Need guidance on smallish mix room.

[pilotspike]

Hello All,

I have been reading through the board for a while to do some research and figure its time to jump in.

I have been doing live audio reinforcement for years and have a very large passion for it. However, as of late I have been getting a fairly serious itch to do some studio work. More specifically I work with some very talented artists almost weekly in the live environment and we usually track them during performances. We (the artists/organizations involved) would love to mix this stuff down and put out some albums. I have spent a fair amount of time working on some projects to get my head wrapped around the mix / production of recorded work and its become obvious that the limiting factor in my capability is the lack of a controlled room in which to work and lay out a good monitoring situation.

I just recently moved into a new home and have identified a smallish space to be built out for this purpose. Currently the space is unfinished. Its in the basement with 3 walls being concrete, below grade, that are foundational walls. The fourth wall is a typical wood stud wall, with the outside surface finished with drywall that separates this space from the finished basement area on the other side. The foundational walls currently have fiberglass batten nailed to them to help insulate the area. The space itself is unconditioned, but the space on the other side of the studded wall is fully conditioned. The floor is currently unpainted concrete. The ceiling is open with engineered joists supporting the sub-floor of the room above.

Room dimensions are:
10'9" wide, concrete wall to concrete wall
12'2" long, concrete wall to interior wall.
8' high to the bottom of the joist, 9' high to the bottom of the above sub-floor.
There is a single door on the interior wall, on the right, as you enter the room.
I am willing to entertain the idea of moving the one interior wall (separating this space with the finished basement) if there is a compelling enough reason to do this acoustically.

If I did this right there are pictures attached.

I intend to use this room > 90% of the time to mix down tracks that were recorded elsewhere (typically at a live venue).
I would, however, like to use the room occasionally to overdub or track vocals / acoustic instruments for the cases where live tracks are not usable.
I do not intend to use this room to attempt to track large things like drums or instruments with high SPL.

I would expect that the room would normally be used at 85db or less, with the exception of the occasional powerhouse singer.

The room directly above this space is my 4 year old daughter's bedroom. Generally she only occupies this space in the evening when sleeping, which means that I need to be cognizant of when I use the room. Isolation to keep leakage down would be great, but I expect that I will have to work around the family schedule. If I were to really desire isolation it would be from sound leaking in from the finished space and people walking around in general. Though as I said before, this can be alleviated with me working things out with wifey (who is quite supportive).

Budget is still fluid, but I'd like to be $20K US or less to include the gear. So a starting point might be a 50/50 split, $10K US for the room and $10K US for gear. With that said I don't really know what is reasonable here, I assume I will get more educated on that as plans progress. I would tend to lean in favor of the room over the gear if necessary as Id rather get the room right and then build the gear over time. I have spent quite a large amount of time mixing in venue's that were themselves bum rooms. I don't even want to deal with that in my own room that will be somewhat a sanctuary.

With all of this said, I come to you with the statement that I have been around long enough to recognize that I am not an acoustical engineer or a room designer, and quite frankly, with work / life commitments, I don't desire to be. The room to me is a required tool for working on my passion which is mixing music.

So the questions:
1) Does my desire for this space even make sense? I am sure that there are compromises to be made here as there are with all rooms, and I think my vision is reasonable, but I can't back that up with actual engineering knowledge required for *good* studio design.
2) As I don't really desire to learn or design, I could use some help in getting a design together for the room. I'm quite open to contracting the design. Once again in this area I am somewhat ignorant of design costs, etc.
3) Once a design is together, I am open to doing the build if the situation dictates, but my first desire would be to hire that out as well if it makes sense and I can afford it. I have done some research and haven't found many options for design build unless I'm doing something large.

Any help you guys can give would be appreciated.

John

[pilotspike]

2 week bump.

Anyone?

John