John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi everyone,

First post in this forum. We recently built a new house. The future studio area is an unfinished room with 475 sq ft and now I'm ready for the design/build process.

The house was completed in Dec 2018. My wife has a home business on the north end of the house (longarm quilting with ~80dB from the machine) and my studio is on the south end. It's in a rural Northern US setting with the closest neighbor about 700 feet away. I'm 1800 feet away from the closest road. Because of the quiet location, my priorities are more around treating the rooms for accurate and pleasing sound than treating the studio for incoming/outgoing sounds.

I plan to record and mix in the space, with some mastering as well. Music style will be anything from acoustical singer-songwriter (50-80dB) to rock (80-120 dB). Will be primarily tracking guitars, bass, acoustic drums (yep, challenging I know, especially with the space), keys and vocals.

Here is the current space:
Walls
The exterior wall (right side of drawing) is 2x6 studs with insulation and finished sheetrock on inside and finished siding on outside. It has one window that faces south. The interior wall at the bottom of the plan is 2x6 studs with insulation and finished 5/8" sheetrock on both sides and is adjacent to the garage. The other interior walls (left and top) are bare 2x4 studs on the studio side and finished on the other side for the adjacent rooms.
Ceiling
The ceiling height is 9 feet with 1/2" sheetrock and blown insulation on top.
Floors
The house is built on a slab foundation, so the floors are concrete. I plan to finish floors with cork laminate. I used this on my previous studio and it worked great.
HVAC
There are four 6" supply lines flared out to 8" diameter ceiling registers for heating and cooling (blue circles). Cold air returns are also show in blue. It is VERY quiet (<30 dB) and I do not plan to do any further isolation.
Misc
There is a 3-inch diameter post in the middle of the room that supports the second level. I hope to hide the post in a wall. There are no concerns with sound transmission to/from the second level as it is occasionally used only for guest bedrooms. There is a rack of A/V equipment on the north wall. It needs to stay in that location because all the AV cables throughout the house are terminated at the rack.

Here is my latest plan:
And here is a 3D view of the project:
Sorry the drawings are not in SketchUp. I used Home Designer Pro to design my house. It was a steep learning curve and it's what I know best. I hope my HDP drawings convey current and future planned space adequately.

Some questions I have:

1. Rectangular control room? Would it benefit to make it a RFZ?
2. My main monitors are Focal CMS-65's and my secondary monitors are KRK8's with KRK subwoofer. I plan to have both pairs on stands. Could either of the monitors work as in-wall or would they be too small?
3. Suggestions for how to treat bare interior walls? My plan is to fill between studs with insulation and install two sheets of 5/8" sheetrock separated with Green Glue. Not concerned about adding to exterior wall treatment for reasons previously mentioned.
4. Has anyone used a sliding patio doors in their home studio? I plan to use one between the control room and studio. Has anyone found a particular brand/style that works well?
5. The control room is over 17 feet in length and is out of the Bolt-Area. It could be shortened to 13-15 feet to be in the Bolt-Area. Maybe book shelves and base cabinet on back wall? I could use the storage.
6. Other options for basic layout of control room and tracking room?

I appreciate all who have contributed to this forum. TIA for any feedback on my plan.

This is my second studio. I made plenty mistakes with the first, so I'm investing more time in planning this one. One thing I really appreciated with the old studio was having two rooms. I definitely want a studio tracking area and a control room. Other then that, I am open to all ideas and suggestions. My budget is in the $5-10k range.

DPete

Welcome DPete!

You have a nice space to work with there!

The ceiling height is 9 feet with 1/2" sheetrock and blown insulation on top.

At least for your control room, Personally I would toy with the idea of ripping off the sheetrock and building modules framed with 1x6 dimensional lumber in order to achieve an inside out ceiling. Moving the insulation would be the toughest part. It would give you a taller ceiling and better acoustic response in the room. If you end up having a preferred drum location in your live room, I would probably do the same thing in that area as well. That way you won't have to hang 1x6 panels off of your ceiling.

1. Rectangular control room? Would it benefit to make it a RFZ?

RFZ is always preferred in my opinion. Having said that, if I were you, I'd also toy with the idea of having a corner control room. Not to say that your current plan is bad, but a properly laid out corner control room could be super awesome. John has some amazing corner control room designs.

2. My main monitors are Focal CMS-65's and my secondary monitors are KRK8's with KRK subwoofer. I plan to have both pairs on stands. Could either of the monitors work as in-wall or would they be too small?

