John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi guys,

I have been reading a lot over the past few months about recording studio designs which I understand to a decent level. I am being awarded a space at the end of this month (all going well) and the room is about 330 square feet total floor space.

Now within this small space I am looking to be able to have three rooms and functions.

1. Control Room
2. Small Recording Room / Vocal Booth (Big enough for a drummer to sit in comfortably to record if needed.
3. Live Room / Practice Room.

In the Live Room / Practice Room it will be used to record a band live or bands will be able to hire out the room to practice in. This room needs to be acoustically designed to compensate for both uses and I am looking to make an impressive sounding practice room that should almost give the feel of a nice stage setup.

I would like a small recording room too so that if the live room is being hired out I could also have another artist in recording. This room should be big enough to fit drums or a large amp or a vocalist and should be acoustically designed to be multifunctional.

The Control Room should be as big as possible with whatever space is left with enough room for a chill out area directly behind the producer.

You can see in red where the doors are to this workshop. The Control Room and Live Room need sepearet doors just past the main doors leaving almost like a foyer/kitchen area right by the main doors. These two entities need to be totally sepearte so that each can do their own thing without bothering the other.

Now for whatever reason, everytime I look at this plan I can only do things in squares or rectangles but looking at many of the studio designs on here, the majority aren't square or rectangular.

This is now where I am getting stumped. Could anyone help me out to come up with the best design here based around my needs. I am not the best at visualizing stuff with floorplans and I don't know enough about recommended dimensions for a live room, recording room/booth and control room and may be losing space by giving too much space for each room.

There is one window in the workshop too which will be the main light source for everything. Maybe the windows from the control room to the recording rooms could be strategically positioned to let the most natural light through posible.

Also, any help with sound isolation in this would be helpful. This is in a multi tenant building and noise may be a problem especially from above and the three blue walls shown on the diagram. So I need to ensure sound isolation from those three walls, the ceiling and I would like to make sure that the live room is totally isolated from the control room and small recording room / booth.

I think I have explained the situation as in depth as possible and I hope someone here can help. I fully understand that the room is the most important part of any studio so thats why I am seeing if anyone here can help make sure that I get the room design right first time so I don't need to splash out and fix things that weren't planned properly from the start.

Also, the live room / practice room needs to be able to double up as a photography studio also. This is no biggie just needs enough space to hangup a white studio screen that can be rolled up or down when needed.

Anyone got any ideas or input for my recording studio design?

Aloha and welcome to the forum, Altsounds

Whew, I think that's going to be a bit tight getting 3 rooms in there, especially if you're planning a full band in the live room.

Have you tried maping out a floorplan to see what you'll be working with?

I've got a file of some of the plans gathered here from the forum, but nothing that comes close to what you have in mind. Among the smallest for the control room runs about 10' x 13' or so.

Have you considered maybe going with just 2 rooms - control room + live room/vocal booth?

I'll keep looking.

Aloha

Hey Kendale,

Thanks for responding to the post. It is a small space I understand that but I think with some creativity this can be acheieved?? I hope so anyway.

My first question back to you would be (and I think this is the most important apart from obviously the control room), what is a small but decent sized practice room / live room in feet?? Like whats a spec that would be comfortable for a 5 member band to be in for a few hours?

I messed around with a bunch of designs tonight on graphing paper and came up with two potential space designs (not including any recommended acoustic treatments or anything.

One was to split the room in half vertically and have a 8 1/2 x 17 ft Control Room on the left side and an 8 1/2 x 13 ft Live Room on the right. Where the column is would be the bottom wall for the live room/practice room and below that would then leave a 5 1/2 x 8 Entry Way/Kitchen/Vocal Booth.

My main problem with this was that would make the vocal booth too multi functional and would open on to the main doors (never a good thing).

The second design was almost the same but where the bottom wall of the practice live room is would be all the way across splitting up the control room. This would leave a 8 1/2 x 13 ft control room and a 8 1/2 x 3 1/2 vocal booth. With this deisgn you would always need to walk through the vocal room or the live room to get to the control room.

Both have possibilities in theory but maybe I am missing very integral portion??

