Studio question

E

Eric Best

New member
Hey guys I've been reading these posts for a couple of months and gained much valuable information. Thanks. I've also read " The Master Handbook of Acoustics","Build a Small Recording Studio From Scratch", and John Cooper's book. I've also check'd out all of John Sayers' stuff on the web and many of the posts. My degree is in Mathematics and I also have a strong background in science so I have a pretty good understanding of what is going on with acoustics. I have a couple of questions.

1. With this background should I be able to do a reasonable
job of designing my own studio, or are there more places
to go and more books to read. Should I "steal" others
designs or try to come up with my own?

2. I will be buying a new house in the near future. Am I
better off buying a house that I can build an addition on
to or, buy a more expensive house that has rooms that I
can adapt to recording purposes?

Thanks, any ideas and debates are encouraged.
 
1. Why don't you design some studios, and present them for people to critique? That's a good way for you to learn, find out what works and what does not. Stealing someone elses complete design idea and replicating it as your own isn't very cool, but implementing parts of a good design you have seen into a space you are designing is ok.

IMO, there are people good at design, and there are those who can't do it very well. Having the knowledge of how things are supposed to work gives you a leg up, now you need to try and apply it to a situation to see if you are able to design studios.
Question: Have you physically been in many commercial studios? I would think you'd learn a whole lot from that.

2. Remodels / additions are a pain in the butt, take time, and are expensive. However, if you can't afford a bigger place, you'd have to wait until you have the equity in your house to refinance and add on to it. Tough choice. I suggest you keep looking for a place in your price range that will accomodate your current needs, even if you have to scale them down a bit.

Bushice
 
Thanks for the advice. I'm in the position where I'm moving from a place with very high real estate value to a place with much lower so I will have extra money to spend, probably in the neighborhood of $60,000, if I keep the price down of the house. , I can get about $200,000 for my current house, which will buy a lot of house and land where I'm moving. I can buy a 1400sq.ft. ranch with a couple of acres for about $120,000 so I would have the extra $ to work on a studio.

I was hoping to build a large room that could double as a live recording room and a room for my home theater, with a separate room for the control room.

I was thinking about going with the addition for soundproofing reasons and heating and cooling issues. Also the flexibility of shape of the addition for room design.
 
An additional room would be easier and probably cheaper.

I'd make my home theatre the control room with proper 5:1 surround speaker setup.

To be able to design properly you must be able to think in 3 dimensions, most people can't. I was fortunate in that I lived with an award winning architect for a while, he taught me heaps about construction.

cheers
john
 
Build a detached building!

If soundproofing is an issue, it's often cheaper to build a stand-alone building as compared to all the soundproofing issues associated with isolating a room from the adjacent structure, including framing isolation and HVAC headaches

I went with sand-filled cinder-block, finished with stucco. It looks cool, it is cheap, it is soundproofed considerably from the rest of the house.

I had mine built during construction of my main home, so builder was able to build a 23' X 16' X 12' room with HVAC for only $10K. I suspect you could do quite nicely for $60K.
 
Thanks for the idea Todzilla, but I think I would like the rooms to do multiple duty and do the home theatre along with the control room. So I think it would be better to be attached to the house. I also have to still worry about resale value, so if I can convince future buyers that it is a home theatre I would be better off.

On that note, John, for this control room/home theatre idea, what kind of size and geometry would you suggest. I'm assuming that this would be a fairly large room, then would I build smaller isolation rooms for drums and other instruments?

Is there a source for formulas to figure out room modes for splayed walls?
 
Eric,

Cool, although you'll have a lot more soundproofing headaches.

Not that I ever want to sell my new house, but I know that when any guy walks into my studio and sees the loft with the futon, mini-fridge, sports viewing TV and the like, he'll realize he's got the most deluxe doghouse that any wife has ever banished a husband to.

Ka-ching!
 
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