Putting a recording studio in a skyscraper office building

danaudio · Post by **danaudio** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 1:53 am

Hello All. I am fascinated by this forums wisdom, and knowledge. There is a lot of great stuff I have seen in the past few weeks that I have been prowling. Here is my deal...hopefully help will exist for my problem...

My name is Daniel Allocca. I am a Boston-Based engineer seeking a recording space in local tall office buildings. I want to be centrally located to service my client`s needs. And I need the 24 hour accesss, security, and centrall located amenities. Plus they have freight elevators which are great!

The studio would basically just be the next step in my effort to convert my bedroom studio in to a more professional enviornment. I have been getting a lot of work as an engineer, and always end up having clients at my apartment to put the finishing touches on mixes, or editing, or whatever. This is becoming a hassle to deal with.

I would love to have a place that I could mix, edit, and overdub in. Provisions for sorround sound should be taken in to consideration because I want to get in to DVD authoring, and mixing.

I have decided that I need about 600ft2 of space. I would like a reasonable control rooom...15x17 or something like that, two iso booths (one 5x7other 10x7) a lounge, and office, and a closet to store some stuff in.

I have yet to find a place, but have been sort of in a catch 22 because of acoustical nightmares I am scared to encounter. Will sound terribly bleed from my office space to other offices? That is my biggest concern.

Anyhow....moving forward with the assumption that I can do something about bleed, I will tell you all other things I am looking for. I want to keep my space fairly corporate looking and feeling because I plan on moving most of my business from audio engineering to audio for video post, and dvd authoring in the near future. Most musical things I would be doing is mixing...most of my work is as a mix engineer anyways.

Most places I have seen....online mostly...are just large square spaces with 10-12 foot drop panel cielings, and columns placed roughly every 12-15 feet in a grid. I dont see the columns being too much of a problem becuse I feel like I could easily build my design around them, but I do think that the drop panel cielings will be a big problem.

Well. I think I have posted my situation rather clearly...there some problems...keeping sound in my space...drop panel cielings.

What tips/designs/suggestions do you all have?

My brain is open...pour the knowledge in.

Daniel Allocca
Electrobear Productions
www.electrobear.com

Post by **John Sayers** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 5:27 pm

What tips/designs/suggestions do you all have?

Well Daniel - a highrise office space can work as a studio space and it often does. First you rip those drop ceilings out and re-route the Aircon etc. You can gain 2 - 3 feet in ceiliing height also. There are usually bathroom and food/coffee areas and you can freely design around these spaces, and the columns

but if it's concrete columns they are usually spaced well apart so you can be very free design wise. Also you are not up for the cost of the bathroom /kitchen spaces and they are expensive aspects because of the all the plumbing/water proofing associated with it.

Having the 24 security is a geat advantage and the freight lifts are very handy for getting gear up and down. make sure they are big enough though, small ones are a pain. Office spaces usually have undercover secure parking spaces as well which is handy whien you are in the central business areas.

Now the space you mentioned. looks like you want a good control room to mix and overdub in plus a couple of booths for overdubs?? or foley?? Try to get at least 18' preferably 20' depth in the control room and as you say around 15' - 16' width. An office space without the drop ceiling should give you around 12 - 15' ceiling height.

You'll need a booth around 15 x 12 if you want to do foley , you could have up to three people in there walking around on grass etc.

:) It would also be a good sized space to put drums and guitars etc. in. Then a second booth 1/2 the size for Voice Overwork, or vocals.

My immediate thoughts

cheers
john

danaudio · Post by **danaudio** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 8:12 pm

wow, so it is not as tragic an answer as i though it would be.

in terms of the plumbing i m hoping that the buiilding will have bathrooms for the entire floor rather than singles...very much like the empire state building.

what do you think something like what you suggested would cost to do...if i built it myself?

What would an acoustician/studio designer, like yourself charge for a project like this?

Would isolating myself from the rest of the office building me difficult?

I appreciate your input

Post by **John Sayers** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 9:56 am

danaudio wrote: what do you think something like what you suggested would cost to do...if i built it myself?

You'd be looking at somewhere around $50 - $100 per square foot depending on the isolation required within the building you choose, and whether you float the whole studio etc. That includes Aircon, electrics etc.

cheers
john

danaudio · Post by **danaudio** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 5:05 am

Would it be 50-100 if it was done by a professional or if I did it myself?

Thanks, you have been very helpful thus far.

I have been getting some not so good response by local building owners/relators about the idea of putting a studio in their corporate office building. Any suggestions in what i should be looking for in a building?

Thanks

Michael Jones · Post by **Michael Jones** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:49 am

I posted this in another thread, but...

As with most construction, the "finish out" can really drive up the costs.

I'm currently building a 1200 sq. ft. studio from the ground up. It has a large live room, 2 iso's, and a big control room. It also has a separate Kitchen and bathroom.

I had budgeted about $55,000 for the project. I ran a cost estimate, and including a 15% contingency, come up with about $45,000 for the project.
I'm acting as the general contractor, and sub-ing out everything I can't do myself, i.e. Concrete, electrical, plumbing, roofing and HVAC. My cost estimate was based on hard bids from the subs, and actual material costs.

To date, I'm still on budget! The "big ticket" items left are electrical and HVAC and doors. Yes doors! I had a budget of $6000 for doors, and I just re-checked price and availability of 6 of the doors I'm going to use. When I checked prices in December, they were $350 each. Today, they're $550 each.

Well, that's why I had such a high contingency. Of course I'm saving a LOT by acting as the general and doing everything I can by my self.

So that's about $46 per sq.ft on the high end, and around $38 per sq. ft on the low end. I doubt you could do it for less than that. I'm using the high end number because I want the finish out to be real nice.

danaudio · Post by **danaudio** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 10:14 am

thanks a lot. that definately gave me a good idea of what it would cost to do. I am pretty confident with most of the wood work, but would definatelt need to hire an electrician...possibly even a tech-head to really make my patch bay nice.

Thanks for your input. Anyone else have similar projects going? What is it costing you?

Post by **John Sayers** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 10:39 am

Would it be 50-100 if it was done by a professional or if I did it myself?

Done by a professional - Michael answered it if you do it yourself. Labour in any construction makes up around 75% of the cost. Michael has managed to halve that by his system.

cheers
john

Michael Jones · Post by **Michael Jones** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 1:05 pm

John's about spot on.
I would say around $75/sq.ft. if you have a contractor do it for you, and that wouldn't include acoustic treatments.

It saves money to do it yourself, but it takes a LOT longer. If, time is indeed money, it may be wise to have the whole thing contracted out.
If its not, and you can wait it out, you can put some of that saved money into new gear, advertising, nicer finish-outs.... whatever floats your boat.

Working in a leased space, I think I'd contract it out, and get it up and running as quick as I could. There's nothing like paying $25/sq.ft for 2x4 and sheetrock storage, huh!!?

Post by **John Sayers** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 4:02 pm

There's nothing like paying $25/sq.ft for 2x4 and sheetrock storage, huh!!?