Soundman2020 - Studio Design Forum

INTRODUCTION
In my spare time I'm a drummer and a little bit of a pianist/keyboardist/composer. I like to practice/compose and record my own music and once in a while I'm working with other musicians on projects. For a long time I would like to have a room which is suitable for my musical hobby. At the moment I'm in a rental apartment in which I have one room in use for my 'studio'. Due to the contract and other circumstances I've not been able to sound-isolate or acoustically optimize this room. Therefore, I can't play/practice/record my drumset at home which is one my biggest annoyances. I don't have a lot of time for my hobby and the time that is available is mostly in the late hours of the evening and in the weekends. Having to travel to external rental spaces (which are hardly available in this area anyway) in those late hours to be able to play is sometimes 'just to much'.

Hopefully my girlfriend and I will be able to buy a house in the upcoming months/years. Obviously this would be the ultimate opportunity to realize my 'dream': a sound-isolated and acoustically optimized room attached to our home. We don't have any concrete plans for a home at the moment, but when the time is there, I would like to be ready and have at least somewhat of a general 'generic' idea/plan what I'm about to do for my 'studio' room. Therefore, I would like to design some sort of mock-up studio to present on this forum. Hopefully I can incorporate your feedback and suggestions to make it the best room within my budget and the circumstances.

REQUIRMENTS
Fundamentally, there are two things I would like my studio to provide:
1. A sound isolated room in where I can play/practice/record my drums.
2. A acoustically optimized room for listening/mixing/composing music.

As I'm reading quite a bit about studio design and as I'm studying other peoples places I've been expanding my 'wish-list' exponentially to the point where I was envisioning a full-fletched recording facility. But the budget, the available space, time etc. are very scarce, and I've been telling myself that such a big space is not realistic at all. And quite frankly, it would be nice to own, but absolutely not necessary for me to fulfill my musical dreams.

I've been contemplating a lot about this future studio and these the main requirements/circumstances:

1. Studio-usage:
A. Practicing drums (1 person)
B. Recording drums (1 or 2 persons)
C. Composing (1 or 2 persons)
D. Recording/mixing (1 or 2 persons)
E. Practicing/playing piano/synths (2 persons)
F. Recording projects/songs of other musicians (2 persons)
G. Arranging/transcribing songs (1 person)

2. Sound-isolation:
In our area the plots for homes are relatively small. Therefore, in most cases a neighbor is most likely to be only 2,5 to a few meters away from the possible future studio. In the Netherlands between 23:00 and 7:00 the strictest/normative sound level is LAr,LT: 40dB(A) and LAmax: 60dB(A) measured at the facade of sound-sensitive buildings (such as homes). Also LAr,LT: 25dB(A) and LAmax: 45dB(A) measured 'in' those sound-sensitive buildings. On top of that there is a 'music-penalty' for noises with a music character of 10dB(A).

Me playing drums would be averaging somewhere between 105-115 dB(C). I will get better and more accurate measurements in the future, but for now I will calculate with 110 dB(C) (average level) and peak level 125 dB(C). I'm assuming 40-10(music penalty) = 30dB(A) as an average maximum level at the property-line. New homes (>2012) in the Netherlands are required to have DnT,A = 52dB. Therefore, if our potential new home will be in a fairly new neighborhood I also assume that the levels inside the neighbor homes won't be exceeded.

That leaves me with the following TL-requirements:
Average noise level dB(C): LAr,LT dB(A): LAr,LT dB(C): Required TL dB(C):
62,5Hz 100 30 55,4 44,6
125Hz 105 30 45,9 59,1
250Hz 110 30 38,6 71,4
500Hz 110 30 33,2 76,8
1000Hz 110 30 30 80,0
2000Hz 110 30 28,6 81,4
4000Hz 110 30 28,2 81,8
8000Hz 110 30 28,1 81,9

This is quite a steep required TL, but a double leaf (MAM) partition with sufficient weight on either side (maybe 3-4 layers of 12,5mm gypsum board and maybe combined with some dampening materials) and a large enough 'gap' between the masses (250-300mm or more) filled with insulation should be coming along quite a bit. Most possibly a decoupled heavy floating concrete slab is needed as well.

I will be playing in the late hours of an evening, so past 23:00 hours would not be an exception.

In regards to mixing and composing: I'm not monitoring excessive loud, 80-85 dB(C) is already quite loud for my standards, mostly I'm monitoring around 65-75 dB(C). I don't need extreme TL-requirements for monitoring, as I'm fine with turning the volume down or using headphones in the exceptional case.

In the above calculation I've been discussing the required 'external' TL towards a potential close-by neighbor, but these value's would also apply (more or less) to rooms 'within' our future house to not annoy my girlfriend and other possible future family-members.

I will go into the TL-requirements for the studio a little deeper in an upcoming post, as soon as I have better and more accurate measurements of my drum set noise. But this is a first start.

3. Lay-out
One very important thing for me is to have ample daylight and easy/direct access to the outdoors. I've been in studios with no daylight at all and I don't feel very well and creative in those spaces. I'm willing to trade off quality in acoustic response of the room for daylight if it comes to that.

