John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi, and welcome to the site -

Actually, labor alone could run from anywhere from $500 (please help me put up a Maxwall kit in my bedroom) to several million (I'd like to duplicate Galaxy Studios, only larger, let me know when I can move in)

You'd need to get a lot more specific if you're looking for estimates that have any basis in reality... Steve

depends how big a studio you want to build - I personally wouldn't build a galaxy layout studio, but for a regular studio to balance your gear I'd look at anywhere from $US100 - $150 per square foot starting at a minimum area, including additional offices, bathrooms etc. of 2000 - 2500 square feet.

hope this helps

cheers
john

The studio is about 800sf total. I have to build a completely new structure, w/ sub floor and the whole shabang, lighting, drywall, acoustics..etc. I have pretty much got it all down. For prcing I have 125,000 in gear and 150,000 in building materials and labor. Is this a lil more helpful? The project should take about a month to complete.

The project should take about a month to complete

this is where most go wrong - studios are not like houses where everything is a 90 degrees. The angled walls and ceilings, additional layers and insulation plus the acoustic finishing will take 4 times that at least.

cheers
john

A month is ambitious! - but I guess it's possible if you have a big crew of people and a lot of money. $150K should be well sufficient for 800 sqft. My little project is 650 sqft, am around 6 months of consistent work into it - with probably another 3-4 months of work left, but it's just me and a buddy doing it on evenings & weekends. Total cost will be around $15K and I haven't cut any corners to save money. Labour is your biggest cost & I haven't had any labor costs apart from the guys that put in the AC. So, my $15K would probably be $50K if I was paying for labour.

Hire John to design the place, hire you contractors to do the work on overtime & you might get close to your timeline & still have a bunch of cash left over to buy your wife a nice present

A month is really ambitious. LOL

I too had to eat crow, but the guys hear are great.

Just doing angles took the majority of the time and all I did was a retrofit, working everyday for a month. Wasn't done.

So yeah, that is extremely ambitious even with a crew or a construction company.

Bryan Giles

A month!
Yeah, right.
I'm nine months into the construction of my studio (1200 s.f., from the ground up)
And I'm just now starting to insulate walls.