I wouldn't say any speaker is too small to soffit mount.

3. Suggestions for how to treat bare interior walls? My plan is to fill between studs with insulation and install two sheets of 5/8" sheetrock separated with Green Glue. Not concerned about adding to exterior wall treatment for reasons previously mentioned.

Unless your entire room maintains the surface density and your HVAC system introduces a similar insertion loss value, I personally wouldn't waste time/money adding extra sheet rock and green glue. And, chances are, unless you specified to your builder to use old school heavy fire rated drywall, they used ultra light drywall which has half the surface density. Your isolation will be minimal. That's fine as long as you are aware of the situation. One upside to poor isolation is better low end response. This is because low frequencies can easily escape rather than being stuck in your room causing havoc! As for treatment, there is no one answer to this. Each room serves a purpose acoustically and therefore you need to treat the room to meet that goal. Multipurpose rooms are more difficult to treat but it's achievable using devices that can either absorb or diffuse.

4. Has anyone used a sliding patio doors in their home studio? I plan to use one between the control room and studio. Has anyone found a particular brand/style that works well?

There are purpose built sliding doors for studios but they cost a fortune. Since you're going to have poor isolation anyway, you'll be fine using whatever big box stores carry.

5. The control room is over 17 feet in length and is out of the Bolt-Area. It could be shortened to 13-15 feet to be in the Bolt-Area. Maybe book shelves and base cabinet on back wall? I could use the storage.

Is it the width or height of the room causing you to fall out of the Bolt-Area? If you did use my suggestion of making your ceiling inside out, would that get you into the zone?

6. Other options for basic layout of control room and tracking room?

First off, if you do stick with this layout, I would put the sliding doors closer to the front of your room so that your sight lines from mixing position will be better. But, ideally, having the performers in front of you would be best. It would suck having to "shoulder check" to see the performers each time. That is another reason I suggested trying a corner control room. I realize that the post could prevent this. But try drawing it up. Also, remember that you need ~2ft thick of insulation/hangers at the back of your room. You don't want your sliding door in the way of that and any bass trapping. Your coat closet in your live room is eating up valuable bass trapping space as well. You could build a bass trap over top of your AV rack as well. I'm not super happy with the mic closet location either. You really should do your best to avoid having anything in the corners as you need to control your low frequency response with bass traps and bass traps live in corners!

Lastly, I just want you to confirm that you're alright wearing headphones while you record people due to the lack of isolation?

Greg

Thanks for the quick response Greg!

Personally I would toy with the idea of ripping off the sheetrock and building modules framed with 1x6 dimensional lumber in order to achieve an inside out ceiling. Moving the insulation would be the toughest part.

Yes, challenging with the blown insulation, but a good idea to consider. I will look at examples in the forum.

I'd also toy with the idea of having a corner control room.

Also a good idea. I tried some designs with a corner room, but that #$@%*! post kept getting in the way. I will take another look at John's designs.

I wouldn't say any speaker is too small to soffit mount.

Good to know. I always see large soffit mounted monitors in studio pictures, so I assumed...

One upside to poor isolation is better low end response. This is because low frequencies can easily escape rather than being stuck in your room causing havoc!

I thought the only advantage was cost, but it makes sense. Thanks for the tip!

Is it the width or height of the room causing you to fall out of the Bolt-Area? If you did use my suggestion of making your ceiling inside out, would that get you into the zone?

With the current plan the control room has a fixed width of 10'10" due to the post. As the ceiling dimension increases, it approaches the width of the room and I get further away from the Bolt-Area. Maybe it's time to focus on the corner control room idea.

I just want you to confirm that you're alright wearing headphones while you record people due to the lack of isolation?

I would want enough isolation to avoid headphones, or I would be defeating the purpose of a 2 room studio. I realize this is a compromise and I may need the cans, especially for drums/bass, but ideally I would not want to wear them for most tracking sessions. Maybe beef up isolation with the control room only? If I do that, maybe I'm better off isolating the entire studio.

Thanks for your thoughts Greg. Plenty for me to ponder.

DPete

I would want enough isolation to avoid headphones, or I would be defeating the purpose of a 2 room studio. I realize this is a compromise and I may need the cans, especially for drums/bass, but ideally I would not want to wear them for most tracking sessions. Maybe beef up isolation with the control room only? If I do that, maybe I'm better off isolating the entire studio.

Isolating the entire space would be a LOT more work and money. If you're not concerned about noise getting into your recordings during the tracking process, then I would just try to isolate the control room.

Greg