John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

This is my first post and I am as newbie as they come. I have read a number of posts on this tremendous site, but feel that I am no closer to sorting out my main issue - to control room or not.

I am building a home addition with 400 sq ft devoted to a "studio". I currently am not doing any recording. While I imagine that I would like to start recording in the future, I am reluctant to devote dedicated real estate to a control room if the main purpose of the room is for musicians to get together and jam/rehearse. I would like to have the room accommodate up to 6 musicians, including a drummer, but I suspect there will usually be less.

I would like to solicit opinions on how to design this room to meet my primary need of practice space, yet not burn any bridges for informal recording.

Thanks in advance,

Geoff

Why not build a big control room capable of handling 6 - 8 musos but acoustically treated as a control room with a proper monitor setup and acoustic treatment.??

cheers
john

One thing that raised my "warning flag" here - you mentioned 400 square feet - that just happens to be 20 x 20, exactly. You're NOT planning a single, SQUARE room for music are you?

You mentioned you were a real "newbie", so I'm hoping to keep you from making a mistake here - square rooms are NOT good for acoustics, and if by chance you intended a 10 foot ceiling that would be even worse.

You're planning NEW construction here - NOW is the time to find out what will increase your enjoyment of the new space and what will help spoil it... Steve

Thanks Steve and John for your replies:

Steve, no worries, while I am a newbie, I have read, downloaded the spreadsheet for calculating room modes, and anticipate approximating the 1:1.6:2.3 ratios for room sizing, probably 10 x 16 x 23 ft. I guess that would be 368 sq ft. Maybe I'll shoot for an 11 ft ceiling and go 17.6 x 25.3 or 445 sq ft, but the first consideration is probably more likely as long as the experts on this forum think that 6 can fit in a 16 x 23 ft room comfortably. Anyway, the 400 sq ft value was intended as an approximation.

John, I can dig your concept, but I'm a bit clueless on the implementation, as all of the examples of control rooms at this site are much more dedicated designs. Might you indulge me with a bit more detail as to how you would approach this design?

Thanks again,
Geoff

No major concept really - but you could design a correct monitoring system with a RFZ front and a dead back. Then everyone sets up in the control room - vocals go thru the console and out the monitors as probably does bass and DI guitar etc. The drummer has to tone down a bit depending on how loud you run the monitors. - The added bonus is that if you like the feel of it you can hit record.

cheers
John