John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello everyone!

I’m planning to build a home studio in my basement by myself.
I might start in April or May 2020. Not for a commercial use, but I’d like to be able to record bands of every style (which includes metal and its double bass pedal and low bass guitar) to give the opportunity to young bands to have a decent record to go further. I’d like to know if what I plan on doing so far makes sense.

The studio will be in France. The closest road is 100 metres away (328 feet), and we cannot hear neighbors in the basement, despite one house being almost stuck to mine. They can’t hear noises from the basement either.

The budget for the construction is about 10 000 €.

The basement is made with a concrete slab for the floor, the walls are concrete blocks that I can’t take down.
The ceiling is low (225 cm / 7’4’’ ) and made in concrete too.

Concerning the sound levels : when I play music at 120 dB, the level upstairs is 50 dB. No sound can be heard outside but near the ventilation.

I know I will need a lot of insulation, and I’d like for the people on the ground floor not to be able to hear (or not much) what goes on in the studio (if that’ possible).

Here are some pictures and the plans:



My first thoughts were to separate the spaces like that:


The brown lines would be the future walls (2 layers of drywall) , the yellow ones are the mineral wool.
The future ceiling will be a suspended one made with drywall too ; one layer of drywall plus one layer of fermacell with green glue between them. I plan on losing 10 cm, and have a final height of 215 cm (7,05’)
I’m thinking about leaving the floor as it is (a concrete slab that I’ll clean). As you can see on the picture, there is a sewage pipe across the ceiling. I plan to sound-proof it in a box of drywall (same as the ceiling) filled with mineral wool.

According to this plan the control room would be a little less than 9 m2 / 29,5 sq feet
the live room would be about 30 m2 / 98,5 sq feet
the booth would be about 3,5 m2 / 11,5 sq feet

The long room on the left/west side will not be sound proofed as it will not be in use in the studio (but for storage and AC outlet pipes).

Still on the west side, there is the 13 m2 / 42’ « buffer room » completely filled with sand. It’s the side of the house that is near the neighbor’s house. This neighbor doesn’t have a basement, but a garage on the first floor.
The hallway next to the stairs will not be sound-proofed either, but it will have one or two sound-proofed doors next to the live room and one up the stairs.

I’ve checked out many threads on this forum and I think that what I did is the best I can do for now.
I know the control room will be very small, my biggest concern is to know if building it in this small room is good, or if I need to cut the live room and add the control room in it. I’m not afraid to fill it with a lot of bass trapping (and I will have no other option whatsoever).
According to https://amcoustics.com/tools/amroc?l=31 ... -%20Studio such a little control room could fit in the « bolt area »

Cutting the live room to add a control in it would result in 4 little rooms, with a pretty small live room, so it is maybe not a very good idea either…

Either way, I don’t have any design for the control room yet, I’ll keep you updated. I think I’ll try to do something like this :
Still about the control room: I’ll have a pair of Adam S2V speakers, and a sub if needed (not bought already). I didn’t plan to soffit mount hem, I have seen only a few people soffit mounting active monitors, I’m afraid they will overheat if I do so.
I didn't test the control room in REW as there is no floor at the moment (I'll build a wood floor) and no door, do I need to do so now?


As you can see I have the possibility to have a small « booth », is it worth it in that little space? I don’t plan to close it with a door, but with panels that I can move.


Another question is about the plenum : I have the possibility to air it, but do I need to do so ? I have seen some people doing it, other don’t mention it.

So if you think about something more efficient, or more logical let me know!

I’m not a native English speaker, so sorry if I made some mistakes, and thank you very much for your help!

Greg

Welcome!

Can you please completely fill out your profile?

Your proposed control room is pretty small and essentially square. I would suggest maybe using your big live room as a multipurpose room. You could make that smaller room into a booth. Your proposed booth is literally the size of a hallway and will sound bad. I would personally use that for storage or maybe a spot for an air handler or something.

Greg

Hello! thank you for your reply!

So I’ve a bit updated my profile, but I can’t fill it more as I don’t have any messenger nor a website, tell me what I need to add as I seem to be missing something here, thanks!

I agree for the booth, it will probably be a storage space.

About the control room: I was planning to re shape it in a less squared size, more like the inner walls of this plan:
Is this something I can’t do because of the actual size and shape of the room?

If I had to cut the big room, I would approximatively have a 15 m2 control room (49 sq').

The live room would be 20 m2 + 9m2 (65 + 9 sq’) but with partial walls that will « cut » the room.

Could that work out?

I’d also have to deal with the doors in the control room:
the door leading to the hallway could be part of the control rooms acoustic treatment
the doors leading to the storages (especially the bottom one) would be more difficult to deal with.

What it could look like:

Thank you for your help!

In the SketchUp drawing you posted, the square outer frame would be the inner leaf of the room. All of the angled framing wouldn't have sheathing on it as it would be the room treatment. The front half of the room would have a hard surface to achieve a RFZ control room. I hope that makes sense to you. If not, let me know so I can clarify it. Your bottom most picture results in a control room not much bigger than your little square room. Again, unless you're dead set on having designated rooms, I would suggest playing around with the idea of having a large multi-purpose room.

Greg

OK, thank you for your answer (and sorry for my late reply).

I misread your first answer and thought you meant I should divide the larger room into 2 closed spaces, instead of having a much larger control room in which I would have to record musicians and mix.

Indeed, I’m not sure I understand correctly what you’re saying about the inner leaf.

Maybe my sketchup drawing wasn’t clear. To me, the outer leaf would be the walls made with concrete blocks and the inner leaf would be the walls made with drywall. The room treatment would have been: bass traps, diffusors etc.

Thanks for your help !

Hi Gregp,

What Greg means about the framing is this: build your control room as a rectangle, don't angle any of your walls. Your isolation should be built first and then build your acoustic treatments within the rectangle.

The angled walls that have your speakers mounted within them are not sealed and airtight. These are framed and built within the shell of your room, they don't form part of your isolated room.

Use your concrete walls as the outer leaf and then add framing for internal walls within this. Place low density insulation between the framing and concrete walls. Board this internal framing with plasterboard etc (inside out or regular). This is what isolates your room.

The RFZ angled walls for your speakers are framed and attached to your internal walls.

Does that help you?

Dan

Hello Dan, thank you for your reply.

It helped me to clarify it all indeed : we’re on the same page but the language and internet barrier got in the way

I’m gonna work on it, and will be back to you when I need help again.

Thank you !