John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I have a building that is 23'5" by 23'5" with a peak ceiling (11'3" in the center) in the backyard.

End goals:
Track my grand piano (Yamaha C6 7")
Provide a mixing/mastering area
Provide small office - work space
Provide a machine room

I do mainly solo piano or solo piano with electronic orchestration.
I live in a fairly quiet residential neighborhood, but with open mics and recording acoustic piano, I do need moderate isolation in at least a tracking room.

I would like recommendations about if the space should be divided, or should I keep the room all together and create a tracking area and mixing/mastering area all in one big room. I realize that with one big space, the mixing environment may not be ideal, but will the extra volume when tracking a piano outweigh that deficit?

Thank you for your time.

Greg Starr
Corvallis Oregon

Hi there Greg, and Welcome!

You have around 550 square feet of space. With that much space to play with, personally I would go for a two room studio (plus the other bits). You also have some god height in there (over 11 feet), so it should be possible to get a great sounding space for your piano, and also a decent control room. I have designed a few studios around that size, and I'd say it is entirely possible to have everything you mentioned. I would also suggest adding a small bathroom and kitchenette area, unless the studio is really close to your house. It gets old real soon if you have to run up the path late at night in the rain and cold just to go the bathroom, or make a cup of coffee and warm up some three-day old pizza.... I believe it is possible to fit all of that in to your space, with careful design.

Specs say that a control rooms should be at least 220 ft2, but I have done several control rooms (even mastering rooms) in less than that. John has done one inside a shipping container! So it is possible to have a smaller control room in order to have a larger live room.

If you try to combine your mastering studio with the live room, you will have to make compromises on both. Mastering rooms (control rooms in general), absolutely must have perfectly neutral acoustics: adding nothing at all to the sound from the speakers, taking nothing away from it. The decay times have to be carefully controlled to achieve that, as do the room surfaces, to ensure that nothing modifies the sound in any way. But that would be a terrible space for a grand piano! They need "air" and "openness" and "warmth" and a touch of "brightness". They need character. And trying to mix or master in a room like that would be a disaster. With a small control room, you can provide the acoustics you need for mixing and mastering, and with a high ceiling plus plenty of room volume with warmer, brighter acoustics, you can give your grand piano what it needs to sound great. But it would not be good to try to do both in the same space. Both would suffer.

- Stuart -

Stuart-

Thank you so much for the reply and suggestions. I will take them to heart and start on a plan.

All the best-
Greg Starr
Corvallis Oregon