John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I have a 2 car garage that I plan on converting to a studio. The total dimensions are 8x19x17. The ceiling is currently at 8 ft. but I think it could be raised; the garage structure has a significant pitch to it. The previous owner divided the garage roughly in half lengthwise and built a drum practice room in one side. The other side is an unfinished garage.
I plan on converting the rest of the garage to make more use of the space.

My needs are simple:
My first priority is a good sounding control room to write in and mix in. I’d like to carve out some space for a small room to track in and a small machine room.

Is it reasonable/possible to design a good sounding room with a structure of these dimensions? Any suggestions of what to avoid with a space like this?

Thanks-

Nate

Hi Nate, and welcome to the forum!

The ceiling is currently at 8 ft. but I think it could be raised; the garage structure has a significant pitch to it.

You'll probably find that the ceiling is attached to joists that are actually the bottom member of the roof trusses. Yes, it is possible to change that, by modifying the roof trusses into collar-tie or raised-tie trusses. I have done that on a couple of similar builds: It can be done, but it takes money and a structural engineer. You didn't mention your budget, but if it is healthy then that is a real possibility.

The total dimensions are 8x19x17. ... I plan on converting the rest of the garage to make more use of the space.

Just to clarify: You are going to leave the drum room as-is? No change at all to that? So you will be left with "half a garage" to fit in everything else that you want, and the available space is 8'6" wide, 19' long and 8' high?

My first priority is a good sounding control room to write in and mix in. I’d like to carve out some space for a small room to track in and a small machine room.

Is there any reason why you can't use the existing drum room as your live room? I don't see it being possible to fit in a control room, a machine room, and a live room in space just 19' long by 8'6" wide, and that doesn't even include the isolation system yet...

Is it reasonable/possible to design a good sounding room with a structure of these dimensions?

It's going to be a rather tight fit, as the space is very narrow: only 8'6" to play with, and not yet considering isolation. You'll likely be down to quite a bit less than 8' wide, and ditto for height... It is possible to build a control room and machine room in there, but tight. The minimum recommended floor area for a critical listening room is about 200 to 300 ft2 (depending on which spec you prefer). However, it is possible to do a good room in less, if it is very carefully designed and built, and assuming that there is a good budget for doing that. The smaller a room is, the more treatment it needs, and the more careful design it needs.

Any suggestions of what to avoid with a space like this?

Avoid square shapes, where one dimension is the same as an another, or an exact multiple of another... such as 8' wide x 8' high, for example. Or 8' high by 16' long... In fact, use a room mode calculator (A.K.A. room ratio calculator) to check that the ratio between your final inner-leaf dimensions is a good one, or at least far away from all the bad ones.

Also, don't start by deciding on size: Start by determining how much isolation you need, in decibels, which in turn will lead you to the right method for isolating your rooms, and the right materials. Without that, it is all just guesswork, and doomed to failure.

Other points:
- You do NOT need to float your floor. That's a myth
- You DO need a proper HVAC system. (Way too many first-time studio builders think they can get away without that, but in reality it is not a luxury: it is a basic necessity for a studio.) So plan for that right from the start. Research it first: it's not as easy as you think!
- You DO need to isolate your room adequately, by using the fully-decoupled 2-leaf MSM isolation method-
- You DO need to read two books: "Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F. Alton Everest, and "Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros", by Rod Gervais.
- You DO need a good-quality sound level meter (not an app on your iPhone: a real one)
- You DO need a larger budget than you ever could have imagined: This will be more expensive to do than you had hoped...
- You do NOT need egg-crates on the walls or carpet on the floor, walls or ceiling (you probably already knew that! )
- You DO need to seal everything absolutely air-tight.
- You DO need to design your entire studio, in every last detail, in 3D, before you order your first 2x4, or pick up a hammer for the first time. This is probably the most important tip of all. The forum is littered with the skeletal threads of people who didn't think that design was important, and whose studio builds died painfully along the way...


There's probably about a million other pointers that you need to know (most of which you can find from the threads of people on the forum who have been through what you will be going through, and documented their builds), but those should get you started.


- Stuart -

Stuart-

Thanks for the detailed reply.

To clarify the dimensions of the room; The total amount of space is in play. I won't be leaving any of the space as unfinished garage.

With the larger amount of space available (8x19x17) do you think it's likely that a good sounding control room, small live room, and small machine room would be practical?

As you mentioned, it certainly would be possible to use the existing drum room as the live room. Though, the way the space is divided up that would make the live room slightly larger than the control room. The 'drum room' is 8 X 10 X 17. Since I don't plan on tracking very often I'd prefer to have a larger control room. So, I had been thinking that it would be better to start from scratch and design the control room without the limitation of the existing room.

Any thoughts on this?

So, I had been thinking that it would be better to start from scratch and design the control room without the limitation of the existing room.
Any thoughts on this?

