John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello, all. Just want to start by saying that I have an unspeakable amount of respect for all the contributors here. I've been dreaming up my studio for about a year now, and this community has been incredibly valuable to me in the research/education department. First time posting here.

About my project, in Nashville TN.
Building is an unfinished, detached garage on a concrete slab. Four wall dimensions are 29.5' x 26' x 8' (9m x 7.9m x 2.4m). The roof is vaulted to a maximum height of 12.25' (3.7m).

I am working with a very talented designer/contractor in my area who designs and builds studios professionally. He does so on a "cost plus" basis, so I'm here for options and other input.

The designer is talking about doing a box-in-box, dual leaf, mass air mass design all the way around, which is necessary for me in my residential neighborhood. The closest house to the studio (besides mine) is about 50 feet or 15 meters. The studio will be used to record and mix live drums, guitars, and whatever else you can imagine.

Please see attached photo of the truss. Also, in case this helps, my target budget for the entire project, including adding a bathroom, control room, live room, vocal booth, and a closet, is $50,000.

My question for you all is about the roof truss, and what our options are. My current understanding is that I can either A) hang flat ceilings which will inevitably come down from 8 feet, or B) use vaulted ceilings, which will require complete removal/replacement of the truss system, and could be an engineering nightmare. Can anyone provide some wisdom from experience on trusses of this kind, and how you were able to achieve vaulted ceilings with mass-air-mass design, without completely tearing off the roof? Are these my only options?

Thanks in advance!

edited for clarity.

Hi Thomas, and Welcome to the mad house... err ... I mean forum!

Congratulations on your decision to build your studio. Get ready for the ride of your life!

However, he does so on a "cost plus" basis, meaning that he's not necessarily incentivized to keep costs low.

Hang on a sec.... so he's both the designer AND the contractor? Perhaps not a good decision.... The designer should not have a financial stake in building the place any more than that contractor should have a financial stake in designing it.. Or maybe I misunderstood your "cost plus" comment?

The designer is talking about doing a box-in-box, dual leaf, mass air mass design all the way around, which is necessary for me in my residential neighborhood

Correct. But what's the goal here? You must have agreed on a number: How much isolation will you be getting, in decibels, based on the agreement you have with the designer and the contractor?

Also, in case this helps, my target budget for the entire project, including adding a bathroom, control room, live room, vocal booth, and a closet, is $50,000.

This sounds very much like a studio I designed for one of your neighbors (roughly speaking) last year, and which is now currently under construction, also in Nashville, and probably not too far from where you are. Similar budget, similar size, similar brief. So I should probably warn you that 50k is a bit on the low side for what you want to do. You will need to save at every possible point in the process, so if there's someone involved that isn't reined in to your budget, you might want to consider re-defining the terms of your agreement. You cannot allow any cost blow-outs here, since your budget is very, very tight.

My current understanding is that I can either A) hang flat ceilings which will inevitably come down from 8 feet, or B) use vaulted ceilings, which will require complete removal/replacement of the truss system, and could be an engineering nightmare...

Or you could d C) Install a ridge beam, and re-build your trusses in place as raised tie or "collar tie" trusses, without taking off the roof...

The photos below are from a studio I designed a few years back for a customer in LA, where we needed to exactly that: Garage with a low ceiling, where we needed more height:
That's the original roof, exactly as it was before we started. Typical roof truss system.


That's what it looks like after we re-did the trusses as collar-tie, and put in the ridge beam to take the weight.


That's the ridge beam and the re-worked trusses.

By doing this, I was able to gain quite a lot of extra height, then by carefully designing the ends of the rooms and the HVAC system to fit in under that we ended up with a pretty decent studio. Control room, iso booth, bathroom, lobby, and closet. Pretty much what you need to do.

Can anyone provide some wisdom from experience on trusses of this kind, and how you were able to achieve vaulted ceilings with mass-air-mass design, without completely tearing off the roof?

The roof deck itself still needs to be vented, so the actual roof cannot be used as much of a leaf. Therefore you are stuck with having a three-leaf ceiling system, where the roof is still the outer-leaf technically, but the real magic is done by the "middle" leaf, which sits on the underside of the trusses. In effect, that becomes your "real" outer leaf.

Yes, it is 3-leaf, but you don't have a choice, and it's not the kiss of death. By carefully designing and calculating, compensating for the lost isolation with some handy "tricks", you can still get very decent isolation.

