John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi all,

I posted on here a little while back about treating a live room so it was suitable for animation dialogue work, due to some roof leaks and bigger plans being proposed, that got sidelined.

Now onto the bigger plans, I have a building in the garden that was designed with the best intentions (just not great application) to be a studio. It's desperately in need of a refresh and redesign to better suit its purpose. At the moment it has three rooms, with a sloped ceiling as seen in the images below. All walls are brick (high density, from what I've been told) and the floor is a solid concrete slab. It does a fair job at sound with sound isolation at the moment. I took a quick measurement the other day and the noise inside the room was roughly between 20-30db c-weighted. I will get some more accurate readings next time I'm over there, including listening levels ect... But to give you an idea, we can only really hear outside if the neighbours are using power tools (which is happening more than we would like). The closest property is around 5 meters about 5 meters away from the front door. I'm very much in the early stages of the planning/design phase at the moment and trying to determine how much we need to spend in order to get a studio that meets our needs. The proposed budget is around £20-25K including VAT and would definitely prefer to keep it towards the lower end of that.

The needs are:

-A control room with 5:1 surround sound for music composition, mixing, sound design and track laying with enough space to have one person working and two or three more in the back of the room.
-A live room mainly suited to animation dialogue, vocals, voice over and make shift foley (no foley pits), with the occasional need to track a couple of brass instruments, strings or guitars.
-Good isolation all round, especially between the control room and live room and live room and outside.

I'm thinking of knocking the wall down between the control room and live room to give a bigger footprint of roughly 706cm x 450cm with a ceiling height sloping from 270cm-230cm. I would still like a control room and live room just with bigger live room. As previously mentioned, it was designed to be a studio but not executed well. As you can see in the layout above, the studio area has two brick walls with an air gap in between. The description I was given of the design lends me to think they will be in contact with each other at some points.

I've been playing around with designs based off the 'small room build' thread on here. I'm leaning towards something like the one below. That has a room ratio of 1.88x1.5x1 (LxWxH) which I believe lands in the bolt area and thus is a suitable ratio to work with.
Some notes before I get to the questions.
- We would definitely like to keep the window in the control room
- At the moment there is only about 10cm between the ceiling and where this window starts.
- The door into the control room is currently on the opposite side to the main entrance. I'm thinking of moving this to be straight in front of the main entrance. This would give us better use of the office space and save us pushing past anyone thats working in there.
- We would like sliding glass doors into the live room.
- We would be getting contractors to build it for us.
- We are aiming to get building by October/November time. So plenty of time to learn lots.
- I know there are a lot of other factors to consider, air con and ventilation, door and window structures ect... I'm still reading up on methods of doing these things.
- I have no intention of floating the floor due to it being a solid concrete slab.

Now for the questions.

- Given that the walls are sort of two leafs, but not quite, what is the best way to go about creating two leaves for optimum isolation?
- The current size of the window is quite big and gets in the way of symmetry in the designs I've been playing around with. The window needs replacing anyway as it has been ravaged by the leaks we've had. How much of a pain is it to fit a smaller window that would sit centrally in the control room?
- Same question with moving the door. How much of a pain will it be?
- Am I making it too complicated, should I build 2 rectangular rooms with good ratios that make the best use of the space and acoustically treat it from there? I did some research on this and came up with mixed opinions.
- I've spoken to a couple of companies about doing the entire job for us, given the budget, is this worth while? I'm confident that I can learn enough and design a good studio, but will it save us much money if we are not building it ourselves? Are there any companies in the UK that you recommend or that I should avoid? I understand if you would rather not say or if you would prefer to PM the last bit.
- Is the proposed budget enough to build something like the design above?

Any help on getting started would be greatly appreciated.

All walls are brick (high density, from what I've been told) and the floor is a solid concrete slab.

Excellent start!

The proposed budget is around £20-25K including VAT

That's probably OK, from what my customers in the UK tell me about the cost of building their places, but it might be tight.

-A control room with 5:1 surround sound

... the budget just got tighter... 5.1 is a bit more complicate to treat than 2.0 and 2.1...

enough space to have one person working and two or three more in the back of the room

Probably do-able, but the folks at the back won't be hearing 5.1. You'll only be getting good 5.1 at the mix position. They'll still hear "stuff" at the back, but it won't be balanced, in phase, or correctly timed. Thus, frequency response will be off, as will directionality.