Therefore I'm currently thinking of designing two rooms instead of having the drum set inside the control room: A highly isolated drum booth (live room) and adjacent room for composing/mixing/listening (control room) with a more 'standard' TL. The control room should have a door with glass towards the outdoors because I like to have an open door to the outside in springtime and summertime days when I'm composing or transcribing/arranging.

Having a separate drum booth ('live room') has some other advantages I like:
- Not having the resonances of the drum-shells and cymbals when mixing/composing/listening music.
- Being able to monitor more comfortably and accurately when recording other musicians because they are not in the same room.
- A smaller drum booth with a high TL is a little less expansive that when the whole control rooms needs a high TL.

Having a big piece of glass between the control and live room would be very nice to avoid the claustrophobic effect of small rooms and to aid communication between the rooms.

4. Acoustics
To be very clear: The control room does not necessarily have to be a critical listening room. If I can get it as flat as possible or close to the EBU standard, that would be very nice. I like the BNE concept. I have yet to study acoustic design's a lot more, but when it comes to the basic concept for the control room I'm thinking at the moment about something like this:
- A rectangular shell with to be determined measurements (obviously carefully looking at room modes/ Bonello, etc.). Because of very limited available space it won't be large. The inner-shell dimensions most likely will be something in the range of 2,6-3m (height), 3-4m (width) 4-5m (length/depth).
- A semi-reflective front wall baffle with possibly flush-mounted monitors.
- The side-walls and ceilings I would likely fill completely with 200-300mm porous broad-band absorption (100-150Hz and up) with strategically places membrane absorbers (for the LF absorption below 100-150Hz) behind the porous absorption (as close to the shell wall).
- The same broad-band/membrane trap combo for the back wall but maybe up to 500mm porous broad-band absorbtion for very deep trapping for more LF control. And if the distance allows it one ore two diffusers for some 'liveliness'.
- A RFZ with hopefully a large enough ISD-gap.

The hardest part would be fitting in the reflective glass towards the control room and towards the outsides. In the most ideal position those pieces of glass would be left and right from the LP, but obviously that position would mess up the RFZ. Maybe by angling the glass this could be avoided. To be determined/more on that later.

For the drum booth/live room:
- This room would have an inner dimension something approximating 2,6m height, 3m wide and 2,5-3,5m length.
- Acoustics: because of the small size: as dead as possible across the full spectrum.

SKILLSET
Due to budget reasons I will be building and designing the studio myself. I have ample design, CAD and Sketchup skills, adopted from my main profession. When it comes to my knowledge about studio design: I'm learning so please correct me if I'm making mistakes!

The following books are in my possession:

- MHoA - Everest and Pohlmann
- Recording Studio Design - Newell
- Acoustic Absorbers & Diffusers - Cox and D'Antonio
- Sound Reproduction - Toole
- Home Recording Studio - Gervais
- The Recording Manual - Sayers
- Guide to Acoustic Practice (BBC) - Rose
- Sound Studio Construction on a Budget - Everest

And also a lot of the online/digital BBC reports, the EBU stuff and all of the other stuff amongst which many of them are linked to this forum.

When it comes to my practical skills: with a lot of patience and time I can get a lot of things done.

BUDGET AND SCHEDULE
Budget is a little tricky: I think I can manage to finance the outer shells within the cost of the home itself. Things that have to be financed outside of that are the MAM isolated drum booth and the internal acoustics. I will make a more detailed list of the costs and determination between home and studio in the future.

Schedule: not applicable at the moment.

CONCLUSION
This is a start towards my studio design. I'm working on a global concept plan/sketch, hopefully I can finish this in the upcoming days. Obviously I will post that design in this topic. As you would probably have noticed the ideas are very course at the moment, but I'm hoping, as time goes by I will detail my plans more precisely. I would call this design a work in progress. Thanks for reading up until this point so far.

EDIT: I'm very busy at the moment and I will try to update this topic/reply to your suggestions/ideas as soon as possible. But I wanted to give a heads up that I could take a while in between posts.

welcome. so in 230+ studios (not including the pro bono ones - around another 500 or so) i have designed professionally, not a single one could be reused as-is, that is no generic plans. now, if my clients could simply get a large warehouse space with no restrictions / obstructions / etc, then generic becomes an option (e.g. i've done a number of rehearsal space designs which i have "reused" as far as scaling the general designs, but even so, the #'s of them in the rehearsal space shell, isolation, etc still requires a lot of adjustments).

so why is this the case? because 90% of my clients want a home studio w/ high isolation, excellent critical listening as well as performance space acoustics, and highly useful workflow. and did a i mention a "home" studio?

a "home" (even with a lot of renovation for the studio) still has:

Code: Select all

- existing structure - walls, windows, doors, etc which all interconnect with the rest of the house
- plumbing, hvac, electrical - pipes, ducts, wires, etc
- usage concerns for adjuncts spaces (like baby bedrooms over the drum booth)
- weird shit that just seems to crop up once the walls and ceilings are opened lol

and if the home is in a location requiring extensive building code plan reviews and supervision, then nearly all bets are off when it comes to things like having an isolation booth which requires no door inside another room (i.e. exit the iso "room" via another room -- fire / life safety rules) etc. having done a dozen or so in NYC, i'm always reluctant to do more there...

so, it cannot hurt to fantasize and practice the creation of the studio details using the tools and skills you possess, but realize, no plan survives first contact with the actual space... lol :-)

so -- to address the apartment question -- consider electronic drums and then put them on a isolation platform to reduce any impact into the floor from foot pedals. some of the modern e-kits are pretty nice. virtually everything else can be done via amp output dampers, DI, etc., headphones, and then vocals could be a small booth. it really depends on how important this activity is. all that can be taken with you to your new space when you're ready to move in or be readily re-used in a temp space (that spare bedroom...)