Are these my only options?

Nope! There are other options, such as what I did for the customer in LA. It worked out great for him. I'm using a similar system for the current build in Nashville, but that's being built from the ground up as a purpose-designed studio, so it's not quite the same as your situation. (Also, it's a shed roof, not a gabled roof, for aesthetic reasons). But I'm also using a 3-leaf ceiling system on that, due to the need for a ventilate roof deck.

I have also used the same system on yet another studio, in northern California, which is also a ground-up build, but is a gabled roof, like yours.

So yes, there are options, and good design will get you through to a good result. As long as you have a good designer, who is looking our for your best interests!


- Stuart -

Thanks for the reply, Stuart.

Or you could d C) Install a ridge beam, and re-build your trusses in place as raised tie or "collar tie" trusses, without taking off the roof...

This is what I was looking for! I need to find a structural engineer who can help design this for my building.

To clarify, does your ceiling go up to the collar ties to create a flat ceiling, but higher than it was before? Or are the ties structural only, and are you able to install drywall layers above the ties?

Thanks again!

Drywall is nailed to the bottom edges of those truss members, thus creating the "middle" leaf of the three-leaf MSMSM system. The walls are normal 2-leaf MSM walls, but the ceiling is 3-leaf, with that middle leaf effectively completing the outer "shell" of the isolation system. Actually, it wasn't just drywall in this case: first a layer of plywood went up, directly on the bottom of the truss members, then two layers of drywall were nailed onto that, with Green Glue CLD compound in between. Like this:
That's from part of the original design concept, viewed from above, looking down on the roof as if there were no roof deck. You can see the plywood on the bottom of the trusses, and the drywall below that.

I couldn't find many photos of the completed middle-leaf ceiling, but here's one taken later in the build, where you can just see part of it right at the top edge. All of the framing and OSB you see there is actually the inner-leaf of the control room, partly built. That photo is taken roughly from the mix position, looking towards the back of the room, and you can see a bit of the middle-leaf ceiling above that, at the top edge of the photo.

Here's some photos from a different studio I did a while back, much larger than the one above. Same concept:

First, just the trusses in place, before the roof went on:


Then with the roof completed and the trusses still exposed:


Then with the first layer of sheathing on (OSB in this case):


And finally completed, with the drywall on as well (and part of the inner-leaf wall being raised):

It should be clear form the above that the middle-leaf ceiling on the bottom of the trusses completes the shell, and then you build your individual rooms inside that shell, each as it's own single-leaf structure that does not touch any of that outer shell at all.

In other words, each room is built as a separate, stand-alone frame, consisting of the walls AND the ceiling for that room, with drywall on only one side of that framing. Each room is fully independent, has its own walls and it's own ceiling, does not touch the outer-leaf walls or middle-leaf ceiling at any point, and does not touch any other room.

This is what I was looking for! I need to find a structural engineer who can help design this for my building.

Actually, it's your studio designer who should design that part! It's an acoustic system, so the studio designer should do it. Then the structural engineer should check it, make sure it is safe, make sure it meets code, etc. Then the architect should draw up the plans for presenting to the relevant authorities, along with the structural engineer's signed report. Then once that is approved, you can hand it all over to the contractor, who will actually build it.

You seem to be confusing the issues here: ONLY the designer should do the actual design for the complete studio, and that design should include everything: all of the walls, doors, windows, ceilings, floors, the HVAC system, the electrical system, and everything else that is even vaguely related to isolation or acoustics. That's what the designer does. Not the architect, not the engineer, not the contractor. Once the design is complete, in every aspect, it goes to the architect and engineer, who check the structural and code compliance aspects, and create the drawings. In your case, the design will also need to go to the HVAC contractor, so he can check the calculations (flow rates, flow speeds, static pressure, sensible heat load, latent heat load, climate conditions, AHU, HRV (if there is one), etc.) and make sure it will all work. And it will also need to go to the electrical contractor for checking, and also the plumbing contractor. All of them need to see the design, and make sure that there are are no issues with it, then it goes to the architect and engineer. There's a whole process here. I'm surprised that either your general contractor or your studio designer didn't mention this in the initial meetings you had with them. That's part of their job! to coordinate the build. Perhaps your GC does not have much experience with recording studios? Or maybe your studio designer isn't too familiar with the actual build process? Either way, I'm sensing some little red flags here, waving warnings about future issues with your build.... not necessarily technical issues, but coordination and work duplication issues...

