John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello awesome people! I am planning, designing and building a new professional recording studio from the ground up in a nice piece of land on a very calm and quiet neighborhood in the mountains just outside the city in my country of Honduras. I am working with a professional architect who is drawing all the plans, but he has no knowledge in acoustics or recording studio design. I have had some training in school and have already built a small project studio after a ton of research and help from this very forum. I'd like to share with you everything we've done so far for this project which is mostly the distribution layout. Let me remind you that none of this is built so we have the opportunity to do everything the way we want without any current construction restrictions. First off...

A. The land:

The property is a slanted terrain made up mostly of solid rock. Our plan is to excavate and have most of the recording studio underground, or at least surrounded by rock. Half of it will be out in the open. I wish to have the rooms with the highest sound isolation demands on the end of the building that will be surrounded by rock to improve sound isolation from the neighbors. The second story will be a 2 bedroom apartment where me and my future wife will be living. Here is a layout of the terrain:

B. The Space:

The area is 12.18 m X 16 m for a total of 194.88 m2. The ceiling will be a concrete slab that will support an apartment on top of it. The free space from floor to ceiling of the outside walls should be around 4 m. The East wall will be completely underground, surrounded by solid rock. The rock surrounds the back and sides of the building up to about in between points C and B. Since the layout is not final yet, we don't have the structural design so we don't know yet where the columns will be placed. However, they will be placed considering our construction's needs which includes a 7mx8m Live Room. Right now they are temporarily placed at E4 and C4, but again, this is only while we finish the studio layout. The idea is to have the columns in between the dry wall between rooms. It includes a bathroom and an outside space for social activity. All of the outer walls will be build with rock. The inner walls will all be built with drywall, I'm thinking double ply in order to increase isolation. I am also considering separate concrete slabs for each room given that it is not very expensive in my city. The building can only have a front entrance considering that the entire back and half of the sides will be surrounded by rock. I have only contemplated a single entry. All ceilings should remain 3.05 m.

C. Studio Requirements:

The studio itself has a few requirements which include, a Soundlock upon entry, a 7mx8m Live Room; a Control Room that connects with the Live room vía a glass window or glass doors and also to the iso booth; an iso booth for vocals (or larger instruments); a relatively large storage room capable of fitting drums, amps, guitars, etc. It should also function as a repair shop; a smaller storage room; a guitar amp room (could also be the small storage room). I am going for a Reflection Free Zone for the Control Room. I have used the room ratio 1:1.14:1.19 for the control room as per Bob Gold's Room Mode Calculator and have found great results (on paper). The measurements are H: 3.05 m, W: 4.27 m, L: 5.79 m. I am also going for soffit mounting my speakers. They are a pair of Adam A7's and a Sub 8 subwoofer.

D. Budget:

My budget comes up to around $80,000 USD, but that is including the apartment on the upper level on top of the concrete slab that will be the studio's outer ceiling. I am not sure if this will be relevant considering that pricing here may be VERY different from pricing elsewhere.

E. Please advise:

I am mostly looking for a faithful reproduction space in my control room and a Live Room big enough to fit a full band, choir, small orchestra and have it sound balanced. I think my design is functional, but I'd love to get your opinions and recommendations. I am attaching my Sketchup design including measurements and references of door styles and placements. Please be aware that I am not great at using Sketchup! The black lines represent the inner walls made of drywall.

Please let me know if I am missing anything. I have been working really hard on this design even if it is only the layout. Once I have the layout and distribution set I will come back for advice on construction. Please let me remind you that as of right now all I have is the land, so ANYTHING can change at this point.


I thank you all in advance and I'm eager to read your input!

Stay safe and be awesome!

one of the most important things will be to plan your HVAC very well. you're building a hyper-insulated sealed space. you need oxygen. plus heat/cool/humidity/filtering. split units won't provide oxygen. ERV or HRV will. plan early and often. it's one of the biggest mistakes people make if done wrong, and with concrete structures, expensive to fix.

gullfo wrote:one of the most important things will be to plan your HVAC very well. you're building a hyper-insulated sealed space. you need oxygen. plus heat/cool/humidity/filtering. split units won't provide oxygen. ERV or HRV will. plan early and often. it's one of the biggest mistakes people make if done wrong, and with concrete structures, expensive to fix.

Hey Gulfo, thank you for your reply. I am very aware that I will need to do this and I haven’t the slightest clue on how to do it so I will be doing plenty of research here for that part of the build. I figured I first need to define the distribution layout of the studio before I can plan for the HVAC system. But yes, I will need to take all of this into close consideration.

the other main consideration - load in/out - the single door into the air lock will probably not be good. contemplate a larger air lock right into the main live room. also - life safety - exits from the rooms adjacent (assuming their occupied) the CR will need egress in the event of a fire etc.

gullfo wrote:the other main consideration - load in/out - the single door into the air lock will probably not be good. contemplate a larger air lock right into the main live room. also - life safety - exits from the rooms adjacent (assuming their occupied) the CR will need egress in the event of a fire etc.

I’m not completely sure I follow, the air lock does lead right into the main Live Room. Are you saying I should make the airlock larger and have wider doors? How wide should the load in/out doors be?

Maybe additional doors, one on the North wall straight into the Live Room and one on the south wall straight into the back wall of the Control Room (like on the picture)?

Also, what are your thoughts on the room dimmensions and layout distribution?

or consider next to the large iso room on the lower left - the adjacent wall (lower wall - not the one marked with blue). back to back french doors. the CR door would be good esp to move in your console etc.

gullfo wrote:or consider next to the large iso room on the lower left - the adjacent wall (lower wall - not the one marked with blue). back to back french doors. the CR door would be good esp to move in your console etc.

I understand, to have more accessibility to load in/out the Live Room. I’ll try that then!

Do you have any other suggestions or observations?

overall i think its a good design given the information we have.

gullfo wrote:overall i think its a good design given the information we have.

Thank you that means a lot to me! What other information would be useful to improve on this design? If the layout looks functional, I could move on to HVAC maybe?

for the CR - does you equipment fit? people fit? furniture fit? would be less than fun to try to get a SSL 9000 72ch board into a 7ft wide control room so make sure the flow of access to doors and around equipment etc work. are you soffit mounting your main monitors? what those are will be necessary in determining if you have things sized and angled correctly. as would surround mix configuration etc. etc.

gullfo wrote:for the CR - does you equipment fit? people fit? furniture fit? would be less than fun to try to get a SSL 9000 72ch board into a 7ft wide control room so make sure the flow of access to doors and around equipment etc work. are you soffit mounting your main monitors? what those are will be necessary in determining if you have things sized and angled correctly. as would surround mix configuration etc. etc.

The CR is a comfortable sized room big enough to fit a medium format console, sofa’s, rack gear furniture, etc. I described the measurements in meters not feet. This must have caused some confusion. The CR’s dimmensions in feet are H: 10ft / W: 14ft / L: 19ft. I also mentioned I am planning on soffit mounting a pair of Adam A7’s

Skai_Penalva wrote: I have used the room ratio 1:1.14:1.19 for the control room as per Bob Gold's Room Mode Calculator and have found great results (on paper). The measurements are H: 3.05 m, W: 4.27 m, L: 5.79 m. I am also going for soffit mounting my speakers. They are a pair of Adam A7's and a Sub 8 subwoofer.

Here are some screenshots of the results from bobgolds.com including a Bonello Chart and all 3 criteria passed.

1:1.4:1.9 is a decent ratio with a number of adherents as well as detractors Adam A7's are nice units.