New studio build - Norway, Need suggestions to layout plans

Andromeda · **Posted:** Tue May 08, 2012 8:48 pm

Hello,

thanks for a great forum. I've used many hours reading posts here while building my home studio.
We are two people who now is going to build our first real studio.
We have a great room, which is about 85m2 and we havn't start building or designing it yet.
the room width is 11,75m x 7,22m.
The height slopes from 2,55m to 2,90m at the highest point (minus 30cm of steel support frames at the top)

I plan to put on a wood floor, superchunks in the back corners, slat absorbers on the sides, cloud/absorbent ceiling etc.

Hopefully we will start the process within this month.
I have some issues with the building process when it comes to the roof which I hoped you could help me with.
The walls are double-leafed concrete walls, thick concrete floor, and we have no nearby neighbours, so the main concern of our build is the Acoustic part of the room to make it the best we can within our budget.
We have most of the materials ready like OC703, fluffy insulation, gypsum, 2x4" wood, etc , so I won't list our budget here - but let's say it is a midrange budget.
We have other facilities like toilet, lounge and kitchen in the neighbour-rooms so this will be a control room / Live room only.

our roof is made of metal, and we have three metal support frames that builds 30cm deep down.
The highest point in the room is in the middle. This is also where we intended to put the wall between the control room and the live room. My concern is then that if we use the ceiling slope as it is, it will go down from the mix position - and therefore the wrong way considering whats good for early reflections etc.

So what do you suggest that we do with the ceiling?
1. Straight ceiling from using the lowest point at the rear walls (2,55m high)
2. use the slope somehow and reverse the mix position to face the two windows
3. use the slope and sit in the highest roof point in the room
4. other!

I attach some pictures in the post and there is a sketchup jpg of the room. (without treatment)
Hope I did remember everything that you need, if not, just let me know.

thanks!

Andromeda · **Posted:** Thu May 10, 2012 5:04 pm

our landlord came up with some new needs.. he needs to use the garageport for access to the neighbour building from time to time. I need to do something different here then...
I need some help with the layout. I can't think of any good solution to make the control room symmetric, and big enough - and have a descent space for a live room.
ideas please? :roll:

and is it smart to make a separate vocal booth as well?
this is the first real studio I will build. I have built a small home studio once before, so I have some knowledge with soundproofing, stc ratings etc, and I have read a lot of books and posts on forums about acoustics, so i have SOME knowledge here as well

we are going to record full bands, but mainly a couple of instruments at the time.
Rock,pop, metal, acoustic etc.

The yellow marks the areas that I can't use. I have to set up walls before these spots.

the first idea in the picture under this post:
height: 2.5m
vocal booth: 4m x 2,7m (minus wall treatment) approx 11m2 <--- is this large enough for a vocal booth, to not get the "boxy" sound?
control room: 3,85m x 7,24m (minus wall treatment) 27,8m2
live room: 3,66m x 7,24m (minus wall treatment) 26,5m2

I would REALLY appreciate some replies on this!

Soundman2020 · **Posted:** Thu May 10, 2012 11:13 pm

Hi "Andromeda", and welcome!

A couple of things:

None of those walls exist yet, right? Just the shell? And you can build walls wherever you want? (Except that you MUST be walls at the edge of the yellow area).

Are you going to put doors in the walls adjacent to the yellow area, will those just be blank walls?

What does you very first picture show? It looks like a couple of walls with a gap between them, but it's not clear what we are looking at there.

And the big question: How much isolation do you need, in terms of dB of TL?

Maybe you could post your SketchUp model, to make it easier for people to download it and maybe try some things out.

- Stuart -

Andromeda · **Posted:** Fri May 11, 2012 2:18 am

Hi Stuart, and thank you for your response!

Soundman2020 wrote:

Hi "Andromeda", and welcome!

A couple of things:

None of those walls exist yet, right? Just the shell? And you can build walls wherever you want? (Except that you MUST be walls at the edge of the yellow area).

That is correct. I have just an outer shell, made of concrete, insulation and gypsum. the roof is just metal.
I can build walls wherever I want, except that i cannot use the yellow area for anything (other than walking though it, and loading). that is basically not my space, so I think the best will be to put up a wall somewhere around this.
where I put the wall outside the yellow area doesnt matter, but I want the most space possible of course out of what I have.

Are you going to put doors in the walls adjacent to the yellow area, will those just be blank walls?

What does you very first picture show? It looks like a couple of walls with a gap between them, but it's not clear what we are looking at there.
that is just my first sketch of the room, when I thought I could use all of it. The wall in the middle was to separate the control room and mixing room. It is just basically two walls sperated into the ordinary MSM tecnique. We will make the walls with 63STC. the outer shell has a high stc rating, and we have no neighbours, so our main issue is between the controlroom, mixroom, and vocalbooth if we decide to make that as well.

And the big question: How much isolation do you need, in terms of dB of TL?
I think around 55-60dB will be sufficient for my needs. we will have a live drumset in the liveroom.
But the wallbuilding is not that much of a problem. I´m pretty familiar with sound transmission, STC ratings, TL, isolation values of gypsum,isolation,airgap thickness and so on.
what really is a "problem" for me, is to design the layout in the best possible way. Everytime I put out a layout I see problems with windows, first reflections, speakers pointing at the wrong way of the room(short side), and symmetry problems, so therefore I ask your help! :yahoo:

Maybe you could post your SketchUp model, to make it easier for people to download it and maybe try some things out.
I will try to upload the file! Hope someone can make something out of it. I´m a big sketchup noob, so I´m sorry about that!

Here is my sketchup file, It was to large to upload on the forum.
http://speedy.sh/q5cpe/emptyStudio.skp

Kind regards
Kim

Andromeda · **Posted:** Mon May 14, 2012 7:43 pm

We are having our buildingcost / design meeting this week, and will start the build within two weeks.
Do anyone have any comments about the layout before we start? :shot:

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New studio build - Norway, Need suggestions to layout plans

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