# Studio building successes and regrets



## JJP (Apr 26, 2018)

A fair number of people on this forum have built studios for composing and recording. I'd love to hear from some of you about those things that you included in your studio builds that
 have proven very helpful to your workflow,
 you didn't think you'd use, but are now happy you have,
 you wished you had spent the money on something else,
 you didn't include but now wish you had.​
Ideas such as "I went cheap on the skylight and now get too much noise when it rains," or "I wish I had more closet space," or "remembering to leave some money for decent gobos was a good idea," are the types of little tidbits that would be great to hear. Those are the types of things that we learn only after using a space for a while.

Thanks, everyone!


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Apr 26, 2018)

I regret not investing in proper low end treatment. Fortunately I was able to fairly easily rebuild all of my panels. 

If you're renovating/building a new room then make sure your contractor follows their instructions precisely. My door frame wasn't built properly ("this should be good enough") so it has ended up warping and nothing seals properly anymore so I've lost a significant amount of the "soundproofing."

I'd say try not to lock yourself down to a single setup and have flexibility. Things like soffit mounted speakers where you'll either be stuck with those speakers forever or just never use them. 

Have plenty of cat5 wired in going everywhere. I'd say that for any sort of new building. There's almost nothing that can't be sent through cat5. You can never have enough. 

I thought I'd use my live room a lot more but it's turned out to be pretty useless. On the rare occasion that I record something, I just do it in the control room.


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## wst3 (Apr 26, 2018)

I've actually been lucky on this front - I built studios for other folks for a while, and while certain features or aspects suited them I was able to cross them off my list after seeing them in action. So my wish list was always pretty darned short.

If I think about it I don't really regret any of my design decisions for my studios. I've built three for myself, and learned quite a bit along the way. Each one worked reasonably well, certainly within whatever constraints I had to deal with.

My random thoughts:

To the best of your ability figure out what you are building. Will this be a production space for you alone? Will you be recording yourself? Will you be recording others? Will you be recording a 30 piece orchestra? Will you be hiring the space out? While things will change over time you need to get this one right, or close to right or the rest doesn't matter. Every facility I've built has grown, and changed. Some were built with that in mind, I tip my hat to those folks. Some were built for one set of expectations, the marketplace changed, and changing the facility was more expensive than it might have been.

Pay attention to the fundamentals, workflow won't matter a whit if you can't hear what you are doing.
Soundproofing
Geometry - if it is an option this is the fastest, cheapest way to manage room modes.

Acoustics - all the rest (horrible word, but common enough in usage)
Power and Grounding - do it right and there will be no hum problems!
HVAC - you and your equipment need to breath, and be comfortable.

Lighting - you have to see what you are doing, and you have to be able to make it look cool

Ergonomics - and by this I mean don't paint yourself into a corner, plenty of time to figure out what goes where later.
Construction - as Gerhard pointed out, it makes no sense to spend money on a proper door or window if it isn't installed properly.

I like soffit mounted loudspeakers, or rather I like my main loudspeakers mounted in soffits. I can't imagine doing otherwise.
Provide lots of work surfaces, I thought I did this time around, come to think of it I always think I did. But I always seem to run out of work surfaces.
Provide lots of storage areas, and again, I still came up short this time around.
Provide, or at least allow for a machine room. I don't have one now, so I had to build a really quiet rack and set it in the corner. It's a pain!

Never build a "temporary" space. My previous studio was purpose built, my entire basement, but I was single at the time, so it wasn't a problem. When I got married, and we started a family we needed a bigger place. The finished half of the basement was supposed to be a temporary studio, and I was going to build out the other half a little at a time. Life happened. The back basement is still a storage area and I still struggle with my temporary studio. Wouldn't necessarily say it is a regret.
Give serious consideration to a one room solution if you aren't planning to record a 30 piece band. It solves a lot of potential problems, and most of us are going to record ourselves in the control room anyway. As an alternate consider a large control room and a smaller studio space, maybe something big enough for a couple of players.
Try to avoid a vocal booth. The cost to build (or buy) a good one is astronomical, the usefulness of a cheap one is nearly zero. I've built them for folks, and can think of only one that was a complete success. It was large, big enough to almost count as a studio, I think it was six foot square. It had ventilation, separate power, one window, a clever door design (the studio owner was pretty sharp), and it cost him a fortune, but it provided an alternate space in which he could record. If he recorded in the control room he had a live space, and in the booth he had a dead space. Just don't do this on a whim!
Lastly, while not terribly glamorous, spend the lions share of the budget on construction and basic fit out. It might be tempting to get that new microphone or library or whatever, but that you can do later. Fixing construction details will be more expensive than doing it right the first time.
Not sure that's what you are looking, but at this point I really don't remember a lot of things I'd have done differently. Except of course the next studio (when it happens) will be different than all the previous studios. But (hopefully) in a good way!


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## chillbot (Apr 29, 2018)

I didn't have the money to hire an acoustic specialist, I just used my general contractor, who does great work, and figured I knew just enough to make do (I didn't). But, it was a lot of fun. I think the biggest problem I ran into is, we got so far behind schedule (months and months!) that in the end it was such a whirlwind rush to finish I didn't have a lot of time to think about anything it was just go go go. The schedule wasn't my contractors fault, long story but the short of it is the city couldn't decide if my studio was a second house with second address or a guest house to the main house. Getting the permits was mind-boggling. Maybe that's something to consider if it applies to you or anyone else reading this thread.

Anyway you've seen my studio and I've already mentioned a bit of this but here it is again:

*BAD*

- I badly wanted higher ceilings but there was no way to 'raise the roof' so instead we cut out the raised foundation in part of the studio and poured a new concrete slab. The result is great as it gave me another 2.5 feet of ceiling height. The only issue is we poured one slab that connects both the main studio and assistant studio and a bathroom in between. I wish we had thought to pour at least two separate slabs because of vibrations from the subs. Though I've got the subs off the floor and we are never all that loud. I figure my new assistant is getting the worst of it.

- Pretty basic acoustics 101 but in the recording booth we put in two huge glass windows and we left them parallel to each other oops. Though it's working out ok, I actually like the flexibility I have. There's a rug on top of hard wood floors that can be removed, two of the walls are treated and two of the walls are glass but both windows have curtains that can be pulled over the glass as needed.

- Didn't really think to balance out the main central air. When the studio was first built, in order for me to feel comfortable in the main studio where there's a lot of lights and heat, all the other rooms in the studio would be unbearably freezing. Even if you shut the vents best you could, didn't make a difference. I had to put in a two-zone system which cost another $3,500 or so but there wasn't much choice. It's fine now... one zone for the main studio and another zone for everything else. (There's also a small and separate split AC in the machine room.)

- If I was doing it over I would have splurged and put in heavier and more solid internal doors. Didn't really see it mattering a lot at the time, though I might upgrade all the doors in the studio. Actually to the machine room, the thin door works a bit in my favor... it blocks out all the hum of the computers but if a drive or fan ever goes haywire and starts emitting any unusual sounds I usually hear it.

*GOOD*

- Goes without saying but if you run any cables in the walls make sure to take lots of pictures of the walls pre-drywall. In fact even if you don't run cables it's still so helpful to see the studs and junction boxes and electrical wiring. Those pics have been life-saving at times.

- I ran a series of 2.5" PVC pipes connecting everything to everything in the walls and under the floors. I was originally going to do wall plates, or a bