John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi,
Finally gonna start on my little home studio next month. I've got The Ron Gervais (sp?) book, read it through a couple of times last year; I used to have the Alton book.... I've read through much of the reference stuff and will continue to do so.

This will not be a commercial studio or even a "little extra money" on the side type of room. I merely want a space that 1) My kids and I can practice 2) My kids and I can mess around with recording and MAYBE bring some friends over for practicing and recording our efforts. Also may use the Iso room to throw a small bed in at times for one of my older kids when they come home from college.

It will not be for loud music. Thank God my kids aren't into that. I haven't actually measured db requirements; I do have a good meter and speaker measuring equipment. I've built speaker systems for many years and am currently a builder of BFM speakers and it's a pretty decent side business. So, I'm comfortable with measurements, just haven't made an objective determination yet.

I live in a quiet neighborhood away from major highways or trains. Train track is about 2 miles away and are not an issue for me. Isolation from the house is not an issue. The wall from the carport (which will become the studio) to house is brick and on a separate slab; the master bedroom that butts up to the carport is surrounded by 4 brick walls and 2 roofs. We currently have drums set up in the utility room next to the master bedroom and if the baby is sleeping in the bedroom the drums don't wake him up. And going from the MBR or utility room to the rest of the house there's another brick wall and the main house is on it's own foundation separate from the MBR and utility room. Annnnnd, my kids playing drums and practicing currently doesn't bother any of the neighbors so I'm sure there won't be complaints with closing in the carport.

Basically, I'll be closing in my two car garage plus utility room on the end of my house. I'm not too concerned about sound leakage in or out but mainly want it to be balanced with no weak link that ruins the rest of the leakage. Of course it would be nice to have a tight room but more of a concern is the "balance" of quality.

So, on to the drawing Currently the end (top) wall is the open end of the carport. The left wall is a half wall with the top open. There's a brick wall (not in the drawing) that's to the right of the "existing door" that spans the length of the carport and forms a utility room. That wall will come down. The ceiling is currently 8' tall but will become a cathedral ceiling with a 14' peak in the center (you can faintly see the peak line going through the CR and tracking room). My brother is a retired structural engineer and has approved the changes to the ceiling and utility room wall and doesn't think I will need any changes to the slab. The building code inspector doesn't forsee any issues and doesn't think I will have any problems getting a permit.

The existing door won't be moved since it's in the brick wall. The elect./machine room currently has the house electrical panel and seems to be a good location to place the HVAC.

The main reason I've posted this is to get input on the room layout and anything I may be overlooking. The drawing is close to scale. I've drawn the walls 12" thick because I'm not sure of exact dimensions on double walls, etc. Also I've drawn double doors on everything but if I can get away with some single doors that would be wonderful.

Layout priority is:
1) Maximize practice/tracking room size
2) Control room is for Dad (me) to have my own space to futz around with my keyboard and to have a fairly workable space to mix. I'm willing to make it bigger or smaller or change the shape if a small change will help acoustically. Where the 6' line is maybe I could push that out another foot or so (and the ISO room) if it would make a difference? I figured the existing door should open into the CR because that just seems logical.
3) ISO room would be nice and hey, it might make for a little space for one of my transient college kids. I have 8 children so extra space is always nice... Also will make my wife happier if I can say, "Hey look- an extra bedroom!"

Exterior door can be placed anywhere in the 20' span from the left on the top wall. The last 8' (to the right) of the top wall is exterior brick.

For HVAC I'm thinking something like a ducted mini split with fresh air intake: https://www.highseer.com/ducted-split-s ... b012g.html Maybe ducted into the tops of the CR and ISO rooms and ? into the Tracking room. Not sure about the fresh air intake. All the service manual mentions for fresh air is how to hook up the duct. So, I might need some sort of exchange unit.

Does it look okay? My sons and I will do all the building so I'm not including labor in cost. I'll start with about $5k budget with up to $1k available each month after the initial start.

Thanks!

Your control room spec is only 6 feet wide, that is really narrow. I would maybe think about turning the room layout around and do something like a corner control room. I think you'll be able to get your ISO room and live/practice room in there with a bigger and better oriented control room also.

Check the forums and John's site, there are lots of good examples of corner control room layouts.

Justice, thanks for the reply. I'll post a drawing in the next couple of days to show an idea of a corner control room. My brother (the structural engineer) was recommending that placing a wall underneath the ridge beam would be helpful. So, I'm thinking of having one of the walls of the CR tie into the ridge beam if I go with a corner design.

I also realized the vocal booth http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14147 would fit as my ISO room.

Hi Rick, and Welcome to the forum!

Just a few random comments, adding to what Justice already said...

The elect./machine room currently has the house electrical panel and seems to be a good location to place the HVAC.

Are you sure? It doesn't look very big...

