HELP ME! 19' X 22' Space to Design!

[Wayne Bliss]

Howdy folks!

I have a 2 car garage that I want convert into a small home recording studio. Small band demos, overdubbing sessions, voiceovers, etc. I have $10,000 and 2 months of free time to get it done. Help me, I'm dumb!

1) Garage is attached to house
2) Cement Floor
3) Ceilings are 8'4" tall
4) Center joist lowers ceiling to 7'5" and is 7 " thick
5) Gas furnace and water heater are in garage
6) Would like a descent control room and a couple of iso booths
if possible.

Look at my virgin smartdraw diagram and let me know what you think. Be kind, I bruise easily!

Sincerely,
~Wayne

 

[stranglerfig]

I was thinking about the same thing..I have almost the exact same setup as you have. Sitting in my cubical at work is giving me a few ideas for the control room.

Obviously we are both short on space but not as bad as a bedroom and it's square. I think 8 Feet Wide should be fine but i'm also thinking about using one of the corners as the control room to save space.

Any Ideas?

Thanks

http://stranglerfig.com

 

[DDev]

Have you guys checked out the information at http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html yet? If not, this site provides a great tutorial on studio design with lots of things to consider.

I think there is a 2-car garage plan there that could be adapted quite well to fit your needs.

As far as what you've laid out so far, I would suggest that you be wary of square corners and parallel walls. The control room is a nice size (I'd love to have that much), but there will be problems without doing some work on the acoustics to break up the long parallel walls. You need to setup your console/mixing station on the short wall so your speakers fire down the length of the room. As far as the tracking room goes, your main concern will be breaking up the parallel walls to reduce direct reflections. After that it is a matter of how much you really want to do to get it as perfect as you want it.

Again, read through the SAE site. Also, www.johnlsayers.com is an excellent resource. Go to the forums page and you'll find that it is dedicated to studio design.

Good luck,
Darryl.....

 

[ausrock]

It shouldn't go unmentioned that the SAE information was originally written by John Sayers and was available from his earlier website. SAE "purchased" it from him for their own use.

 

[Wayne Bliss]

good thoughts...

Thanks gentlemen,

I started at John Syres site. I think I'll check out the other one. It's a starting drawing and I too was cocerned about the corners and parallel walls (creating predictable standing waves).
At the Sayre site, someone had suggested maybe getting rid of one of the three iso booths in favor of creating a larger control room with two iso booths. Trouble is, that would just create longer parallel walls to deal with in the control room. That beam toward the middle is a condition I have to contend with. To move that beam is too cost prohibitive for my budget.

I'll come up with a 1 control room, 2 iso booth desgin and post it when I get done.

Thanks for the suggestions,
~Wayne

 

[stranglerfig]

What about the Idea I have is to put the Control Room in one of the corners? It seems like that would allow us to use the "Whole" Room Drums, etc... Being placed in one of the corners should give us the width and depth we should need without cutting too much of the room off?

 

[Wayne Bliss]

good ideas folks!

Thanks. I'll give that idea a go on smartdraw and see what happens. I'm thinking the corner idea will help offset the parallel walls but I'll have to contend with 45 Degree angled corners. Maybe that would work with some bass traps...?

I'll post a picture as soon as draw the plans up.

 

[maestro_dmc]

My garage is in the process right now also, and has very similar dimensions to yours Wayne.

I too am debating as to how to lay out the wall design.

I have some friends helping me. We spent the 3 day weekend working on it. Saturday was spent demolishing the old drywall(not insulated underneath) and removing the garage door, then starting on the new outside wall. Monday we finished the framing, plywood skin outside, and new steel door.

Now I am ready to start framing the inside walls, so I want to be really sure I do it right, in a way that will work for me for years to come.

 

[maestro_dmc]

This is one idea, drum iso in upper left corner, vocal iso in upper right, control room bottom with a window facing both booths. The open area in the middle can be used for guitar players or keyboards or whatever is needed. I kind of don't like the "dead space" there in the middle, but I think it will help with the isolation in the control room, especially with the drums.

I also need to decide how thick I need to go on the walls. And how much sound is acceptable leaking in from outside, and vise versa.

I'm not trying to hi-jack your thread Wayne, just seems like we're on a similar course.

 

[Wayne Bliss]

I'm not trying to hi-jack your thread Wayne, just seems like we're on a similar course.[/QUOTE]


No problems. This is a tough nut to crack. Glad to hear I'm not the only one losing sleep...
I came up with Plan B. The control room is bigger (could record bass DI, scratch vocals, etc). The room in the upper right (Iso #2) could be a vocal booth, guitar (notice the storage colset in the corner for isolating guitar if needed). The room in the lower right ( iso #1) would be good for drums or whatever.

Let me know what you think. My wife thinks I'm going crazy. Probably right...

 

[DDev]

A couple of little comments from my point of view.

1. Your control room is basically 10x20 feet. There are potential acoustical problems there with the dimensions being almost exact multiples of each other. It would probably be better (and easier to treat) if the length of the room was cut down to about 16 feet. Old school studio room design used dimensional ratios to determine how the length, width, and height of a room worked together, and I think that the length to width ratio was 1.6:1. Using a ratio like this will help reduce the buildup of standing waves. You will probably still need to do some treatment for the parallel walls but it will be less than the amount needed with the current configuration.

2. The iso booths look okay but you may want to add some splay to a couple of the walls to get rid of the parallelism.

3. I'm not sure I follow your traffic flow. Make sure you can access the rooms easily in normal operations (ie. is there a way to get into the iso booths from the control room without going through the house? Can you go from one iso to the other?

4. The amount of space between the location of your monitors and the wall nearest the driveway seems like a lot of wasted space. I would be inclined to swap the locations of the console and the couch to make better use of the space.

