Advice on new studio build

[Bryanf87]

Hey guys,

I am in the beginning planning stages of designing a studio that will be located within an existing building (wood construction on concrete slab) that's located on my property. From the design sketch that I have attached to this post, I would like to know if a layout like this would be effective or if I am overlooking anything or missing a potentially better layout. The only interior wall that needs to stay and is load bearing is between the live room and the control room that my desk will be facing. I have some rough, rounded dims ( in feet) on there now to give you an idea of the size of the space. The ceiling height for the live room is roughly 14 feet (4.25m) and the control room ceiling will be 12 feet (3.5m) at the front wall sloping down to 9 feet (2.75m) at the back wall. I also need to keep the bathroom on that exterior wall due to sewage and plumbing. I plan on going with a double wall design for the entire perimeter of the live room which will consist of a 2"x 8" base plate with offset 2"x 4" studs for exterior and interior walls with about a 1" air gap between with single faced insulation batting. Any additional advice or opinions you could give would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[Bryanf87]

Here is a revised design I came up with after messing around with some more layout ideas. This space is a bit smaller overall compared to my hand drawn layout but I think it's good enough for what I need.

Some notes to consider:
-to the right of my desk is the vocal / amp room with windows looking into the control room and the live room
-the small room next to the vocal booth is a bathroom
-there is a loft area off the staircase leading up from the back of the control room. This will be a hang out / song writing spot, room mic location, extra storage ect.
-the ceiling height under the loft at the back of the control room is set at 8ft (2.5m)
-the ceiling height at the front wall of the control room is at 9ft (2.7m) and slopes up to 12ft (3.6m)
-I want to do a mini split system for HVAC but not sure on how to cool / heat the vocal booth

Any opinions or advice on this design would be great! Thanks!

[Gregwor]

Here is a revised design I came up with after messing around with some more layout ideas.

I'm a little bit confused about your load bearing wall because it is straight in your drawing but your SketchUp has it as angled.

Also, it looks like you're using the horrible online "free" version of SketchUp. I can't stress enough how crappy it is compared to a downloaded/installed version. They discontinued "make" but it is still available for download. Get the newest one that works on your system. You can easily get your model using the 3D warehouse.

https://help.sketchup.com/en/downloading-older-versions

Any opinions or advice on this design would be great! Thanks!

I'd love to offer ideas but as I wrote above, I'm confused about what has to stay. Please clear this up and we can go from there

Are the stairs currently there or is that loft a thing you added just in your drawing?

-I want to do a mini split system for HVAC but not sure on how to cool / heat the vocal booth

You can get mini splits that support multiple evaporators allowing zoning. One thing you haven't seemed to include in your drawings is where your HVAC silencer boxes are going to live. Do you have an attic in the building where you could put some or all of your silencer boxes? Also, if you do go with mini splits, remember that every single evaporator needs a place to drain. So in your live room for example, you need to be able to run the drain line to a nearby drain (routed such that it avoids freezing or compromising your isolation). Lastly, regarding HVAC, mini splits large enough to handle a space as large as yours does have pretty intense power demands. As an example, a 3 ton Fujitsu brand unit needs 240 volts and 35 amps. It looks like you legally require an ERV in your state so I'm guessing you'll be using an ERV for ventilation so check what ERVs would be suitable to move the air through your silencer boxes. I'm not well versed on zoning with ERV's but you could probably size your ducts between your ERV and your silencer boxes to balance the CFM through each room with a rough duct size estimate and then dampers from there for fine tuning. Once you sort out your silencer box design, you can calculate the static pressure and then check the ERV fan specs to see if it can effectively move your required CFM with that many inches water column.

Greg

[Bryanf87]

Thank you for the response, Greg. I should have provided more information about the load bearing wall mentioned before. I have discussed with a contractor about spanning a 4 x 12 beam or something similar for support allowing me to essentially open that wall up to use the space differently. In the model layout, the beam will be located above the control room a few feet behind my desk, this will allow me to utilize the extra length by not having to frame out a wall there.

There is currently nothing existing within this building aside from the exterior walls and the one dividing wall down the middle (the wall between the vocal booth / bathroom and the live room). This entire space is essentially a blank slate. The loft and staircase are an idea I came up with in the newest layout.

As for the mini split system, I am under the understanding that a silencer box is not needed due to how quietly they run? Drain lines shouldn't be an issue because I plan to have the mini splits installed on exterior walls wherever I put them, which will offer an easy place to run a drain line directly outside. There could be some space between the interior ceiling and the roof, not an attic by any means but where you see the slanted walls in the model, I could install a flat interior ceiling at the lowest point allowing about 2-3 feet for something like that to be stashed out of sight.

Thank you for the ERV advice, that is something I will definitely have to research and look into before moving forward.

