John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi there,

I would like to summon your help and expertise into building a small control room in my basement. I am in the planning stage and I have a budget of about 4-5000$ CAN. The walls are already built, as it is an existing space, but they can be demolished and started new if need be.

I don't need it to be loud or completely isolated from the neighbours. They are far away not to cause problems and it will be only for mixing. I have a small tracking room downstairs as well, but the I am not touching this part of the basement for now.

Room: H: 2.33m, W: 3.25m, L: 4.41m. As I can understand, it is pretty close to the 1: 1.4: 1.9 ratio.

Floor is cement, with a thin carpet. Could be changed to laminate in the future or put back to cement, depending on what is best.

Walls are regular 0.5" drywall on 2'x4' studs on a cement wall (left and front) - see attached picture - and right wall goes to another room in the basement. There is a window where the front wall would be. There is no back wall yet, but it would be 4.41m (internal measurement) from the front wall, as it is the space I can get to build a thick wall with insulation.

There are 2'x6' joists on the ceiling spread every 16".
I have looked at this design on this site as well - see attached picture - but I have a problem: I have no place to put a door other than on the back wall. I want to have sliding doors there to be able to see the drums while tracking, if possible. I have also attached a drawing that I have found here to show what I think could be a solution to covering the sliding doors while mixing.
My questions are:

1. Would that design be a good design for my room size?

2. Can I put a double sliding door in the back?

3. Would my folding panel idea work to keep the bass trapping decent at the center back spot?

4. Do you have any other recommendations or ideas?

Thank you for your precious time.

Matt

all of these this would work. you could also leverage the ceiling/floor joists above by filling with insulation and covering with flame ret-ar-dant treated cloth and then add some slays to provide a bit of feedback into your space.

gullfo wrote:all of these this would work. you could also leverage the ceiling/floor joists above by filling with insulation and covering with flame ret-ar-dant treated cloth and then add some slays to provide a bit of feedback into your space.

Thanks!

I have extra questions:

1. Would you recommend filling the side walls with hangers or just roxull?

2. What thickness of plastic would you use over the insulation before the fabric?

Thanks!

i'd fill the space behind the roxul with pink light insulation. it's a very small space. plastic covering the insulation will negate a large amount of the absorption since you want the air flow enabled in order for the insulation to function.

I have some questions about my plan.

Basically, this is what the basement looks like now:
And I am wondering what would be my best bet for division of the space. I will be taking down the middle wall. It is load bearing, so I will have to consult with an engineer first, but I am pretty sure it can be done either with a beam or posts placed correctly.

Here are my two possible options...

Option 1: This would give me the size of control room that was proposed in my first post on this thread. It is not ideal, and with consulting with a studio designer that I won't name, the door in the back is a bad idea. I would have the option to put in a door from the laundry room, although I don't really like that idea.

But I wonder if this would be a better option:

Option 2 : That would give me a huge control room, enough to jam acoustic with my bandmates at the back of it, and a drum room big enough for a 3 piece if need be, BUT, there are the stairs in the back that go upstairs.

I don't need any soundproofing for mixing. I live in a quiet cul-de-sac and I mix only when I am alone in the house.

Here comes the questions:

1. What would you choose between the 2 options of layout?

2. Are the stairs a big no no for treating a mixing room?

3. Is there another way to use the space that I have that would be more efficient for tracking and mixing?

Thanks for your valuable time

Matt

Here are some additional sketches:

Option 1 (original post) :
Option 2 (with a drum room) :
Thanks for your precious time