper thought, and you've done exactly that.

Seriously, thank you. This is all beautiful.

You've essentially convinced me I need to hire a designer. You're right, whatever fee they would charge would probably pay for itself in mistakes i'd backtrack on fairly quickly. I've also sacrificed my previous mixing space while I get this studio up, and therefore time is of the essence. Time not having this studio workable is money lost, so it seems like (and I'm sure you'd agree) a professional design will work wonders in the long run.

The move away from parallels in the LR saves a lot of unnecessary work and space, and the move of the VB out of the CR opens that space up more.

It's late here, and I work in the morning, so I'll look more into your comments in the morning, but I really just wanted to hop on to say thanks. You've already helped me out so very much, and I don't plan on being one of those guys who throws your advice out the window. You're a hero.

Alex