John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I'm building a recording studio with a Live room of 10 meters (32.8 feet) by 5 meters (16.4 feet). With a height of aprox 4.5 meters (14.7 feet).

I would like to be able to film some of the bands that will be recording in the studio. For this purpose, I was thinking about having some bars on the ceiling in parallel in the middle of the ceiling or in some way, to be able to hang specific lights to film the artist. Before I was thinking about having a complete lighting grid on the ceiling, but maybe some bars are enough for the purpose and it would keep better the recording studio vibe.

My question is if somebody here has done something like this in a recording studio. If you have..
1) What would be the best position of the bars for the lights in this space.
2) How should I hang the bars for the lights. These bars should be pretty solid to resist the weight of the lights. This will be a room inside a room. I'm afraid if I hang the bars from the outside structural ceiling it will bring some noise from the outside. And if I hang these from the inside acoustic ceiling, the ceiling could be too fragile to resist the weight of the lights? Please let me know if you have some experience with something like this.
Also I would like to know if you consider something good, to have a solid curtain that could cover the back wall or maybe an "L" of two walls in the studio for filming purposes?

Thanks!

jstudio wrote: 1) What would be the best position of the bars for the lights in this space.

2) How should I hang the bars for the lights. These bars should be pretty solid to resist the weight of the lights. This will be a room inside a room. I'm afraid if I hang the bars from the outside structural ceiling it will bring some noise from the outside. And if I hang these from the inside acoustic ceiling, the ceiling could be too fragile to resist the weight of the lights? Please let me know if you have some experience with something like this.
Also I would like to know if you consider something good, to have a solid curtain that could cover the back wall or maybe an "L" of two walls in the studio for filming purposes?

Put the lights on stands.

Thanks Dan!

Yes I know most of the time will put them on stands. But I was thinking to have that posibilty in case is needed?

Or you don't think will be needed? I mean the film studios have a grid on the ceiling. I'm planning to film bands as well.

You say this because you don't think will be needed or because will be complicated to put the bars.

Cheers.

Hi. Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things!

I'm afraid if I hang the bars from the outside structural ceiling it will bring some noise from the outside.

Exactly. That's why you cannot do it that way.

And if I hang these from the inside acoustic ceiling, the ceiling could be too fragile to resist the weight of the lights?

I'm not sure what you mean by "inside acoustic ceiling"! The inner-leaf ceiling has nothing at all to do with acoustics, usually. It is there for isolation, not acoustics. It can also be used for acoustics, yes,... but the main purpose is isolation. Therefore, the framing will be very substantial, since it must support a lot of mass. You cannot get isolation without mass. So your inner-leaf ceiling joists will already be dimensioned to support all of the mass (weight) that you need to isolate your room, which will be thousands of pounds weight in your case (probably around 5,000 pounds or 2,500 kg, at least).

Therefore, you will only need to increase the dimensions of those inner-leaf ceiling joists enough that they can also support the additional weight of the fully-loaded lighting truss AND ALSO the acoustic treatment. When you design the inner-leaf ceiling structure, you will need to take into account ALL of those loads on the ceiling, both live loads and dead loads, and then you design it correctly so that it will safely support that weight. You will need to explain to your studio designer the need for the extra structural support, and he can include that in the design.

There is no reason at all why the inner-leaf ceiling would be "fragile"! It will only be fragile if it is not designed correctly, or not built correctly.

2) How should I hang the bars for the lights. These bars should be pretty solid to resist the weight of the lights.

Lights in studios are hung from proper lighting trusses. They are not simple "bars". And yes, lighting trusses are heavy. You will need a structural engineer to evaluate the ability of your ceiling to support all of the weight. The ceiling itself is very heavy, the light trusses are heavy, and the acosutic treatment is heavy as well. If you do not understand the weights, stresses, and loads, then you will need to hire a structural engineer.

With a 15 foot ceiling, you will also need some method for raising and lowering the trusses, which could be either manual or electric.

Rigging things overhead is a very serious business: even a lightweight LED PAR56 can, that falls on your head from 10 feet up can injure you, and an entire truss falling on you could kill you. So you will need to hire qualified riggers, as well as getting insurance to cover any possible injuries, deaths, or damage. Not to mention the danger of fire or electrical shock, from badly rigged lighting trusses.

Stage rigging is not something to be take lightly. It is dangerous, and you should seek qualified people to guide you on how to do it. The same for the design of your inner-leaf ceiling: it will be massively heavy, and the structure needs to be designed correctly.

Also I would like to know if you consider something good, to have a solid curtain that could cover the back wall or maybe an "L" of two walls in the studio for filming purposes?

I don't understand what you are trying to say there, but most studios that are used for filming music videos have a "green-screen" backdrop of some type. It is either the studio wall itself, painted with chroma-key green, or it is a special green fabric that is stretched over a frame and placed behind the actors. You cannot use green curtains because the surface must be lit very evenly to pull a clean chroma key. Curtains have folds and wrinkles that cannot be light smoothly and evenly, so the chroma-key will not work very well.

In your case, since the room is really a live room for recording, you can't paint the walls green, because the walls will have acoustic treatment on them. So you will need to buy a proper green-screen backdrop, and store it when you are not filming, then put it up when you are filming.



- Stuart -