John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Well, I've thrown the idea around at the other BBS's and noone has called me an idiot yet for my design. So...I'll take my chances here. I've got the drawing and I labeled some areas where I have questions about.

1. My control room is small but I've seen smaller. The finished dimensions are 6'9" wide at the front and 7' wide at the back. The length of the control room is 10'.

Q- See any problems with these dimensions sonically?

2. The ISO booth is 3'5" wide at the front, and 2'6" at the rear and 7' long. The ceiling will be 8'.

Q- It'll be primarily for vocals and possibly small percussion instuments like shakers, tamborines etc....nothing very loud. Are the dimension okay and do you have any suggestions for the treatment of this room?

3. The airlock is joined to the Iso booth and to the dividing wall. I plan on using it for entry into the live room. The live room will not have any windows at all so I can keep the sound in better. It's 2'6" on the Iso booth side ans 44" on the wall side.

Q- Is this a good idea in general? I want to concentrate on isolating the live room as much as possible... this is why I did a small door with a airlock.

4. The live room wall will sit on the floating floorI plan on putting 5/8" and 1/2" sheetrock on RC on the inside of the live room, same on the control room side of the dividing wall and hanging bass trapps in between the two walls.

Q- Am I killing two birds with one stone here? Meaning, I'm isolating with the double leaf system and providing a bass trap for the control room!?

5. As the Control room front is a bit narrow, I was wondering about building my rack into the left wall of the control room. I was thinking about a built in rack for the rack gear, left above the mixer, a mantle type shelf to place my keyboard, and a 10" deep soffit to house my flat panel computer screen directly above this shelf.

Q- Would this be a bad thing sonically? The other side is a glass door.

6. The ceiling for the entire place is 10' in the center, down to 8'3" at the ends. My plan was to caulk and insulate the rafters, then lay 1/2" rock to close it up. Then I was going to build another ceiling and frame for the live room that mirrored the "A" frame layout underneath theat one. Then I would double rock that one.

Q- Am I way off here? The live room will be completely free standing from any other part of the studio if I was to do this.



Here's the pic I spoke of. Sorry for the fonts being hard to read. The damn art program I was using didn't let me format the font. Anyway, let me know what you think please. Just to let you know, I've already built the ISO booth and airlock but nothing else is done.

Thanks,
ARCG

I should also mention that the total dimension for the studio shell is 13'6" by 20".
Thanks,
JOhn

HEY!!!!

You stole "rushfan's" studio.

I'm gonna tell him.....

Pleeeeeease don't tell! I heard he has a real mean streak!

where have I seen that picture before??

It seems a strange layout to me with the control room backing onto the live room etc. You've made the live room a rectangle with parallel walls which you should try and avoid.

cheers
john

Thanks for the reply John. There wre many reasons for the eay I layed my design out. I really wanted an ISO booth and live room... just in case I ever do record a band, I can have a drummer and bass player record at the same time with this set up as long as the bass player goes direct. It was the best way I could figure it out.

For the live room, I was going to slant both the left and right walls going smaller towards the rear.

Does my airgap design seem like a good idea to you?

Does my airgap system seem like a good idea to you?

not sure what you mean - it's just a standard decoupled double wall construction with insulation in the cavity.


I'd look at something like this


cheers
john

My logic was the only part of the floating room that was compromised in terms of isolation (the live room entry door) would be "helped" by having an airspace. Am I way off? I should mention the reason I'm so strict on the isolation is that my nearest naeigbor is literally 12' away from my garage!

Thanks for the diagram. I noticed you kept part of the design presumably because I already started it.... but I have no problem breaking it down if I have to.

JOhn

Now that I look at your drawing a little closer, I see where it might actually be much better for me to do it your way. The neighbor I spoke of is literally 12' - 45degrees from the right speaker.

Thanks John,
John

If you can start from scratch I'd do something like this.

cheers
john

John, that design is amazing! That really suits my needs wonderfully! I checked out the dimensions using your design and that creates much more space. Thanks for the help! If I went that way, the only real sacrafice I would make would be mixing while looking out at the hills from the large picture window. That's a small price to pay for more space! The only part of the design I would want to modify on your design is the 2 sliders from the control room to the live room. I'm pretty sure it's not in the budget right now. I might consider just a window.
John

If you plan to change to sliders later, I'd suggest keeping the splay angles John drew, framing the opening for standard sized sliders, then building frame inserts for those openings and building your walls over that. Then, when you change your mind/get more money, you can cut back to the existing framed openings, install your sliders, and go. The "temporary" frames could be set up with a small, 3'x4' window on each side for now... Steve

Steve.... excellent idea. I'll frame for the sliders. I'm debating right now if I should even have a window. I'll have to really think this through.
John

You'll want either a window or two cameras, two monitors - no visual communication SUCKS... Steve

Steve's right John - you'll need some window communication - even a couple of secondhand standard sliding doors would work until you can lash out for more expensive ones.

cheers
john