John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi,

This is a great site. I've been a long time reader. I am in the research and planning stage of converting a new studio space.

I have a 25'x25' garage space that I would like to make my new facility. I'm really interested in the corner control room design... or something similar. My initial budget is $15,000.

In my current space my work is mostly Audio Post Production and sound design for TV, Film and games and some small 2-3 player band recordings. With the new space, I would like to keep the Audio Post capabilities... but be able to record more bands.

While considering room ratios and sizes, I have two initial questions regarding the corner control room design.

1. Do you consider the length of the control room from the double window to the corner? or to the corner bass trap?

2. Is there a rule of thumb on how far away to put a bass trap from the corner (like in the corner control room example)?

Regards,
John

Hi John, and Welcome!

I have a 25'x25' garage space ... My initial budget is $15,000.

Mmmmm.... that's pretty tight. That's just US$ 24 per square foot. You should probably look at increasing your budget. Just the HVAC system alone is going to take a fairly hefty chunk out of that.

1. Do you consider the length of the control room from the double window to the corner? or to the corner bass trap?

In a corner control room, the "length" is actually the width. In other words, the length is the distance across the room between one set of parallel walls (eg, from rear left wall to front right wall), and the "width" is the distance between the other set of parallel walls (eg, from rear right wall to front left wall), and they will be the same.

Also, since a corner control room has one of the corners cut off (where the window is), ordinary room mode calculators are not accurate at all for predicting modal behavior: those are for rectangular rooms with six sides arranged as three sets of parallel surfaces, but a corner control room has at least seven sides, and at least one of those is not parallel to anything else, so modal behavior is a lot harder to predict. Modes are related to walls, not corners (although they do actually terminate in corners, in reality they are caused by the wall surfaces, not the corners).

2. Is there a rule of thumb on how far away to put a bass trap from the corner (like in the corner control room example)?

I'm not sure I understand the question: the bass trap fills the entire rear corner, in a corner control room design. It is not "away" from the corner at all: it is "in" the corner. It fills the entire volume of that rear corner, right from the apex of the corner, all the way out along both walls whatever distance is needed, up to the front face of the trap.

Maybe you could draw a diagram of what you mean by "away"?


- Stuart -

Hi Stuart!

Thank you for responding to my questions.

I can definitely go higher with budget. Contacting several builders in the area they estimated closer to $32/ft.

That's very interesting about the modal behavior in the corner control room. I've read other posts where you mention that a corner control room is more difficult to build too. Do you not recommend this design for a facility that does primarily Audio Post?

Regards,
John

Do you not recommend this design for a facility that does primarily Audio Post?

It's not so much about the purpose of the facility, as it is about the existing layout. If the available space will work well with a corner control room design then I might do that. But if there a better layout was possible, I'd probably opt for that instead.

I have done a few "corner" designs, and they can work quite well. The only problem is that increased complexity of the build, due to all of the angled bits, but apart from that, they work fine.


- Stuart -