#1881838 - 01/30/08 09:26 AM
SketchUp plans for new basement studio
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fingers57
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Registered: 01/15/08
Posts: 6
Loc: New Jersey
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After reading Rod Gervais' excellent book and checking out much of Ethan's valuable information I have come up with a possible design for my basement studio using the Google program "SketchUp". My studio will be in my home basement which has a cement floor and cinder-block walls. I would like to record acoustic music in the studio - jazz, folk, etc...
The wall and ceiling construction will be 5/8" gypsum dry wall, double layered with "Green Glue" in between. On the ceiling I'm planning to use RC-2 to hang the double sheetrock from the ceiling joists. I am allowing approx. 2" for floor construction which will be 3/4" strips filled in with some sort of foam filler then covered with 3/4" plywood and some Pergo-like laminate flooring.
The ceiling from the bottom of the joists to the cement floor is 7'1". With the ceiling sheetrock in and floor installed the room heighth would be something like 6'9".
I am using a contractor to build the studio for me. He works alone so progress is slow. All he has done so far is reconfigure some of the heat ducts so that they run inside the ceiling joists and feeds into the control room. There will be an intake vent at the bottom of the back wall of the control room.
The triangular space in the corner of the recording room is where our water meter is located. The wall with the wide two panel frame is to (1) enclose the heat duct, (2) enclose the circuit box that is located in the control room (3) enclose a basement window that is next to the circuit breaker box.
The irregularly shaped room in one corner I'm planning to be a vocal booth or string bass room.
Problems that I can see with my studio design:
1. How to deal with support beam that crosses from the main room through the control room. Will it adversely affect the ability to hear an accurate stereo image?
2. How to treat the ceiling in the recording room and vocal booth with the least amount of ceiling heigth loss.
3. Is the vocal booth large enough to be comfortable? Worried that it will be too claustrophobic in there... I was going to put a soffit around the heat duct that runs through it.
4. Is a single solid-core door (1 3/4") with good seals sufficient sound isolation for the vocal booth?
Any comments on this plan would be appreciated as I am hoping that framing will start next week. Here is the link to the file:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2i6t26
For those who don't have "SketchUp" I have posted some jpegs I made from 3 different views of my SketchUp file at this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/TeddyB57
I am just learning how to use SketchUp so pardon the roughness of the assembly. I realize that the control room as seen in my SketchUp file is not quite symetrical but I intended it to be.
Thanks! If you have any problems downloading the file let me know and I'll e-mail it to you.
Edited by fingers57 (02/02/08 08:21 AM)
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#1882390 - 01/31/08 07:46 AM
Re: SketchUp plans for new basement studio
[Re: fingers57]
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Ethan Winer
MP Hall of Fame Member
Registered: 06/12/00
Posts: 5539
Loc: New Milford, CT, USA
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Not everyone has Sketchup, including me, so you'll do better to export a standard JPG or GIF file of your plans and post that.
--Ethan
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#1882458 - 01/31/08 09:05 AM
Re: SketchUp plans for new basement studio
[Re: Ethan Winer]
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fingers57
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Registered: 01/15/08
Posts: 6
Loc: New Jersey
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Sorry about that Ethan. I'll see if I can transfer the SketchUp file into another format.
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#1882478 - 01/31/08 09:30 AM
Re: SketchUp plans for new basement studio
[Re: Ethan Winer]
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fingers57
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Registered: 01/15/08
Posts: 6
Loc: New Jersey
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Ethan,
Here is a link to jpegs of 3 views of my SketchUp plans. Thanks in advance for any comments you or anyone else might have!
http://picasaweb.google.com/TeddyB57
Ted
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#1882817 - 01/31/08 05:46 PM
Re: SketchUp plans for new basement studio
[Re: fingers57]
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JWL
Senior Member
Registered: 08/11/04
Posts: 254
Loc: Portland, Maine
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Hey fingers....
That's a good design, looks straight out of Rod's book (more or less). With a design like that you will want a LARGE bass trap (or traps) in the back corner of the room, as well as the corners to your left and right. In addition, you will have some corners in front of you that you can treat for bass trapping, in addition to wall/ceiling corners.
You will also want to create a RFZ on the ceiling above the mix position and on the rear side walls. You can use thin absorbers for this, 2" thick is plenty for this application. For the ceiling, since you don't have much height, I recommend attaching the absorbers directly to the ceiling, though if you can spare a small air gap that will help them absorb to a lower frequency.
As far as the support beam, there isn't much you can do about it, apart from make sure things around it are airtight. Putting some absorption around it, attached directly to it, might provide some additional damping to reduce structure-borne flanking paths. May not help a ton, but it certainly won't hurt.
Good luck with your build, looks like you have things going well....
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#1882886 - 01/31/08 11:26 PM
Re: SketchUp plans for new basement studio
[Re: JWL]
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fingers57
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Registered: 01/15/08
Posts: 6
Loc: New Jersey
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JWL,
Thanks for the sound treatment advice and the "thumbs up" for the design. Yes, the design is very similar to Rod's - I like it because it makes the recording room less "L" shaped than a rectangular control room would so sight lines are better for musicians (although a rectangular room might not need as much sound treatment maybe?). I just wish I had higher ceilings and more room size!!!
Thanks again for your input. I've done some recording over at "The Studio" in Portland. Do you know any of those guys over there?
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