New Studio Design

#1

I have been working to accommodate a studio build in an L shaped garage....with 1000 sq, ft. of total area....13 ft 6 in ceilings....concrete block walls....concrete pad for floor....

My problem is that I have been struggling to put in a reasonable sized studio....maximizing space we have....but being L shaped in interesting to say the least....

This will be commercial boutique type of studio space....meant to be welcoming....great creative vibe....a place folks will want to come and record music....not sterile like some studios....but with a cool vibe

We have a pretty good list of equipment....including some vintage gear (mics, tape machines, Neve BCM 10 sidecar, and incredible outboard gear)....we have decided on the Fix console because of its innovative and flexible adaptability....

I have revised the studio layout several times....finally going with one control room....two live rooms....with a line of sight to both....better in Room A than in Room B....but still pretty good....room in CR for recording vocals or even guitar in....and with a 24 ch. Fix console (or maybe 32) we should be ready to make some magic....make some great music..

Will be able to use the Passageway as place to record as well....quoting a friend (with decades in the audio field): "Make the passage way angled like that and tile is with an angled ceiling. By opening the door into the studio you can regulate it’s natural reverb to drums and guitars. No need for speakers…. Cherokee Studios in LA had that and it was legendary. Opening the door from 2” to full was awesome."

Additional storage under stairs....and upstairs as well....will be able to record bass, guitar, keyboards & vocals in control room as well

Mechanical and/or Amp Room under stairs with access from Passageway too.

No vocal booth as plan to record vocals often in CR or using gobos....mic locker will be Store Room....or in additional storage are under stairs....want to keep studio as self contained re work as much as possible.

#2

Hi there StudioJiimaan, and WELCOME to the forum!

That's an interesting looking space, and reasonably sized, too. At a rough estimate, it looks like you have a total of maybe 900 square feet of floor area to play with.

Your layout looks reasonable, and at 243 ft2 for the CR, that's quite good. The commonly quoted "specs" for control rooms recommend a minimum of 200 ft for stereo rooms, so you are fine there. The two live rooms are a little small, but still usable.

However, I'm wondering if there might be a better way to lay out your studio, improving even more on the use of space. Right now, you have your CR set up "sideways", with the speakers firing across the room, on the short axis, whereas the optimum layout is to have them firing down the longest axis of the room, in order to achieve the "Holy Grail" of control rooms: the famous 20-20 criteria, and also to be able to successfully use traditional numeric sequence diffusers on the rear wall (such as Schroeders, skyline QRDs, PRDs, and suchlike). Rotating the orientation of your CR 90° to the right would probably get you there. You'd be facing into the other live room, of course ("B" instead of "A",) but that's probably not a big deal. You would have a better room, acoustically, by doing that.

But I'm still wondering if there might not be another way of doing this: I'm thinking that using a "corner" control room design, backed into the corner where you now have the storage area. you might be able to get something a little more optimal. I haven't measured anything, and I'm just guessing here, but it looks like you might have the space to do that. Have you tried something like that? I've done a couple of studios with corner control rooms, and they can work very well, so it might be an option.

A couple of other points: If you stick with your current layout, it looks like you would definitely need more depth of bass trapping on the rear wall. The diagram doesn't seem to show much bass trapping at all. I'd also suggest improving the speaker soffits, and the location of the mix position, to optimize those. And also work on the isolation for the rooms: there seem to be some issues there. I do realize that this is just a rough sketch, so maybe you already planned to fix that, but I thought it was worth mentioning!

- Stuart -

#3

To my eyes, if the current live room A and the control room swapped places, that would have some benefits:
- fewer doors needed into the control room, particularly where first reflections occur;
- the control room should be rotated 90°, as Stuart mentioned, leaving room for a door on the side wall behind the listening position and in front ot the rear wall treatment;
- the two live rooms could be opened up to be one large live room for the times that would be required;
- the stairs would open straight into the live room which is more likely to have changes of items than the control room.
Monitors instead of windows would make isolation easier and cheaper and allow the engineer to see into live room B.

#4

we've been through a number of permutations at John Sayer's design forum as well. i created the SU blank to facilitate discussions.

