TMS New Studio Plan
Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2015 9:53 am
Ok Guys so first a little background, I am a third of a production team called TMS operating out of Chiswick in London, UK. We have been writing and producing pop music for a variety of acts over the last ten years (see here for our discography). We've finally decided to move studio for a variety of reasons and are in the process of viewing different properties, making plans and costing stuff up.
The way we work is generally to split the studio between one large writing/production room, and a medium sized mixing/production room.
The Mixing Room is a typical 'in the box' mixing/production room. This room needs to be as sonically accurate as we can get it, whilst at the same time being an aesthetically pleasing room. The main speakers will be Barefoot MM27s. The volume in here is generally 85db although it occasionally gets up to approx 100db. We do not have a mixing desk and work pretty much exclusively in the box. There will be a few keyboards and synths dotted around and we may overdub guitars/bass in the room on occasion but generally it is a room for mixing and final productions.
The Writing Room is set up in a circle, almost like a living room, with a ton of different instruments (Organ, Piano, Rhodes, guitars etc) all set up and ready to record, plus a little corner for recording vocals.
Generally with this room the priorities from most important to least important are:
Vibe/Comfort: It sounds a bit hippied out, but this is the numero uno thing here, it needs to be bright and airy during the day, yet also cosy and chilled at night, everyone needs to feel part of the process, and we don't want anyone sitting staring at the back of our heads for an entire day whilst we "make a beat". This is a writing room, it needs to be an inspiring, inclusive, fun space.
Recording: We need to be able to do final vocals in here, as well as recording all our instruments.
Production: As with all modern pop music, the production is part of the writing process, we have 2 macbook pro/UAD apollo setups on the go here, with two of us building up drums/sounds/riffs whilst at the same time working out melodies/lyrics etc with the Artist/Topliner. To cater for this in our current room we have one moveable setup which can be wheeled to any of the different instruments, and one more static setup around an 88 note keyboard.
Speed: The technical/recording process must not get in the way of the creative/writing process. We need to be ready to record any instrument/vox as and when its needed, not fussing changing mic positions etc.
Sound: It needs to sound great, we won't necessarily be mixing in here but we will be working up production ideas, so we need to be able to hear what we're doing accurately, and equally importantly the sound needs to be inspiring so that people are encouraged to write. The main speakers in this room will be Barefoot MM27s. It would be great to keep us a bit away from the speakers and the artist/topliner a bit closer so that they can listen loudly without us being deafened in the process. Volume wise we probably listen around 85db 75% of the time around 90-95 db 20% of the time and >100db 5% of the time.
We have found a building that we quite like the look of and I have started to sketch up the floor plan so that I can begin costing the build up to see if it is in our budget.
The building is a three storey affair of which we will have one or possibly two floors. Without drilling into the walls it is hard to say exactly how they are constructed but given the age of the building I would imagine they are a typical cavity wall construction.
The floors are made of solid concrete, again without drilling i'm not 100% sure of there exact construction but I imagine they are a solid reinforced design.
The roof seems to be a steel beam construction with board and tiles. Although again it is hard to say for sure.
The roof on the top floor is sloped as can be seen in the pictures/3d models below.
I have mocked up some floorpans so that you can see my first ideas on potential layout.
The height of the existing rooms are approx 2.82m
The first plan is the building as is. What is there cannot be moved as it is a rented building so we cannot knock down the existing structures.
The second layout is a simple mixing/control room based on Sepmeyers best room ratio
The third is an attempt to maximise room volume and the use of windows, also to simplify the construction as much as possible.
So my questions are as follows.
Am I better to stick closely to the ratios for the mix room or I am better off maximising volume?
Given that the barefoots cannot be flush mounted is there any advantage to angling the walls or am I better of leaving the room rectangular so I can predict the modes?
If I leave the shell rectangular is there an advantage to treating the room with angled slot resonators to create an angled wall or am I better of using simple absorption for the first reflection points?
Is it worth planning the treatments at this point or shall I have an idea of all the options and then once the shell is built test the room and treat according to the results? As an aside I already own 12 GIK Soffit traps and and 32 GIK 244 Full Range Traps so it would be great to use them in the new design.
Given that the external walls are cavity walls, how do I avoid ending up with three leaf walls in places?
Looking at the existing layout am I missing a trick? is there a better way to lay this out?
Am I making life harder for myself by utilising the 3rd floor which has the sloped ceiling as opposed to the 2nd floor which has concrete floors and concrete ceilings (i.e the 3rd floor floor) and straight walls? I would like to use the third floor as that is where the kitchen is and we can also utilise the roof garden when the weathers good and go write songs out there However its not worth it if its gonna cause me major problems.
I'm sure Im gonna have a lot more questions but thought this was as good a starting point as any.
