John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello all, I am currently in the research phase of building an outdoor garden studio/office room and was hoping to get into the design phase soon. I have a kid on the way in October so my current inside room will be turned back into a bedroom. Ideally I would complete the project by end of September or at the latest February of 2022.

My initial plan was to have a shed built by a local Amish shed builder in the area and then with the help of my uncle who is an experienced builder to finish the interior project with his help. In order to not require permits the total exterior square footage must be 200 sq ft or less. Because of the size I was originally thinking an all in one style room for rehearsing, composition, production, tracking, mixing, and general computing work. My current room is about 11x13 and feels a little cramped already with guitars, drums, my desk, and absorption panels on the wall. The plan was going to build a room within a room on a slab with potentially a vaulted ceiling with clips and channels. and get the maximum space I could while potentially using a known ratio to help reduce problematic standing waves. I was starting to plan for a 16x12 shed with either a gable or gambrel roof, which would leave me an inside room of about 15x11 and was looking to have the ceiling be between 8-9.5 high to stay within the "Bolt area" of an online calculator.

Long story short, I have decided to back up a bit and spend some more time on the research and design phase. I am starting to look into potentially splitting the room into two rooms to help me focus better although not sure if could do it with 200 sq ft. I would not be opposed to getting permits and making the outside structure slightly larger if it makes sense.

A little background on me, over 20 years ago I took a course in Architectural Acoustics and it culminated in us designing a large studio. That feels like ages ago so I still have some basic theoretical knowledge but could certainly use some help in terms of how best to start the process. Ideally I would spend between 10k-20k to build out this studio. Would also be okay spending more if the additional work could be done at a later stage.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Questions:

Is a 2 room studio in 200 sq ft exterior reasonable to explore? This one from John's first post is about 225 sq ft at the interior dimensions: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5457
Ideally if I went with a two room setup the control room would be equal to or relatively smaller to the iso room since I would want to keep drums and instruments setup for tracking.

Is it best to avoid the permitting process or is it advised to design based on ideal cases and go through the permitting process?

Is there required reading that would be recommended to get me from the research to design phase so I could come back and ask questions on proposed designs? Was looking at potentially getting the Gervais book.

Did I miss any required info in my post?

nickb wrote:Hello all, I am currently in the research phase of building an outdoor garden studio/office room and was hoping to get into the design phase soon. I have a kid on the way in October so my current inside room will be turned back into a bedroom. Ideally I would complete the project by end of September or at the latest February of 2022.

My initial plan was to have a shed built by a local Amish shed builder in the area and then with the help of my uncle who is an experienced builder to finish the interior project with his help. In order to not require permits the total exterior square footage must be 200 sq ft or less. Because of the size I was originally thinking an all in one style room for rehearsing, composition, production, tracking, mixing, and general computing work. My current room is about 11x13 and feels a little cramped already with guitars, drums, my desk, and absorption panels on the wall. The plan was going to build a room within a room on a slab with potentially a vaulted ceiling with clips and channels. and get the maximum space I could while potentially using a known ratio to help reduce problematic standing waves. I was starting to plan for a 16x12 shed with either a gable or gambrel roof, which would leave me an inside room of about 15x11 and was looking to have the ceiling be between 8-9.5 high to stay within the "Bolt area" of an online calculator.

Long story short, I have decided to back up a bit and spend some more time on the research and design phase. I am starting to look into potentially splitting the room into two rooms to help me focus better although not sure if could do it with 200 sq ft. I would not be opposed to getting permits and making the outside structure slightly larger if it makes sense.

A little background on me, over 20 years ago I took a course in Architectural Acoustics and it culminated in us designing a large studio. That feels like ages ago so I still have some basic theoretical knowledge but could certainly use some help in terms of how best to start the process. Ideally I would spend between 10k-20k to build out this studio. Would also be okay spending more if the additional work could be done at a later stage.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Questions:

Is a 2 room studio in 200 sq ft exterior reasonable to explore? This one from John's first post is about 225 sq ft at the interior dimensions: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5457
Ideally if I went with a two room setup the control room would be equal to or relatively smaller to the iso room since I would want to keep drums and instruments setup for tracking.

Is it best to avoid the permitting process or is it advised to design based on ideal cases and go through the permitting process?

Is there required reading that would be recommended to get me from the research to design phase so I could come back and ask questions on proposed designs? Was looking at potentially getting the Gervais book.

Did I miss any required info in my post?

You have quite a good budget if you are doing the work yourself, and the space you have would make a very nice control room.

I would not split the space into two, I would do a hybrid room - a room which is a control room with an area dedicated to tracking, you can even use variable acoustics/portable gobos if you would like a livelier area for recording. I advise this as otherwise if you attempted to split the space into two you will end up with a compromised control room and tracking room instead of a very decent hybrid room.

Paulus87 wrote: You have quite a good budget if you are doing the work yourself, and the space you have would make a very nice control room.

I would not split the space into two, I would do a hybrid room - a room which is a control room with an area dedicated to tracking, you can even use variable acoustics/portable gobos if you would like a livelier area for recording. I advise this as otherwise if you attempted to split the space into two you will end up with a compromised control room and tracking room instead of a very decent hybrid room.