At the risk of overkill, let me clarify again: It is the job of the studio designer to do the ENTIRE design of the complete building, including all aspects. The contractor is NOT involved in this. Neither is the architect, engineer, or anyone else. The designer will probably be talking to them along the way, but it's the DESIGNER'S gig. Once the initial design is complete, it goes to the architect and structural engineer, who will check for safety, structural issues, code compliance, etc. The architect then draws up the plans, and those go to the electrical guy, HVAC guy, framer, plumber, etc. for comment and suggestions. The drawings then need to go back the designer for double checking, to make sure nobody screwed up the acoustics with the modifications, and when all issues have been dealt with, the drawings and other documentation go to your relevant local authorities for their rubber stamps and permits. Only then do the contractors get to start work.

The studio designer is the central hub of the process, simply because the entire purpose of the project is to have a studio! And since studios are nothing at all like normal construction, the designer will also need to be "looking over the shoulders" of the various contractors during the build, to make sure they really are following the design, and not cutting corners or screwing up in other ways. Nobody else on the team understands acoustics, so nobody else will be able to determine if things are being done right. It doesn't take much to totally trash the isolation of a studio: one gap that wasn't sealed properly, or a nail in the wrong place, or a wrong wall penetration, will all cost you dearly. Typical contractors don't know or care about that, because it isn't important when they build a normal house, shop, office, school, etc. But it is critical for a studio.

Hopefully you already knew all of that, but it doesn't hurt to check!

- Stuart -

Thanks again for the info! An update for you, and a question or two...

My designer and I have decided to install a massive ridge beam and add supports to the rafters. We're in talks with an engineer now about removing the trusses altogether. This will definitely be the most expensive portion of the build, but well worth it!

As we are nearing the end of the design phase, headed into the beginning of construction -- I have an embarrassing question. Does my existing siding count as a leaf? Up until now I had been planning on installing two layers of drywall which would make the layers from outside to in: siding on outside of frame 1 > drywall on inside of frame 1 > air gap > drywall on inside of frame 2. I'm now wondering if I should only do one layer of drywall. As in: siding on outside of frame 1 > air gap > drywall on inside of frame 2. Thoughts? I hope that's understandable...

Thanks again!

Does my existing siding count as a leaf? Up until now I had been planning on installing two layers of drywall which would make the layers from outside to in: siding on outside of frame 1 > drywall on inside of frame 1 > air gap > drywall on inside of frame 2.

I doubt that it is just siding by itself, with nothing behind it! Siding is usually put on top of something that is on the outer side of the studs: Often that's OSB on the studs, then Tyvek, then perhaps battens, and only then the siding. If that's the case, then yes, all of that "stuff" on the outside of the studs does indeed constitute a leaf. In which case, you need to take the drywall of the inside face of those studs, leaving the sheathing (OSB, siding, etc.) only on the outside of the studs. Also in that case, you'll probably need to "beef up" the mass of that outer leaf, by adding strips of drywall to it, in between the studs. There are quite a few examples of that from many forum members. It's a common thing to do when you need good isolation and want to avoid a 3-leaf situation.


So in this case, you would have something like this, from outside to inside: siding - battens - tyvek - OSB - drywall strips between the studs of frame 1 - stud bays on frame 1 filled with insulation - gap to stud frame 2 - stud bays on frame 2 filled with insulation - two layers of drywall on far side of stud frame 2.

That's more or less what you were describing, I think, but re-stated in a different way. That gives you a true 2-leaf MSM system, with good isolation.

- Stuart -

Stuart - thanks again, my friend! "Strips of drywall" in the stud bays is exactly what I was thinking. There's currently no drywall in the building so luckily I don't have to remove any. Do we like 1/2" drywall for the strips? And for the inner wall, I may do 2 layers of 1/2", or maybe just one layer of 5/8". I am assuming we like two layers better so we can stagger the seams. Does that sound right?

Do we like 1/2" drywall for the strips? And for the inner wall, I may do 2 layers of 1/2", or maybe just one layer of 5/8". I am assuming we like two layers better so we can stagger the seams. Does that sound right?

I would use 5/8 for everything, for the increased mass, and yes, two layers on the inner-leaf with staggered joints. And caulk everything!

- Stuart -