John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Introduction:
We are a group of three producers/musicians who started running a studio for a couple of years now.
A part of the space available is for storage of our reggae soundsystem.
The main focus in the past was on a nice music production room for ourselves and and a vocal booth for vocal artists.
We had a couple of bands over in the studio and faced the problem of recording and mixing in the same room.
As we want to do this more often in the future, we would like to build a separate control room for this reason.
We have a small budget for this and will try to source most materials from places like craigslist to keep the costs low.
Please see the following floorplan (dimensions in cm) and pictures at the end of the post to give you an idea of the current setup. The space:
Let me give you a little more information on the space.
We rent this space in outbuilding of an old school. Please find the floor dimensions in the empty floorplan below (dimensions in cm).
The full space has a dropped ceiling (see picture below).
The tiles in the dropped ceiling are 2cm thick and there is an airgap of about 40cm between the tile and the metal roofing.
The height from floor to the dropped ceiling tile is 273cm. So the total height is 315cm.
The inner walls are 10cm thick. Our Goal:
We want to create a separate control room with good acoustics, where we can produce and mix in.
We would like a window to have visual contact with the musicians in the live room.
Here is where I need your advice. What would you guys recommend as the best studio layout/floorplan for us?
What would you do with the space we can work with?
I like the idea of soffit/flush mounting the monitors.
We have Dynaudios BM5a’s and like the sound of them, but they have rear ports. This is not ideal for flush mounting to my understanding.
Isolation to the outside of the building is not a big concern.

do you have options to change the booths? one though - your desk position is currently 300cm and the back corner room is 370cm. you might consider extending that "room" t0 about 450cm (1:1.25:1.6 - with a 280cm high ceiling) and close it off. one option in lieu of a window are large TV and cameras. one in the CR and one in the live room - they can be much less money than a window and you can position them for best viewing. as well as displaying things like lyrics, timers, etc and multiple picture-in-a-picture to display booths to CR, other booths, and main room. if storage is critical, when isn't it? then keep the larger corner room and stack that to hold everything. or less expensive but i think not nearly as effective - extend existing desk space. makes for a more complex arrangement of space for instruments, sight lines, and so on.

Thanks for taking your time to reply Glenn. Much appreciated!

We thought about using cameras/screens instead of windows, but we would like to avoid that to keep the contact with the musicians as natural as possible. We think all small details like this help to get the best out of the musicians in a creative process.
Unfortunately we can't move the booths. If it is possible we like to keep these.
Another problem with the first option is that i think the two pieces of wall in the upper left space where you enter the 'bigger room' in my original floorplan are load bearing, as where they stop a beam takes over.
Storage is indeed critical for us. When all soundsystem gear is stacked, we use the full room in the upper left corner of the floorplan.

Your second option is what we were leaning to. Mainly because it is the most easy to build and is less expensive as you said.
Main issue with this setup for us would indeed be the sightlines. I was wondering if a U-shaped liveroom like this give any specific acoustic problems?
I'm thinking about hanging curtains from the ceiling down to get an impression of what the space would look like in this case.
If we were to go for this option, how would your recommend treating the controlroom acoustically?
I was thinking about stuffing the dropped ceiling with absorption material to create one big bass trap. Then putting superchunks in the corners and broadband absorbers in the 1st reflection points. Any other recommendations?
Do you think going for soffit mounts would be a good idea in this case (also with the dynaudios)?

Wouter

i would likely skip the soffit mounting for now. the treatment plan you suggest is good. the views will be tougher to address. the reason i suggested the TV is that large screen (70") LCD TV are not expensive and with proper camera positions, they will operate like a window. i have done this with folks in probably 25-30 studios now, and it seems to be working pretty well. you could experiment with a TV on a stand so you can use it with whichever booth is obscured (hanging drapes will be useful for simulation) and see if it works.