John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hi,

just joined here- on a referral from Gearslutz.

I've just moved to the US (from Europe) into a fairly large house with no close neighbours (basically in the country).
The basement has a basic studio kitted out already- essentially 3 rooms.
One is 12.75 x 12.25 feet.
Another is 10ft x 8ft.
There is another small room off the larger room that I can use as a machine room.

This is my personal studio- I won't be doing drums here- mainly tracking guitars and writing/mixing - but I want it to sound as good as possible.
I have a lot of gear in the control room and spend most of my time there- I really only use the live room for guitar boxes (the amps are in the control room with me.

I have a large 40 channel D&R console, 3 sets of stereo monitors, protools HD3 with 24 IO, around 25 synths, 10 computers (on 3 KVM's) and about 100 rack spaces of outboard.

I am interested in going 5:1 at some point soon also.

My budget is flexible- I'd like to keep it under 5k but more is ok if necessary.

The build was done fairly well- there is a double layer perspex window between the two control and live rooms.
The floor was not floated on those neoprene ushaped thingies, does have a frame made of 2 x 4 with 5/8 ply put on top. The floor underneath is a concrete slab.
The walls are all drywall, but not particularly well done- no mudding up and large gaps between some of the panels.
The ceiling heigh is 7 1/2 ft from floor to ceiling.

Unfortunately they made a few errors from here.
There is no HVAC at all.
The ceiling was covered with low grade acoustic foam and all the walls and floors were carpetted.
I have no idea why this was done but also after a couple of years of misuse it was extremely damp.
I bought a dehumidifier and have had it down in the rooms for the last 2 weeks. It is a lot better.

I have already ripped out the carpet and the foam leaving some pockmarked drywall. Behind the drywall is a 2 x 4 frame on all walls.
Can I simply mud it up again and sand before painting or is it better to replace the existing drywall?

I took up some of the 5/8 floor panels today to find styrofome in the gaps.
I replaced with with 703 already.

I can extend the existing spaces a little as they have not used all the available space.

My idea was to keep the 12.75 x 12.25 room as a live space and extend the 10 x 8 room as much as possible which would be to a dimension of 17 x 12.25.
(Actually one of the walls is slightly angled- it will be 12.25 on one end and 12.1 at the other)
I am about halfway through extending the flooring already but thought I would check in here before going forward.

My idea is to put laminate flooring down in both the 17 x 12.25 (control) and 12.75 x 12.25 (live) rooms and use large thick rugs to get a live end, dead end room. Does this work?
I was going to put an airconditioner (looking for recommendations) in the rear of the live room (where there is a small window (about 2 x 1ft) and duct it through to the control room.

I am putting a n APC 20 amp power conditioner in the machine room, putting 24 way XLR wall boxes between the control and live room.
64 way XLR/bal jack between the control room and the machine room (as I keep my PT converters in the machine room and want to leave room to expand.

Is it enough to do a 2 x 4 frame on all walls, fill it with 703 and cover with drywall?
This is my first serious studio build- I've always rented commercial premises before.

Many thanks, I hope I have included enough info- if not please let me know and I will give more.

James, welcome; first, can you please resize your drawing so it fits within the guidelines spec'd in the very top post in this forum? I'll try to get back in the next day or two and will cover your questions once I don't have to scroll sideways to read all the text. Thanks... Steve

Ooops... I am on a 23" inch apple monitor- didn't know it would be a problem.
I have resized it.
Thanks for your help.

hi, just wondering if anyone can help me with this?

Hi James,

Your judgment call on the drywall. If you feel like you can seal the gaps that are there, I'd say go for that. Then maybe add a 2nd layer of drywall over that, that is installed more cleanly. Then you can put your acoustic treatments over that.

The rectangular rooms are a minus from my point of view. I'd be inclined to start over, using say John's Garage studio design, which is approximately the same shape as your space.

Regardless of what you decide, you'll need to put acoustic treatments in after you are done with construction. Lots of strategies for this. I'm inclined to superchunks in all corners, John's angled slot resonators on the side walls, an absorption cloud over the mix position, and a big absorber in the rear of the room. But there are many paths through this particular forest.

What progress have you made since October? Perhaps you could restate the more pressing questions in your mind presently....

Aloha James,

Perhaps something like this?

Here's a few views of the basic framing, with acoustic treatments yet to be added.

Aloha

Wow.. Kendale, that is great.
I don't know how you guys get so great at the sketchup drawings- I can't seem to get a handle on it.
Can't seem to get things in 3 dimensions looking proper.

Anyway- the drawing is great- although I have two doors up towards where you have the sides of the control room sloped. I can't really put sloped sides there.
I am mostly working alone- with guitar amps in the live room.

Here is a pic (sorry for the quality- it is the best I can do with Sketchup).

If I put superchunk corner traps in each of the ontrol rooms 4 corners and put 2 x 4 ft traps on the back of the doors- is this going to be ok?
The dimensions fo the rooms have changed- I now have a control room that is 19ft long x 12.25ft wide x 7.25 ft high and a live room that is 12ft x 12.25ft x 7.25 ft.
Not ideal I know- this is the best I can do given the location of the various walls and doors.

Any input you guys have would be very welcome.

Aloha James,

Thanks for your drawing indicating your doors. Any chance you could resize is down a little more to eliminate having to scroll back & forth, please? Thanks!

Here are a few thoughts for your consideration:
- In the James Richmond 2 front.jpg, there are two glass access doors to the live room right in between the monitors. (access & visibilty)
- It's possible to draw in your doors where you've indicated. Would that work for you? If so, we could take out the center door and put in a control room window.
- Perhaps at this stage in your project, your thread might be more appropriate in the design forum, after which you could then start the build portion here?

Aloha

Hi Kendale,

Ok- I have spent the night working on Sketchup- it kinda helps if you read the instructions, eh?

Here is my latest design- I can't seem to work out how to get dimensions in to scale right now but will do it- and I'll post this to the Design forum as well.

another view...

3rd view...

Aloha James,

The 'chunks will help some, but what you also want to do is minimize/eliminate reflections between parallel surfaces: walls - left/right/front/rear, floor/ceiling - and establish symmetry in your control room (especially at the mix position.)

The SAE webite has some great info on the what, why & how's: http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html
(click on the acoustics tab on the left and the tabs at the top of the page.)

Hope this helps,

Aloha