Excellent! That's a much better plan. That would give you a total of about 320 ft2, which is fine for a good control room plus a small iso booth and a small machine room. I wouldn't really use the name "tracking room" or "live room" for that other room, as it wouldn't be big enough to deserve that name, but you could fit in a very decent sized "isolation booth" that would be good for tracking vocals, individual instruments, cabs, etc. Perhaps even big enough to track a drum kit, at a tight squeeze, and with close mic'ing. The machine room would be more like a "machine closet": big enough for one standard rack (40U), but that should be plenty, unless you have a LOT of gear.

It would be ideal if you could raise the ceiling, especially in that iso booth area.

What sort of budget are you thinking about for this project?


- Stuart -

I'm thinking 25-30k for the build.

It that a reasonable amount to get a decent workspace going?

The dimensions you described were pretty much what I was thinking. I don't have much gear so a 'machine closet' is plenty.
I'm a bit torn between carving out more space for the booth and having the best possible control room given the limitations. You said that you really need 300 sq. ft or more for a good sounding control room?

Another consideration would be setting the room up for surround monitoring. If I plan on mixing in surround would it be best to design the room with this in mind?

I'm thinking 25-30k for the build.

Probably close... but the first rule of studio design says: "It will always cost you more than you expected, and take longer than you ever imagined!". But you are in the ball-park.

I'm a bit torn between carving out more space for the booth and having the best possible control room given the limitations.

Maybe you can explain a bit more about what you'll typically be using the booth for?

You said that you really need 300 sq. ft or more for a good sounding control room?

The ITU specs (and others) call for a minimum of 200 ft2 for a stereo control room (2.0, 2.1,etc.) or 300 ft2 for a multi.channel room, 5.1, 7.1, etc.). But that's for world-class "critical listening" rooms, and it is certainly possible to go smaller than that, in both cases, and still have good acoustics. I have designed rooms smaller than that for a few customers that work well.

Another consideration would be setting the room up for surround monitoring. If I plan on mixing in surround would it be best to design the room with this in mind?

Absolutely! You need more space for surround, and you need to take into account the positions and orientations of the rear surround speakers. With a stereo room, that isn't even an issue, but with multi-channel you have speakers a the back facing partly forwards and potentially creating reflections off the front wall and the front half of the side walls, so that's a big consideration in designing the room. If you want to start with 2.0 room now but intend to make it 5.1 later, then yes, you definitely must design it as 5.1 from the start, even if you only put two speakers in initially. There's no problem at all with running a 5.1 room as 2.0, but there's a big problem with running a 2.0 room with 5.1 setup...

- Stuart -

I'll be using the booth to record overdubs. String soloists, guitar, vocals, and hopefully drums if I can get a kit in there.

I just want a smallish but comfortable space for a single performer.

Thanks for the info regarding the 5.1. I moonlight as a dub mixer and it would help to be set up for that if I decide to further invest in that side of things.

I have to wait 6 months before I can do the full studio renovation. In order to make the space usable in the mean time I'm putting in a mini split system.

Unfortunately the AC requires more power than my garage has - so I have to run a new line. I'm hiring an electrician to do it, but I'm curious if there is anything I need to consider since the power is for a studio. I've been to studios that have really suffered from 'dirty' power and that's something that I'd like avoid if possible. Any thoughts on that?

I just want a smallish but comfortable space for a single performer.

Small rooms sound bad. It's just an unfortunate fact of physics. Small rooms sound "boxy" and "dull", and there's not a lot you can do to fix that. Smaller rooms need more treatment than large rooms, and the amount of acoustic treatment you need for a very small room would fill the entire space! Even then, the results would not be good. The best you can hope for in a small room is to make it dead, which sounds pretty unpleasant anyway... so if you really do need a booth, make it as big as you can.

I have to wait 6 months before I can do the full studio renovation.

Cool! So you have six months to plan it perfectly! That's actually about right: careful complete planning for a studio can, indeed, take about 6 months...

the AC requires more power than my garage has - so I have to run a new line. I'm hiring an electrician to do it, but I'm curious if there is anything I need to consider since the power is for a studio. I've been to studios that have really suffered from 'dirty' power and that's something that I'd like avoid if possible. Any thoughts on that?

Make sure your studio is on it's own separate circuit that does not share with anything else, and use large enough conductors to more than carry the load. I always go up one size above what code says. If code says I need to use at least 2mm section, I'll use 2.5. If it says 3, I'll use 4. etc. Not just for safety, but also for other reasons.

Also, make sure that your ground is excellent. If the building does not have a good ground already, then fix that first and use a large diameter, low resistance conductor to link that to your studio distribution panel ground point. Then wire all your outlets with "star grounding".

If your incoming supply is dirty, the use a power conditioner, or even better a full UPS to clean it up. Pricey, but worthwhile if you have bad power problems.


- Stuart -