John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hey all,
New here, and first post.

I am just entering into research and design of a potential new studio. It will be from the ground up on some property just outside of Nashville, TN. I've got a potential large investor to fund this, so the budget is pretty open right now. Looking for peoples take on the design I currently have.
Details:
The main studio will have an over all outer shell cinder block wall of ~ 62' x 32' x 20'
Live Room height: 17' on far side, sloping to 15' on near
Drum ISO height: 15' with adjustable ceiling down to 10'
Misc ISO height: 12'
ISO height: 10'
Amp Hall height: 10'
Control room height: 14' at near end, sloping to 10' at glass

Main clients are rock/country genre
I will be mixing on an SSL Origin at ~85db on ATC SCM45A's as my nearfields
We have a whole slew of outboard that is planned to be in an island behind the mix position or in a wall pocket.
The two foot indent at the back of the control room is for 2' of bass traps.
Back half of the control room will be on a 8" raised floor.

All floors will be floating and each room isolated from each other on their own slab with 4" between any internal wall and the external structure.

Facilities will be in the forest in the outskirts of Nashville.

the second half of the studio is mainly dedicated to housing for the artists, along with an instrument storage section and a loading bay for easy access to the live room

Budget as is for the building is ~600k, but this is fluid and can be changed if need be.

I am sure I am missing some info here, so feel free to let me know.
Just looking for any suggestions as to how to better lay out the facility
Once we are further into the design process, we will be bringing a full acoustic design and treatment company on board, more than likely, but I'd like to go into this with some sort of plan!

ryan.d.langemeier wrote:Hey all,
New here, and first post.

I am just entering into research and design of a potential new studio. It will be from the ground up on some property just outside of Nashville, TN. I've got a potential large investor to fund this, so the budget is pretty open right now. Looking for peoples take on the design I currently have.

Studio Plan.jpg

Details:
The main studio will have an over all outer shell cinder block wall of ~ 62' x 32' x 20'
Live Room height: 17' on far side, sloping to 15' on near
Drum ISO height: 15' with adjustable ceiling down to 10'
Misc ISO height: 12'
ISO height: 10'
Amp Hall height: 10'
Control room height: 14' at near end, sloping to 10' at glass

Main clients are rock/country genre
I will be mixing on an SSL Origin at ~85db on ATC SCM45A's as my nearfields
We have a whole slew of outboard that is planned to be in an island behind the mix position or in a wall pocket.
The two foot indent at the back of the control room is for 2' of bass traps.
Back half of the control room will be on a 8" raised floor.

All floors will be floating and each room isolated from each other on their own slab with 4" between any internal wall and the external structure.

Facilities will be in the forest in the outskirts of Nashville.

the second half of the studio is mainly dedicated to housing for the artists, along with an instrument storage section and a loading bay for easy access to the live room

Budget as is for the building is ~600k, but this is fluid and can be changed if need be.

I am sure I am missing some info here, so feel free to let me know.
Just looking for any suggestions as to how to better lay out the facility
Once we are further into the design process, we will be bringing a full acoustic design and treatment company on board, more than likely, but I'd like to go into this with some sort of plan!

Hi,

Lucky you, very nice project with a huge amount of space and potential.

Right off the bat I would say you could make better use of the actual studio part of the space; Make the control room bigger and do not cut the corners off by splaying the walls, angled walls can be fun but there are several disadvantages. By keeping your control room rectangular you can fit in way more acoustic treatment (especially in the corners which is where you really need deep trapping) and your modal spread will be much easier to predict. It's also a lot easier to build. The acoustic treatments inside the rectangular space can be angled if necessary, but the solid boundaries should be rectangular.

Although it's good to have a shop and a lot of storage I think it's a shame to waste so much space which could be used to make your control room larger.

Since this is a serious project with a lot of money behind it you really should hire a professional studio designer. There's a few I would recommend, John Sayers being the first.

Paul

Hey Paul!
Thanks for the tips!
I am for sure planning to bring in a professional for treatment and probably for design as well. I'll look at swapping some stuff around for a larger rectangular control room and post an update at some point for my own sake. Project wise, I am really building the design out as a base for the final proposal and an outline of the general idea we'd like for final design.

Thanks for the input! Looking forward to seeing where this all takes me!

-Ryan

Everything would go way better with a Studio Designer from the git go.

Everything would go way better with a Studio Designer from the git go.

I would generally agree but personal experience tells me that it's critically dependant on the designer chosen. Good luck and best wishes.

DanDan wrote:Everything would go way better with a Studio Designer from the git go.

I plan to bring a studio designer on once finances are fully set. This design is for sure based around just getting a general idea for budget, and for my own sake in diving deeper into understanding acoustics and design. I'm fairly new in the industry and may have just ended up in the right place at the right time, so I'm trying to develop myself to be the largest asset possible, hah . I've got a breadth of books on acoustics that I am reading up on and it is a great help to get feedback on designs as I learn as well!

-Ryan