John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi everyone,

I wanna do the big jump and move my studio in a new place.
I have an attic (4th floor) empty and ready for the use, I am studying different position for the control room, recording room, an entrance and an office.

I know that the best solutions is to assume an acoustic engineer, but where I live they don't have so much experience, so I would like to have an advice from the best audio community before contact some engineer who can work from remote.

I have planned a control room of 21,20mq, a first recording room of 22mq and a second recording room of 27 mq. The two recording room could have been one big room, I don't know yet.
Also there is an office, a toilette, an entrance and a big terrace.

I run a studio in south Italy with my partner, he does mastering and productions, I do prod, rec, mix.

What do you think?
There's a better disposition? Could I optimize better the CR?



Thank you so much!

Ari TL
Tape Lab Studio

if you have the option to build the left side of the control room to match the right side in terms of mass, that will help with the overall balance in the room. any considerations for isolation requirements? having a drum kit on the upper floors of a shared building is not likely to be ignored by other tenants...

gullfo wrote:if you have the option to build the left side of the control room to match the right side in terms of mass, that will help with the overall balance in the room. any considerations for isolation requirements? having a drum kit on the upper floors of a shared building is not likely to be ignored by other tenants...

You're right for the window, I will search another design for the CR balancing left and right.
For the drum, there's not a problem, all the palace is mine and at the moment is empty, anyways I'm thinking about a floating floor for the all studio.
I'm just in the starting phase of thinking and projecting, also for having some ideas to present to an eventual acoustic engineer.
Thank you so much for you advice!

gullfo wrote:if you have the option to build the left side of the control room to match the right side in terms of mass, that will help with the overall balance in the room. any considerations for isolation requirements? having a drum kit on the upper floors of a shared building is not likely to be ignored by other tenants...

If you want, I have the original plant of the attic, could you have a better idea than me, clearly just for saying!
Thank you so much.

are any of those internal walls there except for the closet and bathroom? the ~9m wall on the left? it would seem to me that having the CR in the top space and the rest be an open live room or a live room with iso for drums/amps etc might be a more effective use of the space.

gullfo wrote:are any of those internal walls there except for the closet and bathroom? the ~9m wall on the left? it would seem to me that having the CR in the top space and the rest be an open live room or a live room with iso for drums/amps etc might be a more effective use of the space.

oh, that would be perfect, but i cannot distroy the “green wall”, they are internal walls.
that could’ve been a dream!

ah, ok, but in your original design you had a large window in the green walls? maybe you can "extend" the middle doorway so the space has that "open floor concept" look

gullfo wrote:ah, ok, but in your original design you had a large window in the green walls? maybe you can "extend" the middle doorway so the space has that "open floor concept" look

That’s a really good idea, but what do you think about the horizontal control room?
Do you think it’s realizable?

the ratio for the CR in the upper rectangle look decent. so i would say yes.

Computed Information:
Room Dimensions: Length=7.42 m, Width=4.13 m, Height=2.7 m
Room Ratio: 1 : 1.53 : 2.75
R. Walker BBC 1996:
- 1.1w / h < l / h < ((4.5w / h) - 4): Pass
- l < 3h & w < 3h: Pass
- no integer multiple within 5%: Pass
Nearest Known Ratio:
- "20) Origin unknown: Resembles Id. 19" 1 : 1.618 : 2.588
RT60 (IEC/AEC N 12-A standard): 277 ms
- ą50ms from 200Hz to 3.5kHz = 227 to 327ms
- ą100ms above 3.5kHz = 177 to 377ms
- <+300ms at 63hz = 577ms
- 300<RT60<600ms
RT60 (ITU/EBU Control Room Recommended): 233 ms
- ą50ms from 200Hz to 4kHz = 183 to 283ms
- <+300ms at 63hz = 533ms
- 200<RT60<400ms
Absorption to achieve ITU RT60: 613 sabins
Volume: 82 m^3