Thank you Gullfo, for your replies. Most probably the 'studio' will be an attachment to the future house (both build from the ground-up). Building from 'the ground up' will (hopefully) avoid a lot of the problems you described. Nevertheless, I'm aware and counting on the fact that most probably the plans will have to be adapted to the real-life situation when the time is there to put all of this into practice. What I'm trying to achieve with this thread is to create at least a basic idea of the design principles. I'm not an experienced acoustician at all, and I'm trying to implement all of the theory into a design, and hopefully have that reviewed by the members of this forum.

Attached to this post are two very preliminary and draft plans of the ideas I've described in my opening post. These are absolutely not end result designs, but more directions where I would like to go. There will unmistakably be a lot of mistakes in these drafts, but that is why I'm posting them here: I'd like to learn.

This first idea is a the very basic concept including a control room with a drum booth connected to the front wall of the control room. The second (alternative) idea is more of the same, only in this plan the drum booth is on the right side of the control room.

I'd like to be able to view outside from the LP, and because of the more compact lay-out, I like the alternative design (2.pdf) better. Obviously those windows are precisely in the worst position when it comes to reflections. I've added an angled piece of glass to redirect sound-rays better, but I'm not sure of the consequences on room-modes, triple-leaf effects or other possible issues.

The first idea (1.pdf) is a concept including a control room with a drum booth connected to the front wall of the control room. This goes for both plans, but I'm not sure if the budget allows for new speakers for flush mounting them. There is a chance I'll have to work with my freestanding Focal Shape Twin's for a while (or indefinitely). Nonetheless, I would like to prepare the design for flush-mounting as a possibility in the future. In the floor plan you can see both options. When it comes to flush-mounting the monitors: I've extended the front baffle all the way across the front wall which results in a baffle middle section made from glass. I'm not entirely sure about this, because of triple leaf, etc. I'm trying to figure out how I can calculate the effects of such a construction, but I'm not there yet. Maybe there is another way of solving this. Before someone suggests a tv-screen with a camera, I really would like to have a glass window.

What I've tried to do in both versions is to design everything as compact as possible. Because of budget and available space reasons.

In terms of acoustics for the control room: the idea is to have 300mm porous absorption on the side walls, 500mm on the ceiling and 600mm on the back wall, with membrane traps in those partitions. The porous absorption at full depth should absorb at least 75% effective on everything above 100Hz and the membrane traps should even out the model response around and below 100Hz. Is this effective/sensible approach?

Well there is probably a lot more to be explained about the choices I've made in those plans, but I think it's best to leave it for here for now. I'm looking forward to your critical ideas, corrections, suggestions, etc.

i'd probably go with #1 and replace the idea of the window with video monitors. this way you can fully complete acoustics and your not restricted on visual communications between the booth and the control room - i.e. basically you can have a moveable tv , or people can use their laptops etc to all see and communicate to the booth and even vice versa. the #2 has a nice feature in the side window approach, and is also fine but i think the angle sides are less effective for acoustics without some additional treatments around them.
e.g. in this studio (in NYC) - the window is small so the amount of glass reflections are minimised.

PLG-88 wrote:Source of the post INTRODUCTION
In my spare time I'm a drummer and a little bit of a pianist/keyboardist/composer. I like to practice/compose and record my own music and once in a while I'm working with other musicians on projects. For a long time I would like to have a room which is suitable for my musical hobby. At the moment I'm in a rental apartment in which I have one room in use for my 'studio'. Due to the contract and other circumstances I've not been able to sound-isolate or acoustically optimize this room. Therefore, I can't play/practice/record my drumset at home which is one my biggest annoyances. I don't have a lot of time for my hobby and the time that is available is mostly in the late hours of the evening and in the weekends. Having to travel to external rental spaces (which are hardly available in this area anyway) in those late hours to be able to play is sometimes 'just to much'.

Hopefully my girlfriend and I will be able to buy a house in the upcoming months/years. Obviously this would be the ultimate opportunity to realize my 'dream': a sound-isolated and acoustically optimized room attached to our home. We don't have any concrete plans for a home at the moment, but when the time is there, I would like to be ready and have at least somewhat of a general 'generic' idea/plan what I'm about to do for my 'studio' room. Therefore, I would like to design some sort of mock-up studio to present on this forum. Hopefully I can incorporate your feedback and suggestions to make it the best room within my budget and the circumstances.

REQUIRMENTS
Fundamentally, there are two things I would like my studio to provide:
1. A sound isolated room in where I can play/practice/record my drums.
2. A acoustically optimized room for listening/mixing/composing music.

