John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hi guys,

I'm very excited to share my new design with you and ask your comments. In a few weeks we will be moving out of our basement, beneath a well-known London ukulele shop, into a warehouse space down the road in Limehouse. It is currently empty, except for a chandelier. I think it used to be the boardroom of the factory. I have attached two terrible cameraphone photos of the room, a plan of the empty room and a design.

We hope to keep construction costs below £10,000.

The control room is as near-symmetrical as we can fit into that corner, and we are very keen to keep the control room in that corner because of the large window. I realise this is going to cause difficulty with reflections, and I would be very interested to hear from anyone else that has a large window in their control room, or indeed anyone who works with a control room that is nearly symmetrical but not quite.

Continuing on the theme of compromise, we are interested in the possibility of using patio-style doors between the control room and the live room. As you can see there will be a corridor separating the two, which we hope will work to advantage in terms of isolation! I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who glass or glass-filled doors in their studio.

The live room will be used for most genres of music, from acoustic ensembles to the occasional metal band. The project space at the top will be rented out to another engineer, though we do not anticipate having to achieve sufficient isolation to have two full rock bands in the building at the same time!

I will return to post more details, but for now, thanks for reading! I have been browsing the forum for years, waiting for the opportunity to build my own place, so this is a very exciting time.

Thanks guys,

Giles

Just a couple of comments:

First, I guess that isolation is not important at all for you guys, because you don't show any at all on the SketchUp model. Why is that? Is the building located in a very, very quite place out in the middle of the countryside, with no roads, railways, animals, weather, aircraft or neighbors to worry about? Nobody will ever need to flush the toilet or use water while you are in session? No phones will ring? No radio, TV, talking, walking? (If that's not the case, then you might want to think about how to isolate your rooms!)

Second, I don't see that CR layout as being workable: it is far from symmetrical, the left speaker will be facing the glass directly, and the glass will be a first reflection point BEHIND you, among other things.

The hall also seems to be wasted space.

I reckon you should be able to get a much better layout than that, while still keeping the window in the control room, but personally if I had to choose between having a great control room with no window, or a lousy control room with a great window, I reckon I'd forget the window real fast. (But that's just me...)


- Stuart -

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

Thanks for the comments Stuart.

Isolation is important to us. This sketchup model was a quick one to try out the shape, I'm now working on a more detailed one showing the isolation. Sorry for not making that clear.

The control room is actually very close to symmetrical, but perhaps that angle doesn't show it well, it is an odd shape. I'll post a different angle to demonstrate this. I take your point about the glass behind the speaker, I'll have another think about that.

The hall may be wasted space from a purely recording point of view but I feel it is useful to have a lobby area for bands to use. Does anyone else find that useful? We plan to use the nook in the hall for storage.

Thanks again for the comments, sorry i wasn't more clear to begin with, more info soon.

Hi Giles, do we know each other? I'm a French VO guy, name's Pierre, was working in London, mostly Soho, for 15 years before moving back to France in 2009.
Anyhow, nice location! A question: Is that the vocal booth 1.8m wide? If yes you might want to reconsider - working in something that tiny for more than few minutes is not something I would anticipate with joy and excitement...

Other than that, what Stuart said. For me the lobby is too small to be anything else than an entrance hall. What is the 'project studio' room for? What about the 'lab' room? Overall I think that the space could be better used - but then again that's part of the process in the design.

Hi Pierre,

I'm not sure whether we do know each other! Perhaps you did some voiceover work at my old studio, the Bunker, two or three years ago?

The booth is quite small, you're right. I do feel it's rather a choice between a small booth or none at all. Does anyone else have experience of building a booth this small?

I think the project studio is rather essential for us, much as I'd like to use all the space for ourself, we need to rent out a project studio on a long-term let. Hence the bare room at the moment, we would like to build it to our tenants specifications. The lab is a small space that we will rent to a friend of ours who is an amp technician and repairman. It is a small space, but no smaller than his current workshop, and he would like to be onsite at the studio to meet people and help with our repairs.

Thanks for pointing out the shape of the control room, guys. It was less symmetrical than I thought! The inclusion of an additional wall now makes it a perfect diamond, as the below picture should show.

I do take the point about the lack of isolation in the control room. We plan to isolate the live room to the best of our abilities, with a new floor above the current concrete, and a suspended ceiling above the new walls. The building is in a warehouse which is in the process of being divided into various units, so I don't know what they will be used for but we plan to have loud bands in the live room sometimes so we are aiming for a high standard of isolation.

The control room, however, is a different story. In our current location, beneath a shop, where we have worked for the last 5 years, we rarely if ever shut the door to the shop. People come in and out, and we sometimes hear noise from the street. This is occasionally distracting, but usually not a problem. Does anyone else share this approach, or does everyone else here have well-isolated control rooms that keep out most outside noise?

Given that I require a space for a project studio of at least that size, and I need a small room for the 'lab', do you guys still think that I make dramatically better use of the space?

Hi guys,

So I'm designing the isolation around the live room in detail. It's going to be quite a quite complicated structure due to the existing pillars and beams within the space.