Anyway, that's all my thoughts in random order. It looks like a fun challenge, and I wish I had the space for myself!!

Darryl.....

 

[stranglerfig]

When I get home tonight I will post a design using the Corner area as a control room. In one of those pics the room looked alot longer then a standard 2 car garage that i'm dealing with.

I dont really think you need 2 Studio rooms for recording. I can see a vocal booth but my initial impression is to have a vocal booth and leave the rest open, especially for drum sounds. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Strangler

http://stranglerfig.com

 

[Wayne Bliss]

Thanks for continued comments

Great thoughts once again!

I too am aware of the acoustice problems with parallel walls.
I think I'll try flipping the control room. Might work better for visualization of the iso rooms. I'll post an update when I get it done!
My wife and I were walking through the space trouble shooting potential problems.
Thanks for all your help and I look forward to the corner diagram of the room.

I'll keep trying....

~Wayne

 

[stranglerfig]

here's a quickie of the "In The Round" control room theory for a standard 2 car garage.....lol

 

[maestro_dmc]

I worked on this last night. I chalked it out on the floor and tried standing in different areas to see how it would function for musicians. I looked like a nerd walking around pretending a level was a bass guitar. I decided I needed a better line of sight so I changed it to two windows. I have tried to avoid parallel walls.

Stranglerfig, I originally was going to try an idea similar to yours with the open room approach, but I figured angling my monitors into the corners was a bad idea. I also thought about facing the corner but that kills the line of sight part.

I should note that my garage is a seperate building, was built in the 1930's, has a concrete floor, and is free of things like water heaters, or appliances. So I have some advantages. One downside is that I live on a corner lot, on a sometimes busy street (residential neighborhood across from a high school), so I may have problems with traffic sounds getting in.

On a positive note, the lower half where I want the control room will have a "vaulted ceiling" while the iso's will not. That also is a limiting factor in my choice of wall location. I think I will be keeping the existing windows since they are in the space that will mostly not have live mic's in it, but I will probably go with dual pane windows anyway.

 

[maestro_dmc]

Here is a view showing from behind the "desk" looking towards the booths. Note that I can see into both at the same time. The software is a really old version of Expert Home Designer.

 

[stranglerfig]

boy I gotta tell ya, Drawing it on paper or electronic sure makes things "easy" to look at but once I got home I was in my garage measuring things off and it sure seemed small!

#1 Problem I find is that I want a "Control Room" To house a few people so it acts like a listening room which is not the correct way to think in a 20x20 garage. lol

#2 In a 20x20 Garage I cannot see getting the best solution unless you "Use the corner space correctly" That can save you valuable space.
Right now I am in front of a 3x3x3 "Star Trek" Type Desk which in reality would work but I need a few more feet for recorders and effects and at least a 24 track mixing board which should take me to 5x5x5 (corner) But as I look I see drawers that are "Not" In use..lol I think we ALL want more ROOM! lol This 3x3x3 Triangle is actually kinda cool! I can fold my arms out and imagine myself mixing and stuff...This in "Reality" is enough for now...(note to self)stop playing the metallica DVD..


#3 My problem is that I want a "Band Rehearsal" area also so I need to think about that...IMO The Center Control Room Theory for a "Standard" 2 Car Garage Must factor in the corner space...

#4 Work in progress! lol I'm renting now waiting on my place to be built so i dont feel like wasting ANY money now until I get into my own place where I can rip walls out and shit!! lol

Feel free to populate my board during the slow times here...I am completley addicted and my board see's ZERO Action! lmfao!

http://stranglerfig.com

Thanks

 

[ausrock]

Maestro,

I would seriously consider doing away with the open space between the rooms by bringing the booth walls up to the control room walls, make the drum area as big as possible while keeping the other booth big enough for someone to weild a guitar in. The side walls of the control room need to be angled so that they are at least 12 deg., off parallel, alter the front wall so it is symetrical and you will need some heavy broad band absorption/diffusion on the back wall.

Seriously, you guys should be discussing this over at John Sayer's site (link is in an earlier post) as the experts left here long ago and rarely visit anymore. Also, there is a corner design for a double garage that John designed in the SAE reference material, however it was originally applied to a garage which was somewhat bigger than you guys are working with so compromises will have to be made...........I know that because I have been in that specific studio .

 

[Wayne Bliss]

Garagedesign4!

Seriously, you guys should be discussing this over at John Sayer's site.[/QUOTE]



Thanks for the advice. I do appreciate it. I took your advice and tried a corner scheme. I think I can work with these diminsons. The layout is logical and it's probably what I can afford. If you look at the drawing upside done, it makes the "peace" symbol. Random luck...
As for John Sayers site, I've posted three times and got ziltch... I'll post this latest version at Sayers and see what happens.
Let me know what you think...

Thanks!

~Wayne

 

[DDev]

Wayne,

I think you're latest design is an improvement over the previous, but you still need to tweek the control room a bit. A control room needs to be symmetrical from the front of the room and back to at least a few feet behind the mix position, otherwise your stereo imaging will be off and your mixes will sound off-balance on other systems. Also, the tight corner you have in the front of the mix position will be a major bass buildup point. This could be easily corrected by just cutting off that corner parallel to the console desk.

A simpler idea from a construction standpoint might be to start with a rectangular room that is the same 10 foot width and is 16 feet or so long. Put the mixing desk on one of the short walls. In the corners of that wall, add the angled sections like you have in your latest design on the top to breakup the corners (I'd make them into corner bass traps or soffit mounts for the monitors). What I have in mind is kind of along the lines of what is depicted on the SAE site under the studio plans for the Garage Studio 2, as far as the control room goes.

Anyway, just some random thoughts. Hope you get the answers you're looking for.

Darryl.....