As I'm reading quite a bit about studio design and as I'm studying other peoples places I've been expanding my 'wish-list' exponentially to the point where I was envisioning a full-fletched recording facility. But the budget, the available space, time etc. are very scarce, and I've been telling myself that such a big space is not realistic at all. And quite frankly, it would be nice to own, but absolutely not necessary for me to fulfill my musical dreams.

I've been contemplating a lot about this future studio and these the main requirements/circumstances:

1. Studio-usage:
A. Practicing drums (1 person)
B. Recording drums (1 or 2 persons)
C. Composing (1 or 2 persons)
D. Recording/mixing (1 or 2 persons)
E. Practicing/playing piano/synths (2 persons)
F. Recording projects/songs of other musicians (2 persons)
G. Arranging/transcribing songs (1 person)

2. Sound-isolation:
In our area the plots for homes are relatively small. Therefore, in most cases a neighbor is most likely to be only 2,5 to a few meters away from the possible future studio. In the Netherlands between 23:00 and 7:00 the strictest/normative sound level is LAr,LT: 40dB(A) and LAmax: 60dB(A) measured at the facade of sound-sensitive buildings (such as homes). Also LAr,LT: 25dB(A) and LAmax: 45dB(A) measured 'in' those sound-sensitive buildings. On top of that there is a 'music-penalty' for noises with a music character of 10dB(A).

Me playing drums would be averaging somewhere between 105-115 dB(C). I will get better and more accurate measurements in the future, but for now I will calculate with 110 dB(C) (average level) and peak level 125 dB(C). I'm assuming 40-10(music penalty) = 30dB(A) as an average maximum level at the property-line. New homes (>2012) in the Netherlands are required to have DnT,A = 52dB. Therefore, if our potential new home will be in a fairly new neighborhood I also assume that the levels inside the neighbor homes won't be exceeded.

That leaves me with the following TL-requirements:
Average noise level dB(C): LAr,LT dB(A): LAr,LT dB(C): Required TL dB(C):
62,5Hz 100 30 55,4 44,6
125Hz 105 30 45,9 59,1
250Hz 110 30 38,6 71,4
500Hz 110 30 33,2 76,8
1000Hz 110 30 30 80,0
2000Hz 110 30 28,6 81,4
4000Hz 110 30 28,2 81,8
8000Hz 110 30 28,1 81,9

This is quite a steep required TL, but a double leaf (MAM) partition with sufficient weight on either side (maybe 3-4 layers of 12,5mm gypsum board and maybe combined with some dampening materials) and a large enough 'gap' between the masses (250-300mm or more) filled with insulation should be coming along quite a bit. Most possibly a decoupled heavy floating concrete slab is needed as well.

I will be playing in the late hours of an evening, so past 23:00 hours would not be an exception.

In regards to mixing and composing: I'm not monitoring excessive loud, 80-85 dB(C) is already quite loud for my standards, mostly I'm monitoring around 65-75 dB(C). I don't need extreme TL-requirements for monitoring, as I'm fine with turning the volume down or using headphones in the exceptional case.

In the above calculation I've been discussing the required 'external' TL towards a potential close-by neighbor, but these value's would also apply (more or less) to rooms 'within' our future house to not annoy my girlfriend and other possible future family-members.

I will go into the TL-requirements for the studio a little deeper in an upcoming post, as soon as I have better and more accurate measurements of my drum set noise. But this is a first start.

3. Lay-out
One very important thing for me is to have ample daylight and easy/direct access to the outdoors. I've been in studios with no daylight at all and I don't feel very well and creative in those spaces. I'm willing to trade off quality in acoustic response of the room for daylight if it comes to that.

Therefore I'm currently thinking of designing two rooms instead of having the drum set inside the control room: A highly isolated drum booth (live room) and adjacent room for composing/mixing/listening (control room) with a more 'standard' TL. The control room should have a door with glass towards the outdoors because I like to have an open door to the outside in springtime and summertime days when I'm composing or transcribing/arranging.

Having a separate drum booth ('live room') has some other advantages I like:
- Not having the resonances of the drum-shells and cymbals when mixing/composing/listening music.
- Being able to monitor more comfortably and accurately when recording other musicians because they are not in the same room.
- A smaller drum booth with a high TL is a little less expansive that when the whole control rooms needs a high TL.

Having a big piece of glass between the control and live room would be very nice to avoid the claustrophobic effect of small rooms and to aid communication between the rooms.

4. Acoustics
To be very clear: The control room does not necessarily have to be a critical listening room. If I can get it as flat as possible or close to the EBU standard, that would be very nice. I like the BNE concept. I have yet to study acoustic design's a lot more, but when it comes to the basic concept for the control room I'm thinking at the moment about something like this:
- A rectangular shell with to be determined measurements (obviously carefully looking at room modes/ Bonello, etc.). Because of very limited available space it won't be large. The inner-shell dimensions most likely will be something in the range of 2,6-3m (height), 3-4m (width) 4-5m (length/depth).
- A semi-reflective front wall baffle with possibly flush-mounted monitors.
- The side-walls and ceilings I would likely fill completely with 200-300mm porous broad-band absorption (100-150Hz and up) with strategically places membrane absorbers (for the LF absorption below 100-150Hz) behind the porous absorption (as close to the shell wall).
- The same broad-band/membrane trap combo for the back wall but maybe up to 500mm porous broad-band absorbtion for very deep trapping for more LF control. And if the distance allows it one ore two diffusers for some 'liveliness'.
- A RFZ with hopefully a large enough ISD-gap.

