Need Critique of Garage Floorplan

[ap]

Where's that begging on knees message icon...

Starting with a 20X14 stand-alone garage w/ unfinished interior. Going for similar to the 'Garage 2' plan on the SAE site. There is a pull-down staircase almost in the center of the ceiling which must remain accessible, and french doors on a long wall, which could be obstucted, but not by something permanent, like, say... a wall!

Must haves:

• Live recording room. Ok, this is obvious. I just mention it to indicate I would like to do more than just mix.
• Vocal booth

Like to have:

• Control room to monitor signals real-time w/o also hearing source. Not necessarily have to be same room as for mixing, but I guess if it's not a good mix room, it's not a good monitor room?
• good sounding mix room
• A couch.
• Drum isolation room. I have an alternate plan with combo drum/vocal booth, but I started thinking the live room became too small. Maybe I'll put it up after I get some feedback on this one.

Does this garage have a chance for anything other than a practice space? Should the spaces be switched: recording in the smaller space, control in the bigger

 

[John Sayers]

Looks good ap. Yes - I'd consider swapping the rooms. It depends on what you intend to record. Many musicians now prefer to be in the control room with their amp in another room. All the action is nowadays taking place in the control room.

cheers
john

 

[Bushice]

Dang AP! You and I are in almost exactly the same boat. My studio is just about the same size, and it's also in a garage. I have a ceiling staircase that I was going to move, it's at the end of the room, but I also have a door I was contemplating blocking.

If you haven't begun construction yet, we can go through this whole process together and learn how best to handle some of these obstacles, and with the help of John and others at this site end up with a great studio.

I have some preliminary plans done, and will begin construction in about a month. Whatever I learn will end up here, and whatever I can share I'll certainly post here.

The only difference between our ideas I think is a couch. I'm not sure I feel the need to have one, but I know that every other studio seems to have one!

Good luck

Bushice

 

[ap]

Thanks for checkin it out.

Very cool, Bushice. I've seen your posts around here alot lately. Haven't even thought about moving the stairs! I think I could pull it off since I haven't even finished the 'floor' of the attic space. I just have OSB nailed up there. It would be a hassle to move everything out and pry up all those nails, but no major renovation.

John, I'm working on a plan with the rooms switched. Might even see what I could do if I moved the stairs. I just downloaded Smartdraw two nights ago and used for the first time last night. Amazing how easy it is. Thanks for the recommendation!(I saw it in another thread).

Funny what you said about playing the amp from the control room. In the shower yesterday- I can't get this stuff off my mind- I was thinking about this as a work-around to my situation. I quickly dismissed it thinking everyone would think it's too wierd and be apprehensive about trying it.

 

[Bushice]

yes ap, my stairs are those fold-down kind that lead to the attic. It will be a bit of a hassle to move them, but an even bigger one to leave them and have to compensate for the sound leakage they'd create. I have several places I can move them to, so It's not that big a deal.
right now, I'm in the process of relocating some wall cabinets, and removing the garage door guide channels. After that, I'll be purchasing my supplies to start the studio construction itself, probably second week of april.

Bushice

 

[Tim Brown]

How much Attic Space do you have?

You guys could utilize that as well!

What you would do is build a little "closet" up there where you could stick a speaker cabinet.
Then buy a speaker cabinet to put up there and LEAVE it there. Then install a 12 gauge speaker cable in the wall, and install a mic cable going up there as well.
Then just get a little Mic stand and an SM57 (or whatever you plan to use on the speaker cabinet, and put that up there)

(Just makesure that you don't cross any of your mic wires, just as a precaution)

To fine tune it, you could have somebody play through it, while you listen with the Board EQ flat, and have someone else move the mic stand around up there until you find "sweet spots) and since it's just an unfinished floor, you could take a Black "Sharp-ee" Marker and just trace around the mic stand's base on the floor, so you'd know where the sweet spots are.

That way you'd have a little cabinet room that wouldn't take up space downstairs!
And people could just bring their own Amp heads to play through.

You wouldn't have to have a 4x12", you could use a 1x12" or a 2x12".

Hell, you could even build the speaker cabinet.
I would use a decent speaker though if you intend to build it yourself.


Just an Idea I thought I'd pass on to you guys.


Tim

 

[ap]

changes

Thanks Tim. Not a bad idea, but putting an amp up there wouldn't help enough, I don't think.

I've mainly got two things on my mind: which room to use for control, and do I really want to angle the short walls.

I've made improved drawings, and will try to delete the image in the first post as it is now redundant. This jpeg has two designs: one w/ control in small room, and one with control in big room.

Control in small room advantages

• more room in full band situation
• better view of live room
• couch doesn't block french door. This is minor though, that's the stationary door, and the couch can always be moved if necessary.

Control in small room disadvantages

• small control room
• difficult to soundproof live room w/ a/c in it
• bigger live room means harder to make room within a room

Angles
Man, it's depressing how much space you lose angling the walls 12 degrees. Any idea how bad it'd be to treat if the short walls were parallel? Definitely angle? Maybe? Doesn't make much difference acoustically?
One good thing about angling is it means you don't loose as much space when using double wall construction since you're already off the first wall anyway.

Any and all opinions/comments/experiences on the preceding are greatly appeciated.

 

[John Sayers]

I tend to go for the second one with the large control room but I appreciate your space for rehearsal etc. What if the players are in the control room (except the drummer) and you divide the other room into a drum room and amp room. Then you can all lounge around listening to your monitors wound up

cheers
john

 

[ap]

Sounds like a perfectly great idea to me. John, I assume you think this would work well. Does anyone else have an opinion? I wonder if many people would have trouble not 'feeling' the drums or their amps. I'll work up a drawing. Damn, I love Smartdraw! This is sooo easy!

In the meantime, check out this drawing with facing 6 degree wall angles that achieve 12 degrees w/o coming into the room so much. I like it much better. For now, I've only done it for the big control room since I'm starting to lean that way.