2) Control room is for Dad (me) to have my own space to futz around with my keyboard and to have a fairly workable space to mix.

As justice already pointed out, such a tiny room would not be a "workable space" for a control room. Specs for control rooms call for a minimum floor area of 200 ft2. But don't freak out! You can get by with less than that. However, the smaller you make it, the worse it gets. Your 70 ft2 would be getting real close to "it can't get much worse than this".... You really need to resize that, quite a bit bigger.

I'm willing to make it bigger or smaller or change the shape if a small change will help acoustically.

I'm thinking along the lines of "large change", not so much "small change".

I figured the existing door should open into the CR because that just seems logical.

Well, the inner-leaf door to the CR will open into the Cr, for sure, but the outer-leaf door of the CR will have to open outwards...

Also, your door position for the CR is not good. Never put doors in corners, because you'll need the corners either for your speaker soffits or for your bass traps. Doors should go in walls, and hopefully towards the middle.

For HVAC I'm thinking something like a ducted mini split

That's fine, but your link shows a very small unit of only 12,000 BTU. You'll need something a bit bigger than that for your place! Rod shows you how to do the math in his book...

with fresh air intake

Yep. And stale air outlet. And silencer boxes... Lots of math to do here!

Not sure about the fresh air intake. All the service manual mentions for fresh air is how to hook up the duct. So, I might need some sort of exchange unit.

Studio HVAC is complex. You'll need to do some research on that. Fortunately, there's quite a few examples of how to do it, right here on the forum.

My brother (the structural engineer) was recommending that placing a wall underneath the ridge beam would be helpful.

I'm wondering why that is necessary. That ridge beam has been there for a while, so how come it did not need extra support before, but does need it now? Did you change something else that was supporting it?

I'm thinking of having one of the walls of the CR tie into the ridge beam

Nope. That cannot happen. Your inner-leaf walls (which ARE the individual rooms) cannot make contact in any way, manner or form with the outer-leaf. The roof is outer-leaf. Therefore there cannot be any mechanical connection between the control room walls/ceiling (inner-leaf) and the roof. The control room stands alone, all by itself. The live room stands alone all by itself. The iso booth stands alone, all by itself. None of them touch each other, and none of them touch the outer leaf, which surrounds all three of them.

Rod explains this fairly clearly in his book. You should check that chapter again.

- Stuart -

Wow! Thanks for the comments. Most of them stand on their own so I'll ask for and give more clarification.
First, maybe I should just post the empty floor plan and ask "What would you do with these parameters?"
So, empty plan: The squiggly lines denote an existing bricked wall.
From the top - I'll need an exterior door placed anywhere on the top wall (new exterior wall) from top left to where it says "existing wall". The existing wall (which is also brick) goes from the arrow to just to the right of the existing door. I'm planning on tearing it down.

The 200 amp electrical panel is the main house panel. Can't really move it. That's why I thought to combine it with the mechanical room where I would be able to access it. Also no problems running new circuits from it. Plenty of space and amperage left. Also easy to punch through the wall to the right for lines to the perfect outside placement for the heat pump.

The bottom wall (to the house) is pretty massive. It is bricked on both sides of the stud wall with insulation in between. I can park my school bus (with big diesel engine) just outside and it is hard to hear from inside the house.

Here's the end view: The bottom roof and shed roof is the old roof that stops short of the newer addition carport-to-be-studio. The top roof covers the old roof and is the roof for the carport. I am converting it from a rafter ceiling to vaulted. The easiest is a center beam but can be configured as needed for acoustics. I've got the structural engineering part of it covered. My brother only mentioned having a wall for part of it purely from the structural engineering side of it. I'm not too concerned about sound leakage through the roof or even into the house. So would it work to have the ISO and CR rooms with their roofs but allow the tracking room to utilize the full height of the ceiling? Maybe place the CR in the higher ceiling area so I could build an outer leaf over the CR or if that creates a 3 leaf system have more space between the outer leaf and inner leaf with the CR? I love the visual and feel of a high ceiling in the live room.

So again my parameters are: Maximum tracking room size. Control room big enough to be decent and usable. ISO room isn't an absolute necessity but would be nice. Suggestions on layout?

First, maybe I should just post the empty floor plan and ask "What would you do with these parameters?"

Weeeellllll... that's sort of getting into "asking for freebies" territory. That's not really what the forum is about. It's more of a self-help place, where you do most of the leg-work, playing around with different designs yourself to see what works, what doesn't, and thinking through how you can improve on that. If you get stuck with some specific issues, then by all means we'll help you out as much as possible, but designing the entire thing for you is a bit more than just "helping out"! That's what John and I and others do for a living: we design studios. So it's a bit "out there" to ask folks to for free what they normally charge for, and live off.