The hardest part would be fitting in the reflective glass towards the control room and towards the outsides. In the most ideal position those pieces of glass would be left and right from the LP, but obviously that position would mess up the RFZ. Maybe by angling the glass this could be avoided. To be determined/more on that later.

For the drum booth/live room:
- This room would have an inner dimension something approximating 2,6m height, 3m wide and 2,5-3,5m length.
- Acoustics: because of the small size: as dead as possible across the full spectrum.

SKILLSET
Due to budget reasons I will be building and designing the studio myself. I have ample design, CAD and Sketchup skills, adopted from my main profession. When it comes to my knowledge about studio design: I'm learning so please correct me if I'm making mistakes!
The following books are in my possession:

- MHoA - Everest and Pohlmann
- Recording Studio Design - Newell
- Acoustic Absorbers & Diffusers - Cox and D'Antonio
- Sound Reproduction - Toole
- Home Recording Studio - Gervais
- The Recording Manual - Sayers
- Guide to Acoustic Practice (BBC) - Rose
- Sound Studio Construction on a Budget - Everest

And also a lot of the online/digital BBC reports, the EBU stuff and all of the other stuff amongst which many of them are linked to this forum.

When it comes to my practical skills: with a lot of patience and time I can get a lot of things done.

BUDGET AND SCHEDULE
Budget is a little tricky: I think I can manage to finance the outer shells within the cost of the home itself. Things that have to be financed outside of that are the MAM isolated drum booth and the internal acoustics. I will make a more detailed list of the costs and determination between home and studio in the future.

Schedule: not applicable at the moment.

CONCLUSION
This is a start towards my studio design. I'm working on a global concept plan/sketch, hopefully I can finish this in the upcoming days. Obviously I will post that design in this topic. As you would probably have noticed the ideas are very course at the moment, but I'm hoping, as time goes by I will detail my plans more precisely. I would call this design a work in progress. Thanks for reading up until this point so far.

EDIT: I'm very busy at the moment and I will try to update this topic/reply to your suggestions/ideas as soon as possible. But I wanted to give a heads up that I could take a while in between posts.

Wow! I think you might unseat. me as the master of the first post. You've talked a lot of about TL and how you plan to use the space, So I have a few questions that might help guide you to the next step of design.

1. Do you have some sense of available square footage for the new space?
2. Is it possible to build your space in a basement?
3. You said budget is a constraint, but what is your starting point?

For context take a look at my build thread, Im working on 576 sqft, 2 room, studio and Im well into the $60k ball park, withouth even getting to finishing work or treatment yet. My isolation and TL requirements were also not as strict as yours. Something to consider.

All that said, John Sayers had a great base design for a 2 room studio that might be exactly what you need! Here it is:

Booth.skp: (819.38 KiB) Downloaded 572 times

Booth.skp: (819.38 KiB) Downloaded 572 times

Small_Studio.skp: (678.74 KiB) Downloaded 599 times

Small_Studio.skp: (678.74 KiB) Downloaded 599 times

gullfo wrote:Source of the post i'd probably go with #1 and replace the idea of the window with video monitors. this way you can fully complete acoustics and your not restricted on visual communications between the booth and the control room - i.e. basically you can have a moveable tv , or people can use their laptops etc to all see and communicate to the booth and even vice versa.

Thanks again for your time and your suggestion. I can see why a monitor and camera solves a lot of problems. But this is not something for me I'm afraid. In short, I'm trying to have less screen time in my life and therefore I would always go for a 'real' window over a monitor/camera. I also feel that a big window 'opens up' the space a little bit. More on that below in my reaction on eigthamrock's post.

gullfo wrote:Source of the post
the #2 has a nice feature in the side window approach, and is also fine but i think the angle sides are less effective for acoustics without some additional treatments around them.
e.g. in this studio (in NYC) - the window is small so the amount of glass reflections are minimised.

I really like this design a lot in terms of visibility between de booth and listening position. Thank you for this inspiring reference.
I'm not entirely sure what your mean by this:

gullfo wrote:Source of the postbut i think the angle sides are less effective for acoustics without some additional treatments around them.

Would you mind elaborating on this a bit more?

eightamrock wrote:Source of the post
Wow! I think you might unseat. me as the master of the first post. You've talked a lot of about TL and how you plan to use the space, So I have a few questions that might help guide you to the next step of design.

1. Do you have some sense of available square footage for the new space?
2. Is it possible to build your space in a basement?
3. You said budget is a constraint, but what is your starting point?

For context take a look at my build thread, Im working on 576 sqft, 2 room, studio and Im well into the $60k ball park, withouth even getting to finishing work or treatment yet. My isolation and TL requirements were also not as strict as yours. Something to consider.

