John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hello guys,

So here is our scenario. We are planning on building 8 studios in this 450m2 warehouse that is currently being negotiated with the Real estate company.
I have drawn up a simple layout of what we (just a bunch of producers/writers) think we should do with the place. Budget wise for materials/building for the 8 rooms (not anything else on the drawing) we have about $60, 000. We have qualified tradesmen, electrical/carpentry/plaster (friends) to overlook the build, in return for some small cash and some beers (we've budgeted $6000- $8000 in total for the trade guys). Also we have about 10 - 15 young muscle to help with the all the heavy lifting, cutting, drilling etc. The studios will be used for typical radio pop writing, production and mixing.



Studio 1 Production room 5.7m x 4.5m
Studio 2 Booth for Drums Guitar etc 3.5m x 5m
Studio 3 &4 Writing rooms 4.2m x 3.6m (basic IMac with logic, Mic, interface & speakers), Acoustics can be average
Studio 5 Mix room (either a aws 900 or a toft atb 32) 5.6m x 4M
Studio 6,7 & 8 4m x 3.1m (basic IMac with logic, Mic, interface & speakers), Acoustics can be average

Included in the plan I have put in a 10-12 seated conference room, some office space and a full kitchen. Directly above the kitchen is a large bathroom with a bathtub and shower that already exist, and on the opposite side (top right) is a 3 cubical toilet block. In the center of the drawing is 5.2m x 15 Space that we are going to use for multiple things, mainly as a live rehearsal space with a bar at the back, but the space can also be used for a makeshift photography studio when needed and as a games/hang out common area.

Further info, this space is 1 level up from ground, the floor is concrete that we are planning on getting polished for all the open spaces.
Bottom right of the drawing is the staircase.
We are hoping to avoid having to build floating floors and build on the concrete or only have floating floors for studios 2 & 5.
The rooms are very tightly spaced and next to each other, I know that this is not ideal, but we’re doing pop music and are not very loud so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
8th studio is not necessary therefore can be dropped if the budget gets tight.
We don't often track guitars through amps or live drums, Drums are programmed, and guitars just go straight to the interface (I know its a shame but, unfortunately budgets aren't their for us anymore to do those sorts of things) Hence the reason we only have a small booth.

So my questions:

1. Have I used the space wisely, is there a better way to place the rooms? (we are quite happy with the size of the individual rooms, I know that they are smaller than what most larger studio would have, but we work out of similar sized rooms currently and they work with out an issue for us.

2. Sound proofing… alright so in the current studios we are in, the rooms are right next to each other and for sound proofing our method was (quadruple leaf) gyprock, green glue gyprock, 90x45 with insulation gyprock, greenglue, gyprock and then a 20 cm space and the next room build with the same order of material, therefore a quadruple design is what we have, probably not the best design. This method works, but not perfectly for us as we usually hear the sub boom when 1 room is bumping it a bit, its not bad enough for us to have to ever stop a writing session, but would be great to make an improvement in this build.
For this build what should be the best approach? From the research I have done seems like the duoble leaf with as large of an air cavity we can get would be best?.

So let me know what you guys think, anything that I have done that seems stupid let me know, no offense will be taken. If money in the budget can be saved it would be great, so any ideas for cheap material etc let me know

I think I have covered most things, ill add to this if I remember anything.

Cheers
D

Hi "Dush1123", and welcome!

To be honest, I think you might be underestimating your budget for a build of this size and complexity. That's less than 10k per studio, which seems to be on the low side. Just the HVAC system alone is going to take a sizable chunk out of that budget.

There's an obvious problem with the design for that one: it is not symmetrical. Symmetry is critical for any control room, or at the very least symmetry in the front half of the room.

Seems to have a rather strange shape! What is the purpose of that room?

That's also a potential issue. Isolation and flanking might be problems here, both between the studios themselves, and also between the studios and the rest of the building.

This thread might be useful for you, in deciding on that:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8173

Having studios adjacent to each other is not a problem, provided the isolation is designed and built suitably.

Ummmm.... If I understand that correctly, you seem to be using a four-leaf isolation system, with pairs of leaves being coupled? You can't be getting good isolation in low frequencies like that! Eliminating the middle two of those leaves would do wonders for the isolation, and even more so if you used the same total mass on the remaining two leaves.

I'm not surprised: that is, indeed, the drawback of 4-leaf systems. Low frequency isolation is poor. Plus, if you are on an upper floor, then you have the additional issue of the un-damped shared slab, with potential flanking through the floor between all the rooms.

Exactly: Two leaf, fully decoupled, large air gaps, lots of mass, and heavy damping in the cavity. But apart from that, you might have issues in other places, such as the HVAC system, electrical system, doors, and general flanking.


- Stuart -

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I want this studio to amaze people. "That'll do" doesn't amaze people.