John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Sent a PM quote request for the build!

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

That said, you should probably contact John directly by PM (Personal Message) and ask him to quote for designing your studio. He's the one with the proven experience in container studios!

If you want to do this yourself, without hiring a studio designer, then it's going to take a lot of learning to understand the acoustics of very small rooms, to be able to design it correctly. I'd suggest two books to get you started: "Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F. Alton Everest (that's sort of the Bible for acoustics), and "Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros", by Rod Gervais. After you re done with those you can get a more advanced book on acoustics, to learn best how to deal with small acoustic spaces.

The width and height are 8'x8.5' respectively.

I may be wrong, but as far as I know John used High Cube containers for his studios, and those are a foot taller than yours: 9'6" instead of 8'6". That extra foot makes a big difference, acoustically.

I'd also really appreciate any tips as to a container build out such as best practice and materials for building internal walls, ceiling and floor...size of air gap and any extra sound proofing materials between the container and interior walls?

I'd suggest you take a look at the "Spark One" thread here on the forum, and the photos on Johns commercial studio design website, to get a better idea of how he did that.

I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but you really embarking on a large and complex project, even though it might not look like it right now. It will not be easy, and you have a pretty steep learning curve ahead of you. Small rooms are more complex than large rooms. The smaller they are, the more complicated they are. Yours is going to be very complicated.

It really would be much better to talk to John and hire him to design it for you.

- Stuart -

My apologies...I guess I got ahead of myself after seeing the studio container builds and getting a container for free.

I'll definitely contact John for a design quote. I'd much rather go that route anyway. I'm good with metal work and building, but not with acoustics in this small a structure. I've done a ton of research over the past 5 years or so (including Mr. Gervais' book), but that was all related to a ground up studio build. Even so, I'm at best an amateur...Thinking about working within a container fried my brain out!

Thanks for your reply! I'll pick up a copy of the other book and continue my study.

If you go ahead with the container build, I would love to see it.

I'm in NE Oklahoma and get down to the Dallas.Fort Worth areas once or twice a year for various things and have experimented with some Sketchup drawings for 40' high cube container studios.