Thanks Paul this certainly makes a lot of sense. Do you know of any example designs that I could draw inspiration from?

nickb wrote:

Paulus87 wrote: You have quite a good budget if you are doing the work yourself, and the space you have would make a very nice control room.

I would not split the space into two, I would do a hybrid room - a room which is a control room with an area dedicated to tracking, you can even use variable acoustics/portable gobos if you would like a livelier area for recording. I advise this as otherwise if you attempted to split the space into two you will end up with a compromised control room and tracking room instead of a very decent hybrid room.

Thanks Paul this certainly makes a lot of sense. Do you know of any example designs that I could draw inspiration from?

Maybe you could PM your e-mail and I'll send you some ideas and we can discuss it further?

i'd go with the gambrel roof - you'll be able to get higher side walls easily without too high a roof and have wider attic space for hvac etc to go into. as Paul noted - hybrid room would likely be your best best. depending on how much isolation you need, you might go up a size if you need a room-within-a-room - so if you're targeting a decent ratio - figure the MAM configuration will be roughly 24" (12" per side) on the walls and 28" on the ceiling. so maybe going to 12'6"h (walls) x 16'6"w x 21'6"l

some interesting blueprint on a larger "barn" sized unit but nicely done docs. http://www.sdscad.com/pdf/gambrelcabinf.PDF

Paulus87 wrote: Maybe you could PM your e-mail and I'll send you some ideas and we can discuss it further?

PM sent

gullfo wrote:i'd go with the gambrel roof - you'll be able to get higher side walls easily without too high a roof and have wider attic space for hvac etc to go into. as Paul noted - hybrid room would likely be your best best. depending on how much isolation you need, you might go up a size if you need a room-within-a-room - so if you're targeting a decent ratio - figure the MAM configuration will be roughly 24" (12" per side) on the walls and 28" on the ceiling. so maybe going to 12'6"h (walls) x 16'6"w x 21'6"l

some interesting blueprint on a larger "barn" sized unit but nicely done docs. http://www.sdscad.com/pdf/gambrelcabinf.PDF

Thanks Glenn this is very helpful. I was originally thinking of doing a gambrel to get the highest ceiling possible and vaulting the ceiling and using a mini split for HVAC duties. I could definitely see the benefit to going with the flat ceiling for easier construction and better isolation.

you'll need outdoor ventilation for the space. so having the space above means you could combine the HVAC temperature/humidity/filtering with an ERV and using the same ducts and ceiling penetrations to handle it. suspend the blower / coil unit on isolation mounts. add a pair of silencers in the room (front and back - centered) inside your ceiling soffits - where you can route flex duct into the room if needed or just output from the silencer into plenums to ensure symmetry on the air flow (and related low noise levels). put a set of doors on the upper part for service access.
outside - get a low noise condenser unit and mount that on isolation mount or separate earth damp concrete pad.

gullfo wrote:you'll need outdoor ventilation for the space. so having the space above means you could combine the HVAC temperature/humidity/filtering with an ERV and using the same ducts and ceiling penetrations to handle it. suspend the blower / coil unit on isolation mounts. add a pair of silencers in the room (front and back - centered) inside your ceiling soffits - where you can route flex duct into the room if needed or just output from the silencer into plenums to ensure symmetry on the air flow (and related low noise levels). put a set of doors on the upper part for service access.
outside - get a low noise condenser unit and mount that on isolation mount or separate earth damp concrete pad.

I see what you mean about the HVAC system. I was told by a rep from a soundproofing company that since the room is opening to the outside that the oxygen levels would equalize pretty quickly every time I entered and exited the space so not to worry about ventilation. But I could see how if I have the space I might as well and then using the ERV would make the system much more efficient. Also could have a little bit of storage up there which could come in handy.

Would you recommend just building a rectangular room and adding room treatment (I currently have some in my current room) or build the room with the treatment into the space and splay the walls etc.?

i'd just go with the rectangular room and then add angled treatments as appropriate for the space you're creating.

if you're building a hyper-insulated room which implies seals, then you're going to need oxygen. of course if you're not sealing the space (like not needing isolation) then you could get away with letting the cracks and occasional door or window openings to restore the air. it would get drafty in winter though, and humidity would likely takes its toll on equipment and instruments.

you could use the upper space for some storage but i wouldn't cut a hole in the ceiling for access

gullfo wrote:i'd just go with the rectangular room and then add angled treatments as appropriate for the space you're creating.

Ok this would definitely let me reuse the treatment I currently have

gullfo wrote:if you're building a hyper-insulated room which implies seals, then you're going to need oxygen. of course if you're not sealing the space (like not needing isolation) then you could get away with letting the cracks and occasional door or window openings to restore the air. it would get drafty in winter though, and humidity would likely takes its toll on equipment and instruments.

I like your solution best and would rather the instruments have close to constant humidity in the space. My current room gets very dry in the winter and I found out the hard way without a humidifier my acoustic top cracked on me

gullfo wrote:you could use the upper space for some storage but i wouldn't cut a hole in the ceiling for access

LOL