I have been rereading Rod's excellent book, and my plan is coming together, but I'm confused on a couple of points.

1) When using a double-wall construction for isolation, is it possible to use as the outer wall an existing drywall construction within the space, if I ensured it was sealed and airtight?

2) I note that Rod, in his book on page 71, points out that when using a double frame assembly it is pointless to also use resilient channels. This makes sense to me. I did wonder, however, if using resilient channels would be the best way to deal with the pillars that exist in my space. As demonstrated in the attached picture of a section of my frame assembly, the pillars fit flush with the frame. My thinking at the moment is that the best use of this space is hang the drywall in front of this pillar from resilient channels attached to the frame, with the possible inclusion of neoprene pads between the resilient channels and the pillar. Does that seem like a sensible solution? And can I presume that if I'm using resilient channels for several sections of the drywall it makes sense to use them for the whole room?

Yes, you can do that. The outer leaf usually is part of the original structure. The only time that you'd build a new outer leaf is if there was nothing already there in the existing structure, close to where you need it. If you are building a new outer life inside an existing structure, you do need to be careful that you aren't creating any 3-leaf walls.

Exactly! Page 71 shows a single frame ceiling, not a double frame. If you have a double frame structure, then you do NOT need RC, since the wall is already decoupled. Decoupling twice is pointless. What Rod shows there is a single frame structure which DOES need decoupling, precisely because it is single frame! If it had been double frame, Rod would not have needed the RC.

To be honest, no it doesn't seem sensible. That would create a very thin resonant cavity in the wall, which will likely have unknown effects, and once again adding neoprene pads (which decouple) to RC (which decouples) is pointless: if it is already decoupled, then why would you need to decouple it again?

I would suggest that you either move the inner leaf framing a little to get past that pillar, or that you build a "kink" in the leaf just around the pillar section.

No, it only makes sense to use RC where you need to decouple the drywall from a SINGLE frame wall. The purpose of RC is to mechanically decouple the drywall on one leaf from the drywall on the other leaf. If each leaf is on a separate from already (ie, double frame wall) then the leaves are decoupled, and trying to decouple them again is going to do absolutely nothing for you, except waste your time and money. Adding RC to a decoupled wall is like taking a hose pipe into the swimming pool with, to try to get you even wetter! If you are totally wet already, then you are totally wet, and you cannot get any wetter no matter how much more water the hose pipe adds! Wet is wet. Decoupled is decoupled.

- Stuart -

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

Hey Giles, I problably did, I worked in most studios in London!
Re. the booth, it'd be silly not to have one as there's a lot of post-prod in London as you know! Now... I don't have the experience of building in such a small booth but I have the experience of working in one and let me tell you, it's not my idea of fun. Especially when there's no HVAC...

Stuart and Pierre, thank you so much for your comments. You've both really helped me get my head around these new concepts of design and construction. I'm going to do quite a hefty redesign now that I've had a good think so I'll be back once that's done.

So.. ceilings. Just re-read Rod's chapter on the subject again, and gone over John's original recording manual and the STC Chart which are all very useful.

I'm confused by a couple of points.

1) All STC ratings I've seen have been related to building beneath an existing plywood floor. I am building beneath a concrete floor. Should this affect my approach significantly, or are the designs in Rod's book still applicable?

2) Regarding the designs in Rod's book, for example figure 4.22 on page 79, there is 1 element I do not understand. Beneath the new cross bridging and new fiberglass insulation, there is a horizontal line that the RC-1 channel appears to be suspended from. What does this line represent? Is it a physical element that sits between the bridging and the RC-1 channel, or is the RC-1 channel suspended directly from the cross bridging and the line is a convention of the diagram of which I am ignorant?

I'm very grateful to anyone who can help me with my ignorance here!

The concepts are still the same. The only thing that changed is that you started out from a better position, since you already have good isolation from the concrete!

I don¿t have Rod's book with me right now to check on the other question: I'll take a look later, when I get home.


- Stuart -

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

Stuart, I think the completed studio is going to have to have little plaque with your avatar on it in tribute to your commitment to excellent, prompt advice!

- Stuart -

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

Hi guys,

I've realised something. Shocking, I know, but I have.

The existing internal wall, separating my unit from the next unit in the warehouse, is a single timber frame, filled with rockwool, with staggered double-leaf studwall on either side. My original plan was to construct a double-wall inside this, with the outer frame being attached to this existing wall.

I now realise of course that this would create the triple leaf effect. I imagine you guys will all confirm that this is a bad idea and to be avoided and most if not all costs. therefore have a single

So, my questions becomes: is it best to remove the studwall from the inside of the existing wall, leave a large cavity and build another wooden frame with double-leaf studwall to create a double frame assembly as detailed in Rod's book? Or would it be preferable to, as I have been advised, build a brick wall in front of the existing construction and create a new double frame assembly in front of that?

Cheers

giles

"Or would it be preferable to, as I have been advised, build a brick wall in front of the existing construction and create a new double frame assembly in front of that?"

That would still be a 3 leaf.

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Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.