John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hello everyone!

We are new to this forum though we love the site and appreciate the info and help in this community! Thanks John and cohorts!

We are preparing to make the leap from home studio to a commercial space in the Boston suburbs. The space we are hoping to convert is about 1400sf on the first floor of a building that also houses a dance studio directly above the space we're looking at.

We really want this to work because of many factors about the location that makes it work for us. Among the most important factors are that we do a lot of work for the dance studio, our kids dance there, and it's convenient to where we live.

As for the budget, we are hoping to do the construction of the space for about $40K.

I'm posting a rough sketchup file (very rough because I'm not very good at that yet!) of what we're thinking -- it's based on the corner plan from the stickies on this forum.

Here are our questions:

1) Are we crazy? The dance studio generates a lot of noise when the dancers are leaping about -- the other tenant on the first floor says that it can be hard to carry on a phone conversation when this happens. We opened up the dropped ceiling (about 8-9 feet high) and found no insulation at all, so anything we do should help. What would you all recommend?

2) How is this for a layout? It's the best we could come up with for the L-shaped space, but we are open to suggestions!

3) The only residential neighbors are about 45 feet away from the garage bay door. We have tentatively planned to put storage areas next to the garage door, forming a sort of hallway to the studio for load-in. What should we do to soundproof the hall to keep the neighbors happy? The storage should hopefully be a buffer, but will need to treat the hall somehow.

Thank you so much for your help -- all the info on the site and anything specific you can suggest. This is a dream come true for us, and we can't wait to get started!

Hey looks exciting!

1. Buy Rod's book (see stickies) - read at least twice (well I had to)
2. Arrange phone service with John Sayers.

I think it will fly - drop ceiling is the way for you - on spring hangers.

$40k - no problem so long as you do it all youself. If you get builders - add another $25k I reckon....

Insulate the store area too. It should end up sealed like a fish bowl. Keep the neighbours real happy. Bass will be your enemy for neighbours so think broadband traps for hall - do all tenants share the hall?

I think resilient channel for walls beside occupied area.

I haven't got the latest Sketchup so can't open yr file yet. Will try and have a look over new few days.

Take Care and all the best!

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Sideshow
http://www.songcave.net

Cool project! Where in Mass. are you?

- Andy

Thank you for your responses!

Andy, we're in Marblehead.

Sideshow, we will definitely buy Rod's book, and will try to sign up with John. The bad news is that we have to use a contractor as my husband and I are *not* handy, so our costs will be steeper.

The good news is that we gave our contractor the books we've gathered and pointed him to this site so he is getting up-to-speed quickly on what is required. For example, when I mentioned your advice about the drop ceiling he was on top of that one and had priced out the springs already.
think broadband traps for hall - do all tenants share the hall?

The hall area is ours alone, so we can do what we need.

We like the idea of the sliding doors between the control room and the studio rooms, but are wondering about sound transmission and reflections. Any advice?

Also, do you think the control room is big enough? I think we ended up at 14' at the widest point. My husband is the chief engineer and wants the biggest control room we can fit in the space, but there needs to be access to the studio without going through the control room. This is what I came up with but we are open to suggestions.

Thanks!

Hey, I'm right up the street from you! Well, up the highway, at least, in Rockport. I used to work in Marblehead, on Tioga Way. I'll have to come visit sometime...

Cheers!

- Andy

Hi RingoStudio,

CHeers for the info - re the sliding doors between CR and ISO room you will need 2 x.

One door reinforced glass and one laminated glass (with plastic between 2 sheets). (Theory being the 2 x different materials have different freq transmission properties)

If you have the room you can angle them away from each other to avoid parallel standing waves probably min 12 degrees (I didn't have the space for that but it worked a treat anyhow). With our system cranked up to blast in the CR we closed both doors and was amazed at how far in the distance the sound was. My Dad put his ear on the ISO door and it seemed we had some bass transmission from CR via the floor. Still who records with the CR monitoring up REALLY painfully loud?
It was a LOT louder than a drum kit with a hard hitter so the isolation should work well either way.
With quiet instruments like flute or nylon guitar you won't hear people jabbering in the CR etc.....if this is what you are after it is the way to go.

Ensure you seal with acoustic/fire rated caulk around the door reveals/walls. (it is approx 6 x more expensive than standard caulk but as a rule of thumb for 2 smaller rooms and ceilings I used approx 30Litres @ $265 AU per 10L tub) -

In fact grab 2 x 10 L tubs and 50 sausages of same with caulk gun - and some riggers gloves - a few pairs - your hands will thank me)
The caulking you can do yourselves to fill all gaps and it will save you $ in total labour. It is not the most human friendly stuff so have water buckets ready for cleaning tools and hard brushes scrapers etc). Take care of your eyes and skin as the warnings are that it is carcinogenic when exposed to uncured product for extended periods - it WILL get on your skin no matter what precautions you take - even through fingers of gloves when smoothing edges etc so just make sure you clean your skin well ASAP after use.

Make sure you inform the door makers (joinery?) of your acoustic needs and they can pay a little more attention to smaller gaps and better seals.

Most important get the door frames in the color to match your scheme

Glad your builder was up on the hangers - not an easy job for him/her but with the right equipment it will give you amazing isolation by being decoupled from ceiling above (dance studio floor).

Rod's book gives great detail on this.

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Sideshow
http://www.songcave.net