[Gregwor]

I have discussed with a contractor about spanning a 4 x 12 beam or something similar for support allowing me to essentially open that wall up to use the space differently.

Excellent.

As for the mini split system, I am under the understanding that a silencer box is not needed due to how quietly they run?

Mini splits do not provide any form of ventilation. Yes, expensive ones run quietly and make for comfortable temperatures and humidity, but in a studio that is air tight, you're going to run out of oxygen pretty quickly. The ventilation is where you need an ERV or inline fan, duct work and silencer boxes.

Greg

[Bryanf87]

Thank you, Greg. I've been doing a lot of research both here and on youtube and I think I now understand what you are saying. The mini splits will condition the air within the space but what I need to develop a plan / layout for is a two part duct system. One for bringing in fresh air from outside and moving it between the various rooms I will have and a separate system for removing air from the building and sending it outside. Silencer boxes will be built and installed for the incoming and outgoing air systems to hopefully eliminate any noise.

With this in mind, I am planning to build only 2 silencer boxes and install them within the wall of my live room. For the live room my plan is to construct a double wall system with a 2 x 8 base plate and two separate 2 x 4 framed walls for exterior and interior, leaving about a 1" air gap between them. I'm hoping that the roughly 7 inch space between exterior sheathing and interior drywall will be enough. I am also hoping that placing an in line fan on the exterior wall near where the silencer boxes will be will allow enough air flow to and from the different rooms given the length it will need to travel.

[Gregwor]

Drain lines shouldn't be an issue because I plan to have the mini splits installed on exterior walls wherever I put them, which will offer an easy place to run a drain line directly outside.

I woke up today remembering that I didn't comment on this section of your post! I looked and it's rare for you guys to get into freezing temperatures, but if it does ever get that cold, I'd be worried about your drain line freezing. Just something to consider. I'm so jealous of your weather. A little while ago we hit -59°F. Luckily I was on holidays in Maui during that gnarly week!

With this in mind, I am planning to build only 2 silencer boxes and install them within the wall of my live room.

So this will only give you insertion loss to isolate the inside from the outside of your building. If you want isolation between your individual rooms, you need to have silencer boxes between those rooms as well. If you have a lounge area or bathroom for example that do not need to be isolated from the outside world, you can come into and out of that that room without silencer boxes (no need to worry about some MDF sleeve sticking outside getting warped by rain -- I mean, you would deal with this accordingly but I'm saying you won't have to even think about it if you use one of these rooms like your bathroom as a sort of "mechanical room").

For the live room my plan is to construct a double wall system with a 2 x 8 base plate and two separate 2 x 4 framed walls for exterior and interior, leaving about a 1" air gap between them.

Why are you using a 2x8 with 2x4's on it? It sounds like you're building what is reffered to as a "party wall" or "staggered stud wall". The isolation for one of these walls is not as good as a fully decoupled system.

I'm hoping that the roughly 7 inch space between exterior sheathing and interior drywall will be enough.

If you build it truly decoupled MSM style, you can easily calculate your isolation using this calculator:

Gregwor & audiomutt’s MSM Transmission Loss Calculator Version 2.03

Also, I recommend that you use inside out walls and ceiling for your isolation and control rooms. The calculator even figure that stuff out for you

I am also hoping that placing an in line fan on the exterior wall near where the silencer boxes will be will allow enough air flow to and from the different rooms given the length it will need to travel.

You can sort this out by properly sizing your fan, duct work, figuring out your static pressure and using dampers. This is pretty intense sadly and if you talk to any normal HVAC people, they're going to tell you to simplify everything and not use silencer boxes and stuff. Basically we break the rules of normal HVAC by implementing our silencer boxes. Typically you want to keep your pressure drop as little as possible. Having abrupt cross sectional area changes and 180 degree bends with no vanes is basically a sin in the HVAC world. But, that's how we are able to obtain our insertion loss.

Around half way down this thread I posted a calculator I made for calculating your static pressure. There are plans to make a user friendly more pretty version of it but it'll be a while before that happens:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =1&t=21752

Greg

[Bryanf87]

Yeah, we're still pretty new to Texas and the weather here. It's proven to be quite crazy at times though. Although we don't get the sub zero temps you do, just a month ago we had a span of 3 days that began with clear skies at a nice 75 deg on to tornados the next day followed by a few inches of snow that day after that. That was pretty wild!

Could you provide a bit more clarification on using the bathroom as a mechanical room? I think this idea might be worth chasing.

