John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi,

After a lot of reading, here on the forum and in books, I'd like to share my attempts to come up with a nice workspace in my backyard.

For years now I've been working in a studio recording, mixing and sometimes mastering. But a dream of mine has always been to have a studio at home...

May 2014 we moved to a different house and I finally got my garage in the backyard. This is where I hope to create a wonderful working area with good (I hope the best possible) acoustics. It's not big but I think big enough for what I'm planning to do there.

First en foremost it has to sound good! I need a place where I can depend on as far as acoustics. It's intended for mixing. And maybe some vocal recordings and midi stuff.

It doesn't have to be very silent, because I'm not mixing that loud and surrounding houses are at least 20 meters away. Adjacent buildings are garages.

I'd like to have some daylight in the room. I've spent too much time in the dark in the past…

A small portion of the space has to be reserved for tools and a few bikes… It's still my only room outside the house where I can keep that kind of stuff. But still acoustics are number one so I'm willing to make compromises on the storing space off course.

My budget is somewhere in between €5.000 and €7.500. And I can pretty much do everything myself or have the right kind of people at my disposal to help me so the whole budget can be spent on construction and finishing details.

The space I have is 653cm and 570cm long, 358cm and 375cm wide and 230 high. It has a concrete slab and the walls are built of standard bricks, cavity wall. The window is single glass and off course will be replaced by double glass. The big door is a solid wooden door.

Important to know is that without a permit I'm allowed to make the building 70 cm higher, making a total height of 300cm. I think changing the roof is inevitable, because as it is the room dimensions are not ideal and again acoustics come first.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/211 ... 20copy.skp

My first sketch is quite radical and probably not something that's easily achieved, especially not within this budget. But aim high, right?
I'd also like to hear your opinion about the rest. What things did I overlook (probably a lot)? How can I get a better design? Or should I be facing in the direction of the door? And how am I going to solve the problem then that I still want to have soffit mounted speakers?

I'm very curious to what you guys have to say!

Cheers,

Frans

Not a bad first draft for a studio design.

First things first, make sure you learn how to build in groups in Sketchup. It will make hiding walls that you don't want to see much easier.

I think your monitors are a bit too high. The usual recommendation is anything above 48" (122cm) should be angled down. Yours are at 58" (147.32cm), bring the top of the monitors down by 10" (25.4cm) and I think you'll be find.

The area to the left of the control room wold make a nice little vocal booth. Frame it in and put a window between the control and the booth.

In terms of raising the roof and ceiling, I'm not sure that I would. Your ceiling is kind of low right now but it's not too bad, I think. But if you raise it, I think you'll end up with an odd room with a ceiling that is higher than the length of the room.

One thing you might consider, is turning the room by 90 degrees so that the engineer faces the large garage door opening, and putting the vocal booth in front of the room. It looks like you can get a little more length in the control room that way. (Depending on what's going on with the ceiling and roof of course.)

How much isolation do you need from the outside? You say it's garages...are there trucks and machinery moving around that you don't want to hear in your room? It's not JUST about concealing what's inside the room, but also keeping what's outside from getting in. Isolation works both ways.

If you haven't already, get and read Rod Garvais' book Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros

Hi Justice,

Thanks for your reply! After thinking about your comments and talking to some studio people and engineering friends of mine I've come up with a different approach.

I'm now facing the small door, and I've moved my storage space to the side of the garden. So when you walk in the garage I can grab my tools and after I'm done with the long list of little shores in and around the house I can walk through the door into the studio…

Reading more and more on the forum, only more questions arise about almost everything… I find it difficult to choose which threads to follow and where to get all the right info about how it's supposed to be done. So I guess I need a lot of guidance in the design and through the build.

Since the new version of sketch up my exported file is a bit different than the above. I've put it up my dropbox again. Is this the way it's most convenient for everyone or is there a better way for people to show their designs here on the forum?
I tried to make everything in components and groups this time.

I left the roof for later 'cause I first like to concentrate on the basic design and wall angles and stuff.

Hope to hear from you.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/211 ... AN%202.dae

Frans, your link doesn't work! I clicked on it, but just got a screen full of HTML code...

Yes, it's fine to upload big files to Dropbox (or somewhere similar) and post the link here. No problem

- Stuart -

It's also nice if you also post image shots on the thread ... that way, those of us watching from the sidelines can better follow the discussion without having to fire up SketchUP just to get an overview ...

Hi,

Sorry people, I didn't check the link properly.

Made a new copy and put it up. Hope this will work better.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/211 ... AN%202.skp

And a screenshot for convenience.

Thanks

I find it difficult to choose which threads to follow and where to get all the right info about how it's supposed to be done.

Do what I do: follow as many as you possibly can, from start to finish, and also follow all hte off-site links, and cross-links on the forum! That way, you soon start to see the trends in what works and what doesn't work, and you start to understand which techniques and materials have been shown to work well, as well as which ones don't work, or do work but are very expensive, or very hard to work with.

So I guess I need a lot of guidance in the design and through the build.

That's what the forum is here for!

I tried to make everything in components and groups this time.

Excellent! You should also start using the "layers" feature of SketchUp, and put related things on the same layer, or even on several layers. So keep all your timber framing on one layer, but also group the timber on teh ceiling to another layer, the timber on the east wall to yet another layer, that on the west wall to another, etc. It makes is very easy to keep track of things, s you can turn on or off the visibility of different parts of your model, to make it easier to see and work on.

One things I would suggest, is to move the rear door a bit closer to the center of the rear wall, so you have more room in the corner to put in bass trapping.

Also, your inner leaf walls seem to be in direct contact with your outer leaf walls: if you want to isolate your studio well, then you need to leave a gap there. The inner walls must not touch the outer walls at all.

But apart from that, you seem to be on track.

- Stuart -