All that said, John Sayers had a great base design for a 2 room studio that might be exactly what you need! Here it is: Booth.skp
Small_Studio.skp

Hi eigthamrock,

Thanks for your reply. I've skimmed over your thread and design process and what it looks like is that there are some similarities between our projects, other than that my future studio is a bit smaller en connected to our future main house. I enjoyed reading your thread and watching your Sketch-Up screenshots.

To answer the questions you posed:
1. Do you have some sense of available square footage for the new space?
Yes, currently I'm using a room in our apartment that is roughly 11m2 (≈118ft2). No treatment and no isolation. This room is a little too small, as everything is in this room. Also no room for treatment and double leaf wall constructions. Therefore, in my new 'studio' I would like to have an isolated booth (mainly for drums, but occasionally also for vocals, guitar/bass(amps), etc and a separate 'control' room. Having effective 11m2 (≈118ft2) floor space for a control room would be enough in terms of practical usable space if the drumkit and storage are outside this room.

At the moment we are looking at a plot which is roughly 400m2 (≈4300ft2) On this will be our main house which has a ground floor plan of around 82m2 (≈882ft2)with an added addition/attachment of 45-60m2(≈485-645ft2). In this 45-60m2 attachment will be the studio and a storage room for bicycles and garden tools. All of the aforementioned square meters are flexible as we are still in the very early stages of the design process, but I'm forced to go with the most compact design I can get due to budget and also planning/architectural design reasons. Also I have to consider proportionality, which is something I go into in the bottom of this post.
So, this and the designs I've posted earlier give an impression of the available space.

2. Is it possible to build your space in a basement?
No, this is not a sensible option due to the high groundwater level, and even if it was I would not want to. For me it is very important that the future studio does have a connection with the outside world. Most of the Netherlands is as flat as a pancake, so no slopes to build into. I want to be able to see the sunshine/rain/weather, ideally from the listening position and the (drum) booth. So if I can have as much windows/doors I would be really happy. Obviously this in direct conflict with the room acoustics, but I'm willing to trade in some acoustical performance for a more 'open' studio if that would be necessary. But, hopefully I can find the ideal compromise. Ultimately, this studio would be more a like a 'creative' space than a high performance mix room and I'm personally not really inspired to be creative in a 'sealed bunker'.

3. You said budget is a constraint, but what is your starting point?
The most realistic scenario that I've calculated is this: The exterior (floors, walls and ceilings) of the studio wil be financed by the mortgage of the house, like as it would be an extra room in the house. I've run several extensive calculations and if I can be conservative in floor area this is feasible. What needs to be financed outside of that is the acoustics in both the control room and booth, any electrical and HVAC considerations above what would be standard in a 'normal' room. And also the extra thick/heavy glass/doors, etc. For those things I have a starting budget of around 10.000 euro.

Coming back to the proportionality aspect of this. I'm just a hobbyist chasing a dream space for my music ambitions (who is not?

). I can see that the studio will be used for more than just me and my musician friends hobby projects in the future, but this is not something I'm currently aiming at. All of this has to fit into a family home with a budget that I've saved over the years. For us owning a home is already a big step in our lives considering our social-economical situation, let alone the fact that I would be able to build and own something like I'm trying to design in this thread.

The list of studio-usage in my opening post was listed in order with the most prioritised use on top. So having an isolated booth for me to play drums is already a big step from where I'm now. If it comes down to it, because of insufficient budget, or if the available space is to small, I'm happy to setup the drumkit in the control room and making this room a high isolated room. But I'm trying to squeeze in the control room/drum booth option as that would cover my 'needs' the best. Also, considering I'm composing/mixing in an untreated room at the moment: everything better than this room would be an upgrade. Me trying to get close to EBU standards is luxury at the least. And to be honest, my untreated apartment room is not the factor that is holding me back me being a better musician. (not having a isolated drum booth is from time to time). Therefore: a balanced control room is something that would be nice and if I'm building from scratch anyway, let's try to get the most out of it!

Thank you for the John Sayers Sketch-Up files. I will look into them!

on the window size & acoustics - it's a solid reflective surface. even angled. and it's just one of many trade-offs to make. i've done large studios (like Red Bull NYC) with huge glass walls - and some things are compromises because of other requirements (e.g. visually stunning and great for PR for example overriding acoustic choices), others where we can add scattering / diffraction plates over the glass (which can obstruct the view partially - but the viewing was secondary to just some daylight and outdoor views).

in your case, you want the visibility into the booth from the control room and i think from a critical listening #1 will be better. then again, who is looking through the glass at what point of the production?

Based on your responses, budget, and other considerations you presented, I would HIGHLY recommend considering a single room studio design. Here is why:

1. Purely cost, 10.000 euros will not go very far even if you are doing all the (studio) work yourself. When you do more than 1 room, the costs start to exponentially grow. More doors, more glass, more drywall, more wood, more caulk... so so so much caulk, HVAC, fresh air, insulation, treatment... the list goes on.

2. Isolation, if youve never done a project like this before you will learn quickly that isolating one space is hard. It will be much easier to isolate a single room than multiple rooms. You will have a greater chance of success if you focus on a single space.