There's actually quite a few basic designs that John has prepared for different situations in the reference area, and numerous other diagrams and pictures posted by for members of their own projects, as well as several by John and other professional designers. You can learn a lot by looking at those, and reading through the associated threads. Among all that, I'm sure you'll find quite a few possibilities that fit your space.

The bottom wall (to the house) is pretty massive. It is bricked on both sides of the stud wall with insulation in between. I can park my school bus (with big diesel engine) just outside and it is hard to hear from inside the house.

That's a good sign! So you already have reasonable isolation. What you should do now is to put a number to that, and also to how much you need. So measure how much isolation you are already getting, measure how much you need, total, then you can figure out what extra you need to do to get there.


- Stuart -

Well, still here but have gone a different direction. We decided to build my wife a "sewing cottage" in our back yard before starting on the "studio". Got the cottage to the point of insulating the walls before drywall and the lovely wife changed her mind. She wanted her sewing to stay in the house. So I'm finishing a very acoustically compromised building that I'll make as acoustically correct on the inside as is worthwhile. It's built as a nice portable shed to meet city codes. Which means wood floor on a non permanent foundation. It's built solid enough that I can put 1" cement down, 1/2" insulation on top of that and laminate flooring and the door should clear for opening. Double pane windows and a quiet neighborhood.

However..., I told her the only way I would use the cottage is if she would be okay if I built a "drum room" right next to it. So I'm building what will be a very heavy "portable shed" with proper concrete floor and room within a room construction. Interior dimensions with acoustic treatment should be about 9' x 12' with 9' ceiling. It'll have a double door connecting to the other building.

Ok. I'll add photos and go from there.

Concerning the "cottage" I want to try to figure out how to balance out the isolation from inside/outside, that is, figure out what's the most I can do to the weakest link (the floor) and make sure the rest matches that. Again, quiet neighborhood, no heavy metal with ten musicians crammed in the room. Mostly keyboard stuff with maybe 3 people max (very occasionally) playing acoustic guitar. Anything critical can be recorded in the drum room.

I measured the air compressor db running at about 95 db in the room; about ten feet outside the level was about 75db so a 20 db difference. The biggest quality of the sound outside is that the floor is very resonant. So that seems the weakest point.
On the left side is where I can add another "shed" (drum room) where sound isolation is more critical: This is the space I have to lower the resonance of the floor:
Inside:
Left inside wall where I'll put a door going to the "drum room". I've got to put headers, etc. and reroute electrical:
I have four of these doors. I'm thinking a double door going into the drum room and the other two doors as windows in the drum room, one in the outer leaf and the other in the inner leaf.
Originally there was going to be a sleeping loft where the window is up high. Not gonna happen now so at least it will keep the room nice and airy.
My wife wanted a rustic look so that's why the wood paneling loosely placed.

So the biggest question is: How best to finish the floor? Weight wise I can get away with up to 1" of cement. Would it be worthwhile to have it low enough for the front door to open/close and then go with a thicker/better damped floor the rest of the room? I don't want to go to the trouble of room in a room but am willing to put thicker laminated glass over the current windows, another layer of sheetrock and maybe beef up the exterior door so long as it balances out. If not it's already quiet enough and I'll just concentrate on the HVAC and interior acoustics.

HVAC was originally a ductless minisplit. I'm changing it to a ducted minisplit. The indoor unit will be in it's own separate room outside the back wall. One outlet with silencer box up high, return down low. The drum room will be fed by the same unit again one outlet with silencer box up high, return low. Fresh air inlet will have a wall switch manually controlling opening to the 4" duct. I'll do the same for the stale air going outside. The installation manual doesn't have numbers but the fresh air inlet feeds straight into the unit. If the air isn't fresh enough I can put an inline fan in either the inlet or outlet. I'll look at the design of it more closely before installing it. The HVAC room will be weather proof, sealed, insulated, with an access door. The fresh air opening will go straight into the unit. The stale air outlet will also ventilate the HVAC room and have the dedicated line coming from the return air. All of the ducting will be within the HVAC room and only have the four openings into the studio.

Interior acoustics: I know it's ideal to have monitors on the short wall but that isn't possible with the windows and doors and aesthetics. I can surface mount them in the corners of the tall back wall but that's really too wide. Maybe build another wall on each side that angles into the back wall far enough in that I could still surface mount? I'm building the monitors so I could make them pretty shallow.
I went ahead (without measuring) and am building a bass trap into the ceiling where it comes down in the front.

Not too worried about budget. Reasonable but I want to get it finished instead of tearing things down and starting over. What I'm building now meets codes and I want to keep it that way.

Drum Room:
Biggest question is the floor. I can't put down a slab, permanent foundation. I CAN float a shallow concrete floor with thick insulation, thick wood, etc. I'll probably bury (above the frost line) tightly packed footers with 2x8's or 2x10's on top to build the floor. Any suggestions?