John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I'm planning to start construction on a new studio in about a month. I have been operating out of my home, and recently purchased a property with a 24' x 50' detached garage. The garage is a frame/truss structure on a concrete slab with vinyl siding and asphalt shingles, and is about 4 years old. The building is, for the most part, a shell. I want to do the construction in stages so I can spread out the expense, and open for business (teaching and non-critical recording) as soon as possible, thereby generating income for more construction.

I have a few initial questions:

1) My intention is to start by insulating the walls, roof, and rafters, and skin over the entire interior with a leaf consisting of 5/8" drywall, Volara sound block, and 1/2" drywall. This will make the interior a sealed box. I would then construct a floating control room inside this sealed box. Is this the right approach? How does ventilation occur in such an arrangement? I have not yet talked to my HVAC guy.

2) I was intending to construct the control room by framing it out with non-parallel wall surfaces and symetrical design. I have since read in a number of places that wall treatments that affect the interior shape of a CR are often taken for angular construction, and that building angles into the room can often be worse. Some suggest building a rectangular structure, then treating the surfaces and/or building angles into the structure. Studying floor plans, I have seen both. Any thoughts?

3) I have studied the bass trap construction method on this site. There are also many companies that sell foam bass traps. I was thinking about combining these two by placing foam bass traps floor to ceiling in each corner, then building and installing slat covers (minus insulation) over them. Does this sound like it would work?

Greetings!

That sounds like a pretty sweet space- done right it will be great for you.

1) The HVAC isn't all that bad. Make sure your HVAC guy knows that you'll be building sound-critical rooms in here, and he'll have to be very cautious to seal around all the ducts, install dampers where they enter the rooms, etc. Make sure he knows that you're expecting more detailed work from him, and be willing to pay for it.

2) I personally would frame out the walls non-parallel and build the interior treatment to follow the walls. You can build trapping into the walls at angles easily enough, but a lot of low freq sound will bypass that stuff. Having the basic walls at angles will make sure that any sound that stays in the room hits a non-parallel surface. You won't get flutter echoes at low freq's but it'd be better for you to spread out what doesn't get absorbed. Just my opinion; I could be wrong.

3) the foam traps work, and they look awfully cool, but they're beyond my budget. I'm just handy enough with power tools to not hurt myself, so I build all my traps myself. Go have a look at Ethan Winer's panel trap designs, too- I'll go hunting for the link later and post it for you.

You can do this in stages pretty easy- like you said, one room at a time. Get each room right the first time instead of building them all at once, and have the whole studio be half-assed.

Kase
www.minemusic.net