As far as having only two rooms. I am down for that as long as you think it would be worthwhile and beneficial for me (thats why I'm looking for all your expert help). What I had mentioned would be my dream but if thats not doable in this space, then it's not doable.

I look forward to your further reccomendations.

Regards

Chris

Aloha Chris,

A couple more thoughts come to mind....

In the Live Room / Practice Room it will be used to record a band live or bands will be able to hire out the room to practice in. This room needs to be acoustically designed to compensate for both uses and I am looking to make an impressive sounding practice room that should almost give the feel of a nice stage setup.

- How much isolation do you (and your neighbors) require from each other?
- In addition to isolation and acoustical considerations, have you considered a drum riser and stage lighting to facilitate the "nice stage setup"

Now for whatever reason, everytime I look at this plan I can only do things in squares or rectangles but looking at many of the studio designs on here, the majority aren't square or rectangular.

Take a look at John's corner control room layouts. Since you are at a point where you can choose to do something about this, avoid a square if at all possible.

Also, any help with sound isolation in this would be helpful. This is in a multi tenant building and noise may be a problem especially from above and the three blue walls shown on the diagram. So I need to ensure sound isolation from those three walls, the ceiling and I would like to make sure that the live room is totally isolated from the control room and small recording room / booth.

Isolation requires Mass-Air-Mass. This usually ends up being walls anywhere from 8" - 12" thick using 2-3 layers drywall/stud/insulation/stud/2-3 layers drywall construction, which translates into rapidly shrinking floorspace, which ultimately ends up affecting the size of your rooms in your allotted space.

Perhaps you could do a search on some of the plans that John has done to see what might be possible. It's quite amazing how he consistantly comes up with great ideas!

Some recommended reading: http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html
http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm

Also, if you really don't mind a small working space, this might be interesting: http://www.johnlsayers.com/Studio/Mainpage/MP-Mark.htm

Hope these help,

Aloha

How good of a soundproofing is STC 63 (the highest one you showed on your diagram)?? If you had that wall and a control room one side and a practice room the next would any sound leak through from each other?

Like whats a spec that would be comfortable for a 5 member band to be in for a few hours?

well - a room 17' x 19' would be reasonable. You are really pushing it to fit three rooms into that size IMO.

I think you need a rethink

cheers
john

What do you suggest then John? Do you think it would be reasonable to drop it down to two rooms. One for the control room and one as a recording / live room? Do you think I have enough space to acheive that and if so what do you recommend design wise?

Chris

This is the only way I could see you doing it but it will be tight.

cheers
john

Aloha,

Awesome John! (See, I told ya )

Aloha

John,

That design looks amazing. The only problem though is that the gap to the right of the fixed column is not that big. It's only 1 1/2 feet so your deisgn would not be doable. I have a room segregation idea I came up with today, I will post it tommorow and hopefully you can take a look and let me know acoustically how to maximize the room.

Thanks so much for your help John.

Thanks

Chris

John Sayers wrote:This is the only way I could see you doing it but it will be tight.

cheers
john

Here is a handdrawn floorplan of the design I came up with that maximizes the space. It allows for interior dimensions of the live room / practice room of 9ft wide x 13 ft long. This leaves you with a control room that is only 6 1/2 ft wide but 16ft long. The studio furniture I will be purchasing is 5 1/2 ft wide which will fit nicely into this control room with 6inches each side to walk around the desk if you need to get behind it for cabling etc.

Due to the lack of space in th bottom of the control room instead of a couch we will probably get lots of soft pillows and beanbags and have a big chillout area as a couch will make a small room look smaller.

There will be no door on the control room leaving it open planned. And in the bottom right will be a small storage cupboard.


The baove gives an explanation of the design now I need all your expert opinion on where to put bass traps and slot resonators and all that type of acoustic stuff in both the control room and the live/practice room. Also please advise where additional sound absorption should be used to get the best sound out of this design.

I really look forward to hearing from you guys (particularly John) on how to truly maximize the sound potential of this design.

Thanks

Chris

Anyone got an ideas for how I can acoustically make this deisgn the best possible through the use of bass traps, resonators etc.

Your help will be much appreciated.

Anyone?