I decided to go with the staggered stud double wall design for the live room and control room for two reasons, 1) because of where this building is situated, it's not necessary to be 100% soundproof. There is quite a bit of distance (over 100 feet) to neighboring homes and the outside noise that might enter the building is minimal. and 2) it would eat into the available floor space that much more and I am trying to get as much floor space as possible. I figured even though the interior and exterior walls will be connected at the top and bottom, having an air gap plus insulation for the entire face of the walls would suffice. Plus, after looking into the STC ratings for both wall designs, a staggered stud wall ranks in at around 48 and a fully decoupled wall is at 60, which is definitely more superior but not really necessary for this building.

Thank you the links to these calculators, I'll check them out!

[Bryanf87]

I think I have pretty much finalized what I think is the best possible layout I could come up with given the space restrictions of remodeling an existing building into my future studio. I've been trying to stick as close as I can to good Bolt ratios for both the control room and live room, which hasn't made the layout process any easier!

I am trying to find a good placement for a window I'd like to have looking into the vocal booth from the control room. The thing I'm concerned about is this window potentially screwing up my stereo image and reflection free zone since it's located within an area of a wall I would otherwise cover with panels.

A couple thoughts I had:
-trying to push it as far forward as I can (toward the exterior wall and essentially in line with my speakers), this would cut down my viewing angle into the room
-installing it at some kind of an angle to redirect the sound it would be reflecting
-leaving a similarly sized and located untreated spot on the left wall.

In the attached image, the blue spaces are where windows are going to be located. The size of window I am considering installing between the control room and vocal booth is a 2ft x 2ft. Any help would be appreciated!

[Gregwor]

Could you provide a bit more clarification on using the bathroom as a mechanical room? I think this idea might be worth chasing.

Since the bathroom needs no real isolation from the outside of the building, you can punch holes through those walls just like a normal home construction would without worrying about trashing your isolation. So, you can have your ERV and duct work live in the bathroom (maybe up on the ceiling or something that won't eat up your floor space. Then, from there treat the studio HVAC like normal with silencer boxes and all!

Greg

[Gregwor]

I am trying to find a good placement for a window I'd like to have looking into the vocal booth from the control room. The thing I'm concerned about is this window potentially screwing up my stereo image and reflection free zone since it's located within an area of a wall I would otherwise cover with panels.

Does your control room still extend all the way back to the kitchen? The dark grey part of your image isn't labeled so I'm not sure what that represents?

You should avoid having the door in the corner of your ISO room.

Greg

[Bryanf87]

Thank you for the reply, Greg.

Where you see the darker color on the floor is supposed to represent carpet tiles. There is a wall at the back of the control room and a pass through separating it from the kitchen / lobby area. I plan to make that wall as well as say the back quarter of the side walls "inside-out" for bass trapping and absorption.

That door to the iso / vocal room isn't ideal but I can't seem to find a better place for it without making a vocalist walk around through the live room and through the bathroom to get into it. Are there any other options you can think of that might work out better? I would like to have two window location in that room, one looking into the live room for when I record a full band so the vocalist and band members can see each other and one looking into the control room for when I'm tracking a vocalist in there.

[RickLee]

I'm assuming you're planning on putting a minisplit in each room? If so there may be an easier/cheaper solution:
An HVAC system that might work well for you is to do a vented minisplit system. That's what I'm in the middle of with my space. Have the inside air handler unit (AHU) in the bathroom and do supply and returns to each room. Vent a portion of the main return to outside fresh air and take in fresh air at the AHU return side. If you needed an inline fan put it on the main return outside air line with a remote control. Anything from a simple on/off to a unit that measures humidity, etc.

My understanding is the further apart the return air outside dump is to the AHU the less the likelihood of having to put an inline fan on it. In my situation I'm installing first with out a fan because I have easy access to put one in.

This post: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 4&start=45
page 4, Soundman2020 post

[Bryanf87]

Thank you for the reply. I was originally thinking of installing a mini split system but the more I read from this thread and others on this forum, I am now leaning towards your suggestion. I will have some space above the ceiling to run ducting for an AHU, I think a system like that would work out much better than mini splits and hopefully cost about the same in the end. Once I get further along in the process and start gathering quotes, I will update with my findings.

[Gregwor]

The only downside to a ducted system is that instead of having your silencer boxes (which are already very large) passing only the required ~30% of the required CFM for the room, you're going to have to pass 100% of the CFM. That means larger ducts and larger silencer boxes. A big pain in the ass for a ducted system is trying to have the system zoned, independently conditioning the air for each room. That will require precise planning for air velocities, dampers and an air handler that can adapt to the static pressure and air velocity requirements for both small vocal booths and large live rooms either independently or all together. Again, a lot harder to design and implement. With a ductless design, you just need 1 fan, proper duct sizes and just manual dampers in order to easily tune the system once and never have to touch it again. Turn your fan (or HRV/ERV) on and you're good to go. A positive point about a ducted system is that you won't have a big unit hanging off the walls of each room.

Greg