John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

I recently purchased a home in Brooklyn, NY, USA which has a large attached space where I would like to build a recording studio.

The inner dimensions of the studio space are 33 feet x 17 feet x 9 feet high (10m x 5m x 1.5m high), and I would like to build 4 rooms: A large recording room (about 200 sq feet / 18 sqm), a vocal booth, mixing room-lounge, and bathroom. The structure is a one floor brick structure with nothing underneath, and nothing on top.

I am on a pretty tight budget - I would like to spend between $15k - 20k max on this project. I know that this may not be enough money to do what I need so I need advice on 2 things:

- Where can I find good plans based on similar dimensions for cheap (or free!) that I could tweak? I've noticed there are so many examples on this forum but there I don't know how I can possibly go through the thousands of threads to find them...
- What should my priorities be when I'm on a limited budget?

Thank you!
Chony

Aloha and welcome to RDS, Chony,

Congrats on your new home/studio!

is it possible for you to post a floor diagram with doors/windows indicated?

Aloha

_________________
Jerry Maguire: Help me... help you. Help me, help you.

Thank you!

I just downloaded SketchIt 8, but couldn't work out how to use it, so I purchased "SketchIt for Dummies" which should arrive in 2 days. In the meantime, here is a hand-drawn floor plan (not to scale). I listed measurements to the nearest foot.

The first drawing depicts it after I remove the inner walls and rooms (there is a toilet and boiler room situated smack bang in middle of the space, and a useless, damaged, sheetrock wall). The second drawing depicts the room after I remove the inside.

I need to fit a recording room, vocal booth, mixing room-lounge and bathroom into that space.

Thank you!
Chony

Aloha,

Question: is it possible to relocate the bathroom?



I dont know what your flooring/plumbing consists of, but it would make for a very clean vocal booth/live room. You could relocate the bathroom to the lounge area.

Just throwing out a few thoughts...

Aloha

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Jerry Maguire: Help me... help you. Help me, help you.

Thank you very much Kendale.

I should have made it more clear that the garage is not part of my renovation plan. I would like to keep it as a garage (in Brooklyn, NY parking is gold) and store my live music equipment there. The space I have to work with is the 33' x 17' space.

I did some more research and found that the wall on one side of the building (the side where the red brick is) is 22 inches thick! On the opposite side is 12 inches thick. I should also point out that there is a school playground (complete with bell) just 50 feet from me, so it can get reasonably noisy - although less than what I expected.

Please see attached pic. I think it is a very interesting idea to have the Live Room immediately as you walk in, as this might allow me to rent out the space to bands without them having to walk into the mix room, however I was thinking something more similar to the following pic. Does it make sense?

Aloha,

Ah, got it. Must keep garage!

Yes, there are several benefits to having the live room there:
- keeps unwanted traffic out of the control room
- keeps your console furniture/equipment from getting scuffed by equipment loading in and out

- allows for good room ratio for your control room
- able to achieve a control room with a RFZ (Reflection-Free Zone, and refers to splaying the walls and ceilings to avoid any early reflections at the mix position - if done right, there will be a fairly large sweet spot with no sound other than the direct sound from the speakers.)

There's room for a smaller sofa in the rear of the control room for 2-3 people, as well.

It really depends on what which is more important to you and your work flow: lounge, control room or live room.

As always, its your studio and your call.

Hope this helps,

Aloha

_________________
Jerry Maguire: Help me... help you. Help me, help you.

Okay, I've been playing around with SketchUp, and am convinced that I am wasting my time. It's loads of fun, but I'm not expert enough to do serious work with it. However, here's a picture of my latest studio idea. Unfortunately with SketchUp, it's not exactly easy to move walls around, so I think the rest I'm going to do pen on paper...

Main thing I'm looking for I guess is:

- Advice on what to focus on for a budget of $15-20K.
- Examples of setups that others have done in a similar space.
- Should I use a window and have a door, or just use glass sliding doors to view the live room?
- What's the best way to position the vocal booth, live room, and control room, in a way that maximizes space and efficiency?

If you want to edit the model directly you can find it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29328983/Floorplan.skp

Thank you!!

PS: It looks like I've fundamentally ruined my SketchIt because somehow I must have accidentally drawn it in a way that crosses planes

Aloha,

Nicely done!


Isolation - depending on how much isolation you need (from sound going out bothering neighbors as well as coming in ending up on recordings) you also want to consider the acoustic treatment of your rooms.
http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Titles/Acoustics3.htm

RFZ (Reflection Free Zone) at the mix position will help with your imaging, mic selection and placement, signal processing, eq adjustments, mix levels, and a host of other sundry tasks involved while there.
http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Titles/Acoustics1.htm

Another factor may be the availability and cost of materials in your area. (Out here, for example, EVERYTHING is at a premium )


Here's a couple of really good places to start -
http://www.johnlsayers.com/
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=11


John has designed both with great success.


Line of sight and work flow (think about having to make multiple trips from control room to live room to make multiple mic selection/placement/adjustments, and how your work flow addresses those tasks.

Handy Resource -
http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/index.htm

Hope this helps,

Aloha

_________________
Jerry Maguire: Help me... help you. Help me, help you.

Who can I turn to to design the studio at a reasonable price? Something tells me that if I do this myself it will end up being much more expensive in the long run. I need a professional who knows which questions to ask me, understands where to prioritize and cares about the end product. I know what I want and think this would be a very quick and fairly simple job.

I'm happy to base it on someone elses blueprint if it brings down the price.

Please advise!
Chony

Aloha,

Why not try Glenn (gulfo) http://www.runnel.com/contact.html or John Sayers http://www.johnlsayers.com/Pages/Promo.htm

Glenn is in Old Tappan, NJ, USA and is one of the moderators here on RSD, and John is in Australia (but designs worldwide).

Aloha

_________________
Jerry Maguire: Help me... help you. Help me, help you.

Amazing. I used to work in old Tappan and I was born and lived in Sydney Australia for a 25 years! Hopefully I'll get a good price as a "landsman"!

Aloha,

Awesome! Good luck on your studio build!

Here's one for the road....



Aloha

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Jerry Maguire: Help me... help you. Help me, help you.

How the #@$& hell did you do that?! Ive got a lot to learn... I couldn't even work out how to make holes in my walls to fit my doors. But then again my experience with sketchit is limited to 2 hours...

I like what you've done because I could save serious money by not moving the toilet, but How would I see into the live room the way you designed it? And Im creeped out that my mics might pick up some very unpleasant sounds from that particular room...

Aloha,

I thought you did extremely well in that short amount of time.

Here's a view from the control room - through the vocal booth - into the live room.



As to the problem of "extraneous & unusual noises"...perhaps communicating scheduled "pit stops" might be your best bet.

Aloha

_________________
Jerry Maguire: Help me... help you. Help me, help you.

and ventilation