John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I am coming back to the forum after several years away. I read through several remarkable small and large projects here then and now am looking to see what I can do with the space is available. I assume most of what I'm looking for on this project here has been done before and am wading back into the projects and topics here looking at restricted space, HVAC, isolation, restricted funds and defining a sensible work area for voice, small instrument and simple over-dub work.

I am re-aquainting myself with SKETCHUP and what has gone before here so I can try and not ask-again-how-to-reinvent-the-sheel sort of thing. If it's not annoying, references to places I shlould hop to so as to quickly get back in teh groove of wall design, materials choices etc would be a help.

THanks Mr Sayers and all here who have maintained this amazing place for 10 years...!

- John Vengrouskie

Hi there John, and welcome! (Back!)

Sorry for the belated welcome, but your thread sort of slipped through the cracks, and I only just re-found it.

Keep us posted on your build! Sounds intriguing...

- Stuart -

Back. Took months going through the Gervias book as time allowed. Most Humbling thing ever... this is good!

I'm looking at a massive temporary cheat to get a small garage space barely functional as a mix/edit control room and treated enough to do voice work. Very VERY limited funds until work supplies incremental steps. I find myself looking at most ALL of the WRONG things (brute force, uncalculated absorption coverage, ) for a few months and that worries me.
It needs extension of existing AC mains power. Brute force temp wall treatment to get some level of damping and transmission blocking. It's blessedly quiet already but bleed through the simple studs/drywall wall to the room opposite (and cieling) is a problem.
Working gear is stored there, so drywall work (removal and rebuild) and air-handling modifications (it is a garage so there IS none there) is not possible yet and I need to work in the room.
What I have to work with are a collection of VERY good massive office cubical panels. First step is to double layer that with stud-frame Corning 703 with pegboard on one side in a staggered-section temp placement all around.
I will run a quick drawing of this asap. I know it will be a mess for a while yet... but I'm listening.

First steps with sketchup and actually starting this project.
Basement of a three-story townhouse. The two images are my first humble sloppy work with Sketchup doing real dimensions.
one (CROFT plan1 OH) is the very rough layout of the rooms as they are now. The other (CROFT plan1 CONSTUCT OH1) shows the intention to divide them further to make the wanted work spaces. Orientation is that the roll-up Garage door faces EAST

This is the ground floor which , within the plan of the townhouse itself, encompasses a garage and living areas.
I'm looking to carve out of this both a small editing control room (from 1/2 of teh garage area) that could manage some voice work and maybe single small instrument (acoustic guitar and such) in a pinch, and, from the current rec-room area towards the back, a separate slightly larger music room that will be used for voice and small instrumental work, mostly a working space for writing and light recording.

Big concerns are playback noise annoying the neighbors by getting through the south wall which is a common wall with the attached townhouse next door. then noise through the ceiling (both ways) here the second-level living room and dining room are. THere are also plans to remove the old carpet up there and replace it with hardwood flooring.

the opposite walls form that all border on the interior of our residence and so have a hallway and laundry/utility area and staircase between the audio areas and the neighbors on the other side.

Initial intent is to do double walls on the south neighbor walls, while Ceilings and all other walls would get single wall frames with RSC channel and double greenglue drywall facing.

What i am open about is how to define 'good enough' for both room shape and treatment. While I will be doing commercial work here, it is a small functional workspace, NOT intended to be a full-bore recording studio for clients beyond voice work and such.
I need to manage the (too small) edit room to hear reasonably accurately.

rough dimensions as shown here make the EDIT room 9' 6" by 11' 2"
and the MUSIC ROOM roughly 11'6" square (!) with a 1'8" by 6'10" extension area

Somehow the first jpg will not get onto the system... not sure what I'm doing incorrectly...

Somehow the first jpg will not get onto the system... not sure what I'm doing incorrectly...

For each image, click on the "Browse" box, next to "filename", just under the window where you type your post, and select the file on your computer that you want to include. Then click on the "add the file" button just under that. Once the file has uploaded to the forum, put your cursor at the point in your post where you want the image to appear, and click on the "Place inline" button that is immediately under the area where you type.

Repeat that sequence for as many images as you want to upload.


- Stuart -

I'm on my third attempt just to model the exisiting walls and space to get a base start for this.
I'm working from interior measurements and have Been through three different approaches from three different youtube tutorials and three resultant messes.
Is there an approach to recommend that will walk me into this with some element of success?
I don;t THINK I'm over-thinking this but it seems it should be simple. I either ended up with
bizarre multi-segment walls and bad holes for door spaces,
walls that ended up shrinking the measured interior distances,
or just not-alligned boxes for rooms with unpredictable wall-widths throughout.

Much thanks in advance for help on this . I feel like something I'm doing is just backwards in approach.

Looking at the ceiling of the basement/garage and it is not usual lumber joists but what I think are called TRUSS JOISTS... they look like roof trusses, with those square metal plates along the sides that hold the joints together

How does this affect what I need to do with ceiling isolation from the upper floor?

One thing that seems it's an advantage is it makes running ducts and electric easier as they can pass thru the open areas of the trusses.

How does this affect what I need to do with ceiling isolation from the upper floor?

It shouldn't make much difference. It's just a different way of supporting the ceiling. Check with your structural engineer to find out how much extra load you can hang from those things.

One thing that seems it's an advantage is it makes running ducts and electric easier as they can pass thru the open areas of the trusses.

Right!

Photos would help to get a better idea of what you are dealing with! Maybe you could post a couple?

- Stuart -

looking almost straight-up... hope this is clear... this 16" wide utility cupboard is teh ONLY place in teh entire house that you can see this

no pics...?

in the continuing baseline development.
exisiting walls floor plan (PRE)
proposed added walls (POST)
with labels

Hey John,

Whereabouts in MD are you? I'm in Baltimore and could use a local commiserator / someone to trade contractor recommendations.

-Dan.

Hey John,

Whereabouts in MD are you? I'm in Baltimore and could use a local commiserator / someone to trade contractor recommendations.

-Dan.