My first studio, could use some advice please :)

[Rag]

Hey guys,

I'm a long time reader but first time poster here, but anyway here goes!

I'm planning to build a studio in which i intend to record mainly punk/metal bands, but there will be the occasional solo artist/jazz group. However, i have fairly limited space. The ares i intend to use is my garage and a small ajoining study room.

My ideas are as follows:

1) use area B as a live room, and construct a control room along the plans of the corner control room plan on the SAE manual site in area A along with a vocal/amp booth and a machine room too. (the Control room also have to have enough space to have a few guitarists and possibly a keys player inside it.

2)Divide area A into 2 equally sized spaces and use one as a drum room an the other as a guitar/vocal room. And then use area B as a very small control space.

3)(Before i say anything I'd like to say this is a last resort option, only if the other two dont seem very practical). Have Areas A and B as live rooms, and have the control room directly above area A, but it would also have to double as a bedroom! (Could be a kinda funky bedroom tho! )


Personally I would prefer a larger control space, with enough space for a few extra chairs for other people etc etc...

One last thing, the wall between area A and B can't be removed (i dont think so anyway) as it is a structural support wall and 2 brick/breezeblock layers thick. It is however possible to install a window.

Thanks again everyone, I've learnt quite a bit just by reading other people's topics, just hope i will be able to contribute my knowledge somewhere soon (once i have some )

Rag

[dymaxian]

Greetings!

You have 2 good ideas so far. There's plenty of layouts around here, so if you can't get one of them to fit in there, you'll be able to get enough ideas to make one of your own. The upstairs control room wouldn't be too bad, but you'd have to put in some kind of communication system- not being able to make eye contact is going to make it complicated.

Another thing you could do is make area A into a control AND live room. There's no reason you can't do both in one space. Then you can use area B as an iso room. You may want to section off a little bit of the garage area for a machine room if you have stuff that is that loud (I just built a wood box for my computer, and I'm set- it's part of the mixing desk).

Just a thought. You'd need to get good headphones to check on mic placement, but it's not hard to do it all in one room. This way you only really need to have one big, really good sounding room instead of 2.

Good luck!

Kase
www.minemusic.net

[Rag]

Do you think that Area A is large enough to have a control room of a decent size and a liave room. I was thinking more in the way of a small iso room and a control room there. Also, do you think that area B is large enough for a drum kit? All the measurements are internal space and without any kind of sound insulation/accoustic treatment (but right now i just want a picture of how space is going to be divided, and then worry about accoustics, and adjust accordingly)

My initial idea was to have area B as a control room, and have two live rooms in area A, of equal sizes and have one of them sounding fairly dead and the other much liver. However the idea of one large recording space in area A with a dead sound and hangable reflective panels for adjusting accoustics and area B as an iso room has started to really tempt me. Although the upstairs control room would have to double as a bedroom too The proble of eye contact could be got around by fairly inexpensive wireless cameras that i can get hold of.

Thanks,
Rag