3. Flexibility. A single room can be a great tracking room and a great mixing room if you do it right. Ask Endorka! If you want to jam with your friends and write music together, doing so in one room is even better than doing so through a window.

4. Floor space: What you outlined is not great for either function on its on, a small iso room, and a small mix space are just that... small. One big room will be easier to treat and make sound good and maximizes space for Drums, keyboards, guitar amps, and... chairs? You want people to sit at some point. I would imagine.

All of the above said, I was trying to do something just like you. I wanted to squeeze a multiroom studio into 500sqft, and what I found was once you started to take into account the depth of double wall assemblies, the space you need to open doors, and all of the other things you want to be able to do... it got small fast. For me, I cut 4 rooms to 2 rooms and really prioritized what I wanted from the space, which for me was an inspiring place to write and play with a side of recording.

I would at least do some research on one room studios. Given that you are buying/building a new home and that is already financially straining you, a 2 room studio with high isolation may not be something you can do now.

eightamrock wrote:Source of the post Based on your responses, budget, and other considerations you presented, I would HIGHLY recommend considering a single room studio design. Here is why:

Thanks for your recommendation. Your absolutely right about that a single room might seem to be more feasible at this point, and to be honest: I've been in doubt about the booth as well for lack of space reasons. You've mentioned a few advantages for a single room, here are my reasons for why I'm not letting go the idea for a separate (drum) booth just yet:

1. Drumset resonances in the control room.
My biggest problem: Cymbals and shells are resonating, especially at frequencies that match their own resonance frequencies. This is at the very least quite annoying in a listening room. Sometimes it feels that there are long reverb's on a track whilst it is a resonating cymbal/drum. Having to bring the drumset in and out of the control room regularly is not practical.

2. Isolation and costs.
For the control room, other than acoustics and the room ratio's, I'm going to approach it as just any other room in the house. I'm not planning on any special TL for the control room. I'm fine monitoring on low levels or having to use a headphone occasionally. Because I like/need a lot of natural light and accessibility to the garden, the absence of a double-leaf-high-isolation massive construction in the control room makes it a lot cheaper to introduce windows and doors in this room. Also, standard HVAC principles (as in the rest of the house) would apply here, no muffling/dampening of ventilation ducting. Maximum two people (or very rarely three) would work in this control room. 90% of the time it is just me. So the only cost for this room are the acoustical measures. The drum booth would need a high transmission loss construction, but it's a relative small room, with 'only' one window and one door.

If I would go for a single room concept the consequences would be that:
- The single control/recording room needs to be bigger compared to the current planned size of the room to physically accommodate the drumset in the back of the room.
- The currently planned control room is already bigger than the booth, let alone the 'single room' version. So a room which is about as twice as big as the current planned booth needs to be sound-isolated, which also costs twice as much.
- More doors and windows need to be sound-isolated.
So my initial feeling is that the ultimate cost of both options would not differ that much. My initial thought was that by taking apart the high isolated 'needs' and placing them in a separate booth would be even more cost efficient, but I could be wrong about that.

3. Acoustics
I know that small rooms are not ideal from an acoustic point of view. I'm not looking for the 'perfect' acoustical room. I'm trying to plan the most efficiënt room for my budget and available space.

I'm willing to compromise on acoustics knowing that I don't have much space. For the control room I'm aiming for EBU standards, but I know I won't be able to meet that standard. The minimum floor area for an EBU reference listening room is 40m2, so that's one of the first requirements from the top of my head I'm unable to meet. There are unmistakably more. The goal is to achieve a reasonable 'balanced' control room. I've allocated a generous amount of space for acoustic measures to hopefully achieve that. For the drum booth I'm basically aiming in the same direction: somewhat of a 'dead' room, balanced across the frequency spectrum. On this level of home 'studio' I'm not expecting to get a decent 'room sound'. So my thought was: having a small booth which is in principle as 'anechoic' as I can reasonably get it, might just be the next best thing.

4. Monitoring
I'm planning on using the studio to record other musical projects outside of my own as well. Having the artist isolated from the control room is so much more comfortable for monitoring and decision making. I've been recording bands (mostly our own, but others as well) for quite a while, and it's always somewhat guessing if the material sounds ok in a room where you have to monitor and perform at the same time. Also, even with in-ears or other high isolated headphones, you still need to monitor relatively loud to overpower the ambient noise. I'm really not comfortable with that.

There are a few other considerations, but the reasons mentioned above are my arguments to try and fit the separate booth in. I do get your points and I think they are reasonable as well. I'm not trying to argue but I wanted to show my thoughts in this decision. Honestly, it isn't acoustics, costs or monitoring, it's available floor area in ratio with the rest of the home that is ultimately going to decide what I'm going to do.

What I like to make clear is that I'm aiming pretty high to squeeze the most efficient studio out of this project, but if, hypothetically speaking, you would put an isolated (modular) drumbooth next to the room I'm currently using and do some basic treatment in my current room, 95% of my needs are met. And this is definitely doable in terms of the 10.000 euro budget. It's not realistic as there is no room for such a modular booth in our current apartment, besides the structural, contractual and other limitations. And modular drum booths both's don't have the TL I need. And we are going to move to a new home soon anyway... But it gives an idea about the extend of my 'needs' or wishes in this project.

