so you’ve convinced yourself (and maybe your investors) that you want to build your professional recording studio. the next step is to work through the design details. these include documenting your environment, your space, and how you want to use it. i have a simple checklist on my site to use as a guide for capturing things of interest:

- noise levels

- neighbors

- details of existing construction (if any)

- dimensions

- key requirements

get yourself a sound level meter (Radio Shack™ has a nice digital one thats inexpensive) and a notepad. make measurements over the course of several days and mark it down in your notepad. does the AM/PM rush hour, or trucks, trains, planes create high levels of noise and vibration? when? does that impact hammer test center next to the automotive crash lab make too much noise for your acoustic violin recordings? (see my blob on site selection) all the noise and neighbor factors will weigh in later when determining what you need to do for isolation.

next, take photos of the site showing any existing construction and important features. a good starting point is at least one photo per wall, plus some of the floor and ceiling. not only is this good for your scrap book, but later if you need help from a designer or on the forums, people will need to see how things are built in order to provide good answers.

now its time to get out your measuring tape and a large grid-lined paper (easily obtained in many art supply or office supply stores) and start drawing out your space. make the dimensions (as notes, or if inclined to the grid) as accurate as possible (1/4″ is good for imperial, 5mm is close enough for metric). make sure you include all dimensions so you can fully calculate the length of a given wall based on all the individual measurements (i find many people include 2 or 3 dimensions when they needed 3 or 4…). include water pipes, ducts, windows, doors, beams, fire pipes, utility equipment, stairs, odd protrusions, etc etc. remember to include the height of the room and whenever it varies from a single height.

you might need a couple of pieces of paper – one per room if needed but remember to create a single drawing with the overall floor plan so its possible to recreate the layout later…

finally, document your key requirements – need control room, need live room, need 2 isolation booths, need to move in and out 11′ grand pianos, need a lounge, restroom, etc… these bits of information all play into the design because you don’t want to build something that results in a crew of people trying to carry large equipment through your control room… then again, if your space is mostly control room with a booth, you probably want access to the control room without having to go through the booth so you don’t disturb the artist at work in the event someone has to come in or out…

if this is a commercial facility (be honest) then you need to comply with accessibility regulations – this means access for people with various handicaps – and yes – it will likely cost you more to construct – but it will cost you way more to get sued or censured with fines. you also need to ensure proper safety, security, licensing, etc all in compliance with commercial facility regulations.

OK.

so now you have the noise, neighbors, site, dimensions, and requirements all in hand. armed with this information it becomes possible to begin formulating the initial design – either with a designer or as part of your own efforts.

next week we’ll start to work through some methods of bringing this information into play with a series of design attempts.

you know you want it. but you’re not a designer or acoustician. don’t know how much money you need or can get. and haven’t swung a hammer or cut some lumber. you’re a musician, producer, or just someone who wants a great place to listen to music or watch movies.

without some understanding of the basics of acoustics, video, and construction, you’ll be pretty limited in how much you can achieve without getting some help. and that help is often going to cost you. money, time, aggravation, promises to be kept, and other bartering. even so, getting started in the right way can go a long ways towards having the facility you want. i’ll be skipping the whole site selection bit as thats covered in another blog, but we’ll visit the design steps a bit more.

step one – do you really want to do this? are you really committed? if not, we can stop right here because you’re not going to pull it off so save yourself the frustration and find other means to get into the facility of your dreams – rent, lease, etc.

step two – plan. you must figure out your market, your needs, a proposed budget, skills of the people involved, and how you’re going to get paid or pay back (yes, even personal studios need to provide value). this should be put together into a plan so you can track your progress, and if need be, get investors on-board to help.

step three – if you need help and have limited (low) budget – consider exchange/barter for services, materials, recycled materials, reduction in scale/scope, etc. there are some excellent examples of people putting out advertisements for people to help build a studio in exchange for recording and mix time. one studio in LA, the owner got over 200 responses in a week. his studio was built by a handful of construction professionals (he paid for materials) in about a month.