Ok sorry for the long post, thank you all so much in advance for any help you can give me, and congrats on an amazing forum.
I hope this build can add to that wealth of knowledge
Thanks again
Ben
The way we work is generally to split the studio between one large writing/production room, and a medium sized mixing/production room.
The Mixing Room is a typical 'in the box' mixing/production room. This room needs to be as sonically accurate as we can get it, whilst at the same time being an aesthetically pleasing room. The main speakers will be Barefoot MM27s. The volume in here is generally 85db although it occasionally gets up to approx 100db. We do not have a mixing desk and work pretty much exclusively in the box. There will be a few keyboards and synths dotted around and we may overdub guitars/bass in the room on occasion but generally it is a room for mixing and final productions.
The Writing Room is set up in a circle, almost like a living room, with a ton of different instruments (Organ, Piano, Rhodes, guitars etc) all set up and ready to record, plus a little corner for recording vocals.
Generally with this room the priorities from most important to least important are:
Vibe/Comfort: It sounds a bit hippied out, but this is the numero uno thing here, it needs to be bright and airy during the day, yet also cosy and chilled at night, everyone needs to feel part of the process, and we don't want anyone sitting staring at the back of our heads for an entire day whilst we "make a beat". This is a writing room, it needs to be an inspiring, inclusive, fun space.
Recording: We need to be able to do final vocals in here, as well as recording all our instruments.
Production: As with all modern pop music, the production is part of the writing process, we have 2 macbook pro/UAD apollo setups on the go here, with two of us building up drums/sounds/riffs whilst at the same time working out melodies/lyrics etc with the Artist/Topliner. To cater for this in our current room we have one moveable setup which can be wheeled to any of the different instruments, and one more static setup around an 88 note keyboard.
Speed: The technical/recording process must not get in the way of the creative/writing process. We need to be ready to record any instrument/vox as and when its needed, not fussing changing mic positions etc.
Sound: It needs to sound great, we won't necessarily be mixing in here but we will be working up production ideas, so we need to be able to hear what we're doing accurately, and equally importantly the sound needs to be inspiring so that people are encouraged to write. The main speakers in this room will be Barefoot MM27s. It would be great to keep us a bit away from the speakers and the artist/topliner a bit closer so that they can listen loudly without us being deafened in the process. Volume wise we probably listen around 85db 75% of the time around 90-95 db 20% of the time and >100db 5% of the time.
We have found a building that we quite like the look of and I have started to sketch up the floor plan so that I can begin costing the build up to see if it is in our budget.
The building is a three storey affair of which we will have one or possibly two floors. Without drilling into the walls it is hard to say exactly how they are constructed but given the age of the building I would imagine they are a typical cavity wall construction.
The floors are made of solid concrete, again without drilling i'm not 100% sure of there exact construction but I imagine they are a solid reinforced design.
The roof seems to be a steel beam construction with board and tiles. Although again it is hard to say for sure.
The roof on the top floor is sloped as can be seen in the pictures/3d models below.
I have mocked up some floorpans so that you can see my first ideas on potential layout.
The height of the existing rooms are approx 2.82m
The first plan is the building as is. What is there cannot be moved as it is a rented building so we cannot knock down the existing structures.
The second layout is a simple mixing/control room based on Sepmeyers best room ratio
The third is an attempt to maximise room volume and the use of windows, also to simplify the construction as much as possible.
So my questions are as follows.
Am I better to stick closely to the ratios for the mix room or I am better off maximising volume?
Given that the barefoots cannot be flush mounted is there any advantage to angling the walls or am I better of leaving the room rectangular so I can predict the modes?
If I leave the shell rectangular is there an advantage to treating the room with angled slot resonators to create an angled wall or am I better of using simple absorption for the first reflection points?
Is it worth planning the treatments at this point or shall I have an idea of all the options and then once the shell is built test the room and treat according to the results? As an aside I already own 12 GIK Soffit traps and and 32 GIK 244 Full Range Traps so it would be great to use them in the new design.
Given that the external walls are cavity walls, how do I avoid ending up with three leaf walls in places?
Looking at the existing layout am I missing a trick? is there a better way to lay this out?
Am I making life harder for myself by utilising the 3rd floor which has the sloped ceiling as opposed to the 2nd floor which has concrete floors and concrete ceilings (i.e the 3rd floor floor) and straight walls? I would like to use the third floor as that is where the kitchen is and we can also utilise the roof garden when the weathers good and go write songs out there However its not worth it if its gonna cause me major problems.
I'm sure Im gonna have a lot more questions but thought this was as good a starting point as any.
Ok sorry for the long post, thank you all so much in advance for any help you can give me, and congrats on an amazing forum.
I hope this build can add to that wealth of knowledge
Thanks again
Ben