#5

gullfo wrote:Source of the post we've been through a number of permutations at John Sayer's design forum as well. i created the SU blank to facilitate discussions.

And I really thank you for creating the SU blank....

#6

Good points made in comments from Soundman 2020....thank you Stuart....much appreciated....and much to consider....

#7

Starlight wrote:Source of the post To my eyes, if the current live room A and the control room swapped places, that would have some benefits:
- fewer doors needed into the control room, particularly where first reflections occur;
- the control room should be rotated 90°, as Stuart mentioned, leaving room for a door on the side wall behind the listening position and in front ot the rear wall treatment;
- the two live rooms could be opened up to be one large live room for the times that would be required;
- the stairs would open straight into the live room which is more likely to have changes of items than the control room.
Monitors instead of windows would make isolation easier and cheaper and allow the engineer to see into live room B.

Appreciate your reply....many things to consider....my biggest concern is losing visibility from CR....

This design was based on one from Phillip Newell's book Studio Design....with enlarged CR after consideration of advice and suggestions from other forums and a very experienced audio designer with decades of experience (including studio design)....

I have tried several configurations with one large room....even just one big room without CR (a la Sylvia Massy or Daniel Lanois) but decided needed CR....

Open to any and all suggestions....why I'm here....

#8

It looks as though StudioJiimaan's OP has been deleted. Pretty much the same topic is on gearspace as Studio Layout Part Three.

#9

It looks as though StudioJiimaan's OP has been deleted...

Not deleted, just "unapproved" by a forum glitch! :shock:

The OP was approved earlier this morning, since it was the first post by a new member, but it just appeared recently as NOT being approved (even though the approval was not canceled...), so I had to approve it again! Strange!

I might need to take the forum down for a couple of hours late tonight, to fix that. There was an issue yesterday, and several people notified me by e-mail (thanks everyone who did that!

), where the forum was down and reporting an error with the sessions table: I fixed that, and assumed everything was OK again, but now I'm nos so sure. I'll run a full database consistency check and repair process late tonight, but I probably need to take the forum off-line to do that. Hopefully, it will just be an hour or so...

- Stuart -

#10

StudioJiimaan wrote:Source of the post....my biggest concern is losing visibility from CR....

There are studios that use cameras and big screens instead of windows. It makes the isolation simpler and cheaper and allows you to have your CR where it will work best but none of us can tell you what will be ideal from your perspective.

#11

Let me just add that learning from everyone here and other forums....I listened to some advice from this and other forums about such things as the the length of control room being at the width not depth....and issues that can cause....and having one large room instead of two smaller ones....so tweaked things a bit more

Actually I am starting right back at the CR....here are some thoughts including one from last diagram:

#12

Control Room decided on:

#13

More:

#14

so, in the control room - where are you putting the acoustic absorption?

#15

Also, that control room is somewhat reminiscent of a Wes Lachot design, scaled down. But there's a problem with that: You can't just scale an entire control room design (neither up nor down), because sound waves don't scale at all! Sound waves will always be the same size for any given frequency, so any acosutic device in that room that was designed to treat a certain frequency or range of frequencies, will now treat the WRONG frequency (or range of frequencies) after it is scaled.

Not only that, the room itself will have a different acoustic response, because it, too, has been scaled. For example, the length, width, and height of the room are now different to what they were in the original design, thus the entire modal response will be different: The modes will occur at different frequencies, and the relationship between those modes will probably also have changed.

Ditto for things like SBIR, comb filtering, and other phase-related issues: the distances have changed, so the problems will be occurring at different frequencies, and will therefore require different treatment.

Scaling someone else's control room is not going to work well. Your control room needs to be design specifically to fit your space, and the treatment within the room then needs to be designed to deal with the issues that will occur in a room with those specific dimensions, that specific shape, and your specific furniture.

I'd also still suggest that you consider a "corner" control room design: I have a feeling that might work, but it seems like you haven't tried that option yet. A corner control room is set up on the diagonal (which brings a whole set of different issues, but also gets rid of some typical issues with a traditional layout). It also makes good use of space in unusually shaped buildings.

Here's an example of a corner control room:

- Stuart -

Soundman2020 - Studio Design Forum