if you’re looking for investors, work with your designer to get some basic comps, renderings, and ballpark estimates (usually by taking the high level construction per square area costs X your square area = rough approximation – add another 15-25% – and then price retail on your equipment – because you’re likely to be paying installation costs even if you do get discounts on the equipment later, then another 10% of the total – worst case you’re high but its often easier to be high then to have to go and ask for more money later).

step four – be there. show up everyday on site and see whats going on as your facility is built. ask questions, bring coffee or soft drinks (don’t get the crew drunk while they’re working ) show enthusiasm for your project. keep your investors up to date on progress. if this is a commercial facility, start working on your marketing, you want projects lining up in anticipation of your opening. take lots of photos and keep a log of the activities. track costs and time to your plan to see where you guessed right or wrong. plan a party for the construction crew and a party for your clients/friends to celebrate opening day.

step five – get to work! this is the best job in the world! if its your home theater, go relax, you’ve earned it!

wow, this is tough because it really comes down to understanding what you are trying to do, your budget, and the location of your new studio. it really is a pain to hear “it all depends” but it does… it’s nice to dream about but in order to make it happen you need to get organized. there are a lot of Internet and book based resources for compiling a set of guidelines for your studio design, but in the end, there are a few key questions to answer to shape your design.

assuming you found the right location, then here’s a few guidelines to consider:

- isolation does make a difference — most people assume they can get by on little or no isolation, and in rare cases that is true, for most of us, getting a good level of isolation is going to keep things more organized in terms of odd sounds entering our recordings, or having disruptions because of neighbors concerned about noise levels. either one is distracting and can throw off those most excellent moments…

- good acoustics is essential — you need it, you want it, yes, really. always start with broadband bass treatments. this way, if somehow those treatments result in enough low, mid, and high frequency control, you’re done. nothing worse than starting with high frequency absorption and finding mud, then trying to correct for the mud, only to find you’ve taken every bit of life out the room. if the low frequency trapping is too much for the mids and highs – add some panels, slats, etc to get some of that life back – your recordings will love you for it.

- visibility is important — people like to communicate with one another directly – not through video and talk backs – try to get as much glass as you can into your walls so people can see it other. if you can make that glass open, then they can talk to each other and hear each others instruments, and generally bring life into your sessions that are just not nearly as fun as face-to-face productions.

- good vibes — no one likes to play in a dungeon (well, not many ) so good aesthetics do play a role. if you are running a commercial facility its important to consider flexibility in the aesthetics so they can be adjusted to accommodate the mood of the client and the session in general.

- ease of use — make it easy to get set up, rehearse, record, mix, party (if allowed ) so consider layout carefully, try to design it so people can move large or heavy equipment in and out without risking damage to other equipment or people (do you really want someone carrying that B-3 in its road case over your new SSL console?) if you know you’re going to have long sessions – plan on a lounge with bathroom, kitchen, and some recreation. make sure that lounge is isolated from the recording space to avoid things like loud shrieks from the winners at the pool table from disrupting the 12th vocal take…

so that’s my short list – isolation, acoustics, visibility, aesthetics, and ease of use. there more technical details like electric, security, and so on but from a guideline view these are the main ones to think a lot about.

one of the most common questions i see in the forums, as well as private messages, is about site selection. if you already own/rent/lease the property and you have a limited budget, then you’re very likely going to have to live with whatever situation you have. on the other hand, if you are exploring your options, its all about location location location. find the best possible location and facility you can find that meets your budget.

1) access and security – find a place that is easily accessible from car, public transportation, and other neighborhoods which are conducive to your studio operations. consider parking, nearby hotels, food, and drink. Security is often overlooked but the location and the facility should have good security, or be readily secured. Nothing worse than having your studio robbed, or clients harassed.

2) suitable for purpose – make sure you pick a building which is suitable for purpose. pick a place with tall ceilings (12′ or 3m+), plenty of open floor space (makes designing and building it easier), organized plumbing, HVAC (if possible), electrical service, etc. this way you can build your studio correctly and not struggle with layouts that have to address problematic building construction.

