How would you lay out this far-from-ideal room?

[diakonos1984]

I have been dreaming of setting up a home recording studio for 15 years. After saving my money for a long time now, it's finally going to come together this year!
I have:
PreSonus StudioLive 16.0.2 mixer/interface and a rackmount PC, mounted in a portable rack
Wharfdale Diamond 8.2 studio monitors

I will be recording typical vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums. If I ever record any serious drum tracks, they probably won't be done in this room...

Within 5 years, I hope to build a garage with a mother-in-law suite (read: properly designed studio). However, for the time being the room that I have available looks like this:

It will have to be control room and live room.

It has several obvious negatives: 8' ceiling, nearly square, small.

It has a few things going for it: Hard surface floor, only one window, and is the largest room available in the house. But the main thing it has going for it is that my wife says I can have it...

...IF I also include a guest bed and a bookshelf.

I plan to build a Murphy bed (folds up to the wall). It's a queen size bed, so it's 5' x 7' when it's out, but only 5' by 12" or 16" when folded up. I use standing desks, and will have very little actually on the desktop (PC keyboard & mouse, small MIDI controller), so I expect I will probably just build it into the back of the folded-up Murphy bed. Monitor would either be on a swing arm mounted to the portable rack or mounted directly to the back of the folded-up Murphy bed.

Bookshelf doesn't exist yet. It needs to span one wall. It could include the Murphy bed.

So how would you orient all of that?

If I were going on aesthetics alone, and didn't care about audio, I would build the bookshelf on the 10'6" North wall and center the Murphy bed/standing desk inside it. Studio monitors would go on the bookshelf on either side of the bed. How bad would that really be? I know it would make the room more square...

So I'm concerned about room treatment after that. How do I treat the South wall that would be opposite the studio monitors-- it's half wall, half closet? What about bass traps on the bookshelf wall? I could lose a foot on each side and make it solid and flat with the front of the bookshelf and put bass traps in this pseudo corner. Or I could tuck them back INSIDE the the bookshelf?

Or is there a totally different way all together that you would orient my mixing station, bookshelf, and Murphy bed in this room?

Thanks a lot!

 

[mjbphotos]

A lot of compromising because of the bed/bookshelves. I'd be inclined t put the bed'/shelves on the top (10'6" wall), then put your desk & speakers on what's left of the left wall, then you can treat the bottom right corner and maybe use hooks to hang a bass trap over the top right corner (at an angle, partially over the bookcase).

 

[Simman]

This is where I would start. I would get something like roomEQ and measure/analyze the room to identify issues and treat them specifically to maximize acoustic treatments and budget. But just looking at the diagram, I'd put the bookcase in the closet, scrap the bed idea and get a couch that coverts into a bed, Bass trap the corners (floor to ceiling) except by the door I'd put traps on each side and if possible on the back of the door as well. Orient the monitors to fire down the length of the room (11' 2 3/4") pointing toward the closet and treat first reflection points & hang cloud(s) over the mix desk.

 

[miroslav]

...IF I also include a guest bed and a bookshelf.

I guess it's obvious who runs the show at your house.

So tell her the bookshelf is going in the closet, along with the air-mattress that the guests can blow up when needed.

 

[gecko zzed]

Maybe put your recording workstation and speakers along the top wall. Book shelf along the left wall, and a fold-out day-bed along the right wall.

The room is not that big, but I can't see a lot of options.