John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I put the deposit on a studio space today!! *Heart palpatating* . I've seen the location and so far it looks great; massive concrete block with 19' ceilings. Roughly 29' by 30' concrete box with 19' ceilings- floor plan (not to correct scale, sorry!) and blueprint (correct scale!) attached. I can't afford to build a mezzanine (yet), but, I could afford to build a storage area on a 'second level'. MAYBE I could put amps up there in a coffin at the end of some stairs?

The building isn't done construction, so I'm not sure about noise transmission and will probably have to hire an acoustician to find sources of flanking sound/do math that my small brain can't handle, etc. Anywho, I've got some questions.

List of gear that has to fit in control room:
Studer 089
computer/workdesk
couch
studer a800
2 x 8u racks
ns10's


1.) I've attached the floor plan and a poor layout I did on my phone (the latter is not even the correct scale). In my head, the 'live room' is 550 sq ft, the control room is 270sq ft, the vocal booth is 31sq ft and the bathroom is 20sqft. Any thoughts on that? How would you split up the layout?

2.) Any recommendations for acousticians in Vancouver, BC?

Thanks!

Hi there "M.Kenyon", and welcome!

Roughly 29' by 30' concrete box with 19' ceilings

That's an excellent sized space for a studio! Nice!

It's not really clear what you are trying to accomplish here: I see a large room with instruments which I presume is a live room or a rehearsal room, and you mention a control room, but there's no sign of it in your diagram. There's another room at the top, which I presume is an office or green room, or some such, due to the shape, but I don't see anything that looks like a control room. So maybe you could explain in more detail what your goals are, and what the rooms you need.

will probably have to hire an acoustician to find sources of flanking sound

You can find those yourself, without too much hassle, but for the actual design it might be an idea to hire a studio designer. Not necessarily an acoustician, but rather a studio designer, which is sort of a specialized area of acoustics. Acoustics is a huge field! If you do need a designer, then the obvious choice is John Sayers himself... Send John a PM using the forum, and ask him to quote for designing your place.

In my head, the 'live room' is 550 sq ft, the control room is 270sq ft, the vocal booth is 31sq ft and the bathroom is 20sqft. Any thoughts on that? How would you split up the layout?

The vocal booth sounds a little small, but the others are about right. The general rule of thumb is that the live room should be roughly 5 times the volume of the control room. With more than twice the floor area and a higher ceiling, that should be easy to accomplish. The CR does not need a high ceiling, but the LR does. So the overall split in areas and volumes is about right. But the layout you show is not clear...

2.) Any recommendations for acousticians in Vancouver, BC?

If John is not able to take on your project, then PM me, and I'll put you in touch with someone in that area who can help you.

However, I just wanted to warn you to be careful of unsolicited offers you might get for studio design services, coming from supposed forum members: lately I've seen some evidence of other studio "designers" using the forum as a lead generator: they hang around, looking for unsuspecting forum members like yourself who might need help, then offer all kinds of wonderful solutions, at "cheap" prices. Watch out for those guys! John or I would be happy to put you in touch with other studio designers, but you'll make the first contact, not them! I only recommend people I trust, and they won't contact you first (unless I let you know in advance that they will).

One other thing you should be working on: How much isolation do you need, in decibels? That's one of the most basic questions you need to answer, before you can start designing....


- Stuart -

Hello & thanks, Stuart!

II'd like to split this room up into 4 rooms on the ground level: Control Room, Live Room, Bathroom, & Vocal Booth. Ideally, there's space for stairs on the side of the live room which lead up to an 'amp iso box'.

I'd like to make the 'office room' into a control room, I've still got a lot to learn about designing a control room.

Soundman2020 wrote: One other thing you should be working on: How much isolation do you need, in decibels? That's one of the most basic questions you need to answer, before you can start designing....

Great question, I don't know a lot about this, and the building is not done construction. Ideally, there's total iso between the 4 rooms I've mentioned (-60 Db? please, sound gods). Maybe it's more realistic to ask for -45DB? The whole bottom wall, where the doors lead into the room, will need to be HEAVILY soundproofed. I think there's gonna be a giant garage door on that bottom-most wall, I'll likely need to build another wall in front of it. I'm worried about sound coming in from the street there. The good news is, the developer/bi-laws say I can be as loud as I want outside of the space and a recording studio is an ideal use.

I've sent John a message *fingers crossed*, thanks for the advice Stuart.

P.S. I gotta say it, have read hundreds of your posts on this forum and kinda fan-boy'd when I saw you'd replied here. So cool!

II'd like to split this room up into 4 rooms on the ground level: Control Room, Live Room, Bathroom, & Vocal Booth.

The bathroom does not need to be (and should not ever be!) inside the isolation shell of the studio itself. That can (and should) be outside the shell, in the non-isolated part of the building.

I'd like to make the 'office room' into a control room, I've still got a lot to learn about designing a control room.

I'd suggest two books: "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.

-60 Db? please, sound gods). Maybe it's more realistic to ask for -45DB?

Both are possible, but there's going to be a rather large difference in cost. Getting 60 dB means you have to block about 50 times more sound energy than at 45 dB. (Yes, fifty TIMES more. As in five thousand percent more). It's a logarithmic scale, so big numbers mean BIG numbers. 60 is about the realistic limit of what you can accomplish in a DIY project studio build. 45 dB is only a bot better than a good house wall.

The whole bottom wall, where the doors lead into the room, will need to be HEAVILY soundproofed. I think there's gonna be a giant garage door on that bottom-most wall, I'll likely need to build another wall in front of it. I'm worried about sound coming in from the street there.

Isolation is a system. It involves the entire construction. You can't have more isolation on one side, and less on another. It doesn't rally work like that. The total amount of isolation you get for the entire studio is only as good as the weakest part. So if you have three walls and the ceiling that are good for 60 dB, but the other wall is only good for 45 dB, then your total is around 45 dB, and you waste a lot of time, money and effort on the others. You have to design the isolation system such that all parts together provide the level that you want.

I've sent John a message *fingers crossed*, thanks for the advice Stuart.

Did you manage to make contact? Is the studio going ahead? I'm dying to see how this goes...

P.S. I gotta say it, have read hundreds of your posts on this forum and kinda fan-boy'd when I saw you'd replied here.

Thanks for the compliment!


- Stuart -