- do not pick a place with 6′ high ceilings, lots of odd permanent partitions, next to another organization with induction motors or other noise generating machines.

3) get a long term lease – you don’t want to invest a lot of money in building up your studio only to have your lease run out, and make sure you have termination clauses that protects your investment – don’t let a landlord run you out so they can rent your studio to someone else – make sure they have to give you enough time to disassemble it maybe some business insurance to cover costs of a bad landlord.

if you find yourself in a lease/rent situation with low ceilings, bad layout, no or crummy services – get out if you can – it really will not be fun for anyone to accept a substandard location for your dream studio.

when in doubt, get a hold of me to discuss a site you are looking at as a possible location for your studio. i don’t charge for an initial consult (but even if i did it would be worth it!) so feel free to ask advice. Cheers!

it’s an interesting thing doing this type of design. much of the design tactics you would use in a control room or live room isn’t always applicable to a home theater (HT) design. in addition, the HT needs to have video considerations that are different than video monitoring or windows in recording studio.

one trend i’m seeing is a lot of people recommending “dead” rooms as the best solution for most HT layouts. i have to disagree with that position because a HT needs to have spaciousness as well as the usual timbre/coloration and spectral content controls. a dead room is definitely not spacious… i also see a lot of recommendations for a completely blacked out (and black painted/trimmed) room. yikes!

no doubt the room needs to have the ambient light (as well as reflected light from the presentation itself)  under control, but there are definitely better ways to handle this that is tasteful and less dungeon like. yes, you definitely want black-out drapes to close off windows, but you shouldn’t deprive yourself of natural daylight when the room isn’t in use as a theater, or when you’re cleaning etc.

so folks, there are definitely better ways to make your HT a spectacular place for family and friends to enjoy a “near-theater” experience, without subjecting yourselves to dungeon like rooms that make your ears ring from the deadness.

first off, pick an interior designer to help with color selections if you’re not comfortable with the task of working with dark(er) and flat(er) colors – remember the colors should complement your home as well as be neutral to ensure the colors don’t interfere with your viewing. windows can be treated with hinged “plugs” to block light as well as provide some isolation, or heavy blackout drapes used. the room should have bass trapping installed, low noise air handling, noisy equipment put somewhere it can be isolated, and the bare minimum of absorption to keep the room under control without making it dead.

and of course, contact me for expert help with your home theater project.

Of course you do! but that doesn’t mean the designer isn’t you! without wanting to use “it depends”, sorry, it depends. to be an effective designer of a complex studio construct where isolation, treatment, layout, aesthetics all play important roles, it will take a lot of study and practice to create a proper design. and if physics and acoustics and construction engineering are not your primary skill set, then its an uphill road. on the other hand, if you are simply looking to treat an existing room using DIY or commerically available acoustic treatment products (such as GIK Acoustics, Real Traps, etc), you can probably learn what you need to know in just a few weeks of self-study on the product sites and main acoustic forums.

You might need to learn a bit of math and some terminology but the essentials are learning to accept room modes as the primary problem area for small spaces, and getting the RT60 adjusted for your space. a room mode is simply the result of sound waves being trapped within a set of walls, floor, and ceiling. RT60 is the reverberation time. usually, once you add the treatments for room modes using broad band treatments (broad band meaning wide number of frequencies) you can often find that RT60 and miscellaneous echoes also come under control. in “dry rooms “(low RT60) you might need to add some panels (like plywood or boards) to get some life back into the room. in “wet rooms” (large RT60 or lots of echoes) you will want to add absorption to get all the energy (sound is energy) from bouncing around for too long a time. It depends…

Did that sound alien? possibly. but in a short time you can review product sites for examples of solving common room problems, some reading up on the acoustics forums, you can learn what all this means to you and prepare you to make the decisions needed to shape your space.

one of the cool things about having a web site is the ability to view activity reports which show you how people are using the site and hopefully to gain some insight into things that people find useful. one pattern i’m seeing are people (anonymously) making 2, 3, or 4 visits to the site and repeated visits to the contact page and my design checklist page, all without contacting me! i don’t mind (really) but if you want to call me to discuss your project, please don’t feel that you will end up being obligated to hire me on the spot. i often advise bigger potential clients to “shop around” because designers can often provide important ideas on how to approach your project (for free!) and this can help you to more effectively determine what path (and designer(s)) you should take.

so if you are on your 2nd or more visits to my site and you want to chat, email or telephone me. if you’re international, email me to set up a time to talk via IM or Skype.