I've been trying to optimise design 'number 2' from earlier in this thread. Mostly as I feel this design comes closest to my requirements in my opening post and feels somewhat realistic in terms of available space. Here is an overview:

One of the things I did, trying to improve this design, is that I placed angled pieces of glass to redirect reflections away from the RFZ. I've tried to apply some rudimental ray tracing and I'm not entirely sure I'm doing things right, but it seems that almost every reflection doesn't enter the RFZ within 15ms (blue lines). There are a few reflections from the back that are entering the RFZ after 15ms (the greens lines) but those are heavily reduced by the back wall or they have been diffused by the diffuser (also returning after 15ms).

There is still a small zone that reflects into the RFZ (red lines) within 15ms, but I can think I can deal with that by further adjusting the position and angles of the pieces of glass. I will also try to this in the vertical plane in the near future to detect any possible problems in that dimension.

Ideally, if I can make these rooms a little smaller than they are now (yes, I know even smaller) this design should be in ratio with the rest of the home and therefore feasible from that point of view. I'm going to try and find space in this design to further improve on that without trying to compromise on acoustics and practical space. Although I also think that this is already a quite efficiënt floor plan in terms of space, so I'm not sure I will be able to do that.

Other things I did: I chamfered the inside of the drum booth porous absorption in the corners for deeper trapping. And I did move around some doors/windows/trapping, etc.

I'm hoping I'm doing things roughly in the right direction. If I'm making fundamental mistakes, please let me know. Thanks for your time.

gullfo wrote:Source of the post on the window size & acoustics - it's a solid reflective surface. even angled. and it's just one of many trade-offs to make. i've done large studios (like Red Bull NYC) with huge glass walls - and some things are compromises because of other requirements (e.g. visually stunning and great for PR for example overriding acoustic choices), others where we can add scattering / diffraction plates over the glass (which can obstruct the view partially - but the viewing was secondary to just some daylight and outdoor views).

Is this the studio you've designed? If it is: it looks amazing. I know we are all about the acoustics, but those huge glass walls opens up the space quite nicely. I'm curious what those vertical column of wedges near the glass are for.

yes i was one of three designers on that project plus the construction consultant. the units on either side of the wall are acoustic treatments which are basically a set of damped and undamped triangles on a box. there is a matching set on either side of the seating dais as well.
the large windows (4 of them) had to be lowered in via a cut away on the street side. 1" thick x 4 laminated layers. the original ones where cut 2" too short (length wise) so had to be removed and news ones brought in. the reason is the framing to support them was welded steel and couldn't be changed without a lot of other rework.

It has been a while since I last posted in this thread. I won't bother you with any details, but in short: we still don't have a house, and therefore no studio. The ongoing housing 'crisis' in the Netherlands, worsened by the absurd and unexplainable spatial planning policies by local governments did not help us in finding a suitable home/plot for our family home and studio this year. However, there are a few potential projects in development were there is a small possibility for us to obtain a plot and realise our plans. The point of attention with most of these potential projects is that we have to build ultra-compact and most likely bio-based/vapour permeable.

In my earlier post I've been steering my design towards two rooms: an isolated drum booth and a control-/composing room. I've stated my reasons for this choice earlier. Another reason for a two room concept that came to me last year is that I can design the outer wall construction of the control-/composing room in the same way as the outer wall construction of the main home: bio-based and vapour permeable, since this room doesn't necessarily require a double leaf construction. A two leaf construction is in direct conflict with the basic principles of a vapour permeable/bio-based construction. The drum booth obviously does need a two leaf wall assembly, so therefore a two room design is also very ideal in this regard as I can apply the optimised outer wall assembly at least for de control room.

But (some members already suggested this) with the two room option I have to divide the available space between two rooms, resulting in two relative small rooms, instead of one lager room, ultimately compromising acoustics. In the earlier design concepts I've shared in this topic I thought to have found some sort of sweet spot in terms of practical usage, acoustical performance and available space. But as the information and characteristics of potential future projects become more clear I have to seriously consider a one room solution. The reason for this is purely based on the fact that most likely I won't have the available space for the two room option.

I won't give up very easily and the two room option is quite important for me, so I will be trying to shrink both rooms a little more in other to minimise my needed surface area for the studio. But I also allow for the situation where a two room option isn't a feasible option. However, my biggest concern for a single room design is having my drumset in the same room where I'm monitoring/mixing/composing.

Every drum and cymbal of my drumset will resonate with certain frequencies for the monitors. This seriously influences the sound image in the room, which is a shame for all the effort to hopefully design and build an acoustically good room. This is my biggest concern and I wonder what your thoughts are on this. To be clear it is not an option to move to drumset in and out the room all the time.

one simple approach which has worked in any number of small mix/record rooms - put a packing blanket over the kit when not in use. this keeps dust off the kit and does a pretty good job of damping the kit. maybe a couple of blankets. one person i know made covers for each drum and a blanket over the cymbals. all depends on the frequency of playing vs mixing and level of effort you want to put into this.

Soundman2020 - Studio Design Forum

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio

Designing my future home studio