-Good isolation all round, especially between the control room and live room and live room and outside.

Then you'll have to fix your current plan to make both rooms fully-decoupled 2-leaf MSM systems. Right now, they aren't...

I'm thinking of knocking the wall down between the control room and live room to give a bigger footprint of roughly 706cm x 450cm

As long as you can do that without having structural issues, then great! But do make sure that wall is not load-bearing or structural in other ways! If you don't know for certain, then hire a structural engineer.

And if you can knock out the other wall too, that would give you even more space.

the studio area has two brick walls with an air gap in between.

If they really are built as shown in the diagram, and as you suspect, then don't think of them as being two-leaf: that's basically only a single leaf wall there... or more correctly, a coupled-two leaf, but it's not what you need.

I'm leaning towards something like the one below.

That's reasonable, yes, but it will need some tweaking for 5.1. To start with, I would only splay the front part of the CR walls, and at a larger angles, moving the doors to the LR back a bit to make space for that.

- We would definitely like to keep the window in the control room

No problem. It can be done, but you'll need to take care with designing and building both windows correctly (outer-leaf and inner-leaf) with thick laminated glass of the correct size and mounting.

- The door into the control room is currently on the opposite side to the main entrance. I'm thinking of moving this to be straight in front of the main entrance.

It would also trash your acoustics if you have it that far back in the CR! That's where you need to have your bass trapping. In studios, corners are sacred, and doors in corners are sins...

- We would like sliding glass doors into the live room.

Good idea, and not a problem, provided you can find the correct doors for there. Those are not just the typical patio doors that you can pick up at any building supply store for a couple of hundred pounds/euros for the pair. They are proper acoustic-rated sliding glass doors, probably in the ballpark of 800 - 1000 pounds/euros each

- We would be getting contractors to build it for us.

Smart move! But to try to find a contractor that has successfully built several studios already, that you can visit yourself, and not just any old building contractor...

- We are aiming to get building by October/November time. So plenty of time to learn lots.

I only just came across your thread now, so hopefully you are not too far advanced with the plans!

- I know there are a lot of other factors to consider, air con and ventilation, door and window structures ect... I'm still reading up on methods of doing these things.

Right! If you don't already have them 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.

- I have no intention of floating the floor due to it being a solid concrete slab.

Another smart move! Very correct.

- Given that the walls are sort of two leafs, but not quite, what is the best way to go about creating two leaves for optimum isolation?

Treat the existing wall as though it were just a single leaf, and build each of your rooms inside that shell, as a fully-decoupled stand-alone single leaf. In other words, each room will be a stud frame (walls and ceiling) with drywall on only ONE side, and none of it can touch the existing structure, nor the other room.

- The current size of the window is quite big and gets in the way of symmetry in the designs I've been playing around with. The window needs replacing anyway as it has been ravaged by the leaks we've had. How much of a pain is it to fit a smaller window that would sit centrally in the control room?

That's actually a good idea. Brick up the part you don't need, and design/build a completely new window to fit in there, with the dimensions and density that you need for the isolation you want.

- Same question with moving the door. How much of a pain will it be?

Not as big a pain as you think but do check that the wall is not load-bearing before you chop the new hole! If it is, you'll need to take extra precautions, by first cutting a slot and installing a concrete lintel to take the load, then cutting out the actual doorway below that. There's more to it than that, but it's a smart idea to move that door... as long as it ends up in a location in the CR that makes sense, acoustically!

I'm confident that I can learn enough and design a good studio, but will it save us much money if we are not building it ourselves?

Getting your place designed professionally by an experienced studio designer will cost you money, yes, but it will also SAVE you money. I'm sure you can learn enough to do it yourself, but you might make some expensive mistakes along the way... hiring someone to do it for you will avoid those mistakes, and you'll end up saving, overall, plus you'll end up with a better studio. PM John and ask for a quote for designing your place.

Are there any companies in the UK that you recommend or that I should avoid?

Yes, but I'd prefer not to say in public: PM me, and I'll tell you about that in private.

I understand if you would rather not say or if you would prefer to PM the last bit.

- Stuart -