Cheers!

Since the majority of my customers tend to be in the under $100,000 studio market, one of the key points i make is that i like to use commonly available construction materials instead of higher priced specialty components (unless its necessary or desired). There is a lot of information on the Internet regarding DIY construction and there are many different opinions on how to best create proper isolation and acoustic neutrality (not lifeless!) in a studio.

of course it depends on your needs, but most people can get by on a reasonable level of isolation because then they can properly monitor the recording process, and most folks can also get by with a reasonable level of acoustic treatments. all too often we (not designers per se) get carried away with thinking we need 100db of isolation and all the latest diffusers and electronics. in most cases, going from 50db of good isolation to 70db of isolation is going to shift your budget from under $100K to probably well over $500K… why? because the very structure you are in determines just how much isolation you can ultimately achieve. once you get the air borne sound levels under control, its all about flanking. or structure borne sound. then infrasonic and the whole rest of the audible frequency range come into play.

most project studios and small commerical operations cannot afford to use floating foundations with costly suspension systems to get beyond 50db easily. Cheap and good isolation is not something you can use in the same sentence.

acoustic treatments – if your builder can read the design docs, they should be able to build the necessary acoustic treatments properly. if your budget can support it, then commercial treatments are a really good choice to ensure that the calculations your designer spent all that time on will very likely be reflected in how your rooms perform. it can also reduce your materials and labor costs if you can obtain the treatments for a reasonable price, and that in turn can lead to getting your studio online faster, and in a business situation, allow you to start taking on work sooner.

striking the right balance in the design to ensure you have options when it comes to construction your facility is a key part of what i (and most designers) do. getting the inside knowledge on how to properly apply common materials and construction methods to solving isolation and treatment problems is essential to making sure the money and time you spend on getting your studio built is used as best as it can be.

remember to hug your studio designer today!

As the new year approaches, i can look back on a pretty successful year of designing studios for people around the globe. i donate a significant amount of time and effort to do inexpensive or free designs for people all around the globe. i do this this because i have learned so much from many people and feel this is one way i can give back to the world at large. it also helps to have a full time job that enables me to support my family without depending on expensive design fees, so it enables me to take on design jobs where the total budget is under $100K US. In 2007, i either designed, co-designed, or helped out with design ideas on over 250 studios (pretty much every day really…). of these 12 full designs were paid, and about 50 full designs were free for educational, or other groups.

Having just finished a design for some great folks in South Carolina, i’m busy on my vacation taking care of some smaller projects which i hope to complete this weekend so i can take off a couple of days before digging in on some larger projects.

So if you’re looking for design assistance, get a hold of me as i do have some slow time for the next week or so… and try to give back to the internet community whenever you have something to offer. its a strong investment in people and the music.

have a happy and safe new year!

Not sure what it is… seems everyone wants a new studio for the holidays… i was planning on taking off for two weeks the end of this year but now suddenly i have two more projects coming up and another two right after that… sheesh… no rest for the weary…

good thing i really love this stuff… its weird how when i need a break from creating copious documentation that i spend it doing quick sketches for folks on about 10 forums… nuts…

anyways, its always interesting the diversity of people, projects, locations, and requirements. there really are no cookie cutter designs because there’s always some variation to the way people work, what they have to work with (building, equipment), and budget… it does make for an interesting work environment. the best thing is that everyone for the most part is very nice and i’ll have no shortage of recording studios i can drop in on where ever i am on the globe…