John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi Everyone,

We are in the process of purchasing a new home and will be moving in July 2015. I have already scoped out the basement portion for my new studio
the basement is currently finished, but the ceiling is a drop ceiling with pots, which can be removed and redone, the floor is a raised wood laminate floor about 3.75" from the concrete (2x4 base, not sure if it's insulated or not) that can also be removed and re-done if required. My question is, what would be the ideal split for a live room and a control room if the dimensions that I have are:

12.6"wide
20' long
8' tall

At most I would have a 4 piece band in the live room at any given time. ie. drums, 1 guitar, 1 bass, 1 singer. Just want to have a really nice sized control room and a live room that can also feel comfortable to 4 people.

Once I have a good idea of the split, then I can start designing the rooms in terms of walls, acoustics etc..

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

- Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:Hi. Riker. Welcome! Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things!

- Stuart -

Hi Stuart,

My apologies, I was too excited about our soon to be new house that I just "threw up" a question without first searching / digging for information. I will do that now, if I don't find what I need, I will repost, following the all the rules as best I can.

I have updated my profile with my location.

I look forward to learning from all the great people here on this forum as I build my very first studio !

Stephane

It's not a massive space...so you're going to end up with two moderate..even small..sized rooms.

Get sketch-up (as suggested in the linked post above) and make an accurate 3D picture of your space as it stands now. That will help others to help you a lot more. Also check the thread with Johns design ideas for some...ideas. You will get your wheels turning quicker.

Scott

Hi Riker, welcome to the forum.

As suggested, get Sketchup and start learning it. Then look through the designs on John's main site and search the forums.

With 12'6"x20', I'm not sure that you can get enough space to build a full live room. Probably a large booth. Which you can put drums in the booth, and DI the bass and rhythm guitar and record scratch vocals in the control room, then go back a re record vocals after the rest of the song is tracked.

I would lay out the control room along the 12'6" side of your space, and maybe 10' ish wide. Not a huge control room but I think you can make some good music there. And the remainder of the space will be built into the booth/live room. The ceiling heights are not great, but workable I think with proper treatments.

Hi everyone,

I really appreciate all the replies ad yes I will get Sketchup and figure it out / draw my room. I am an IT person (25 years in) so that should not be an issue

I know that my space is somewhat small, but coming from a smaller sized room which served as a home theater, exercise room, computer room, recording and mixing room all in an area of 14 X 19 feet, I feel that a dedicated room of 13X20 just for recording and mixing is an improvement for me. !!

I am going from a relatively small multi purpose room to a larger dedicated room, I really want to make this work !!

Will research more and post more details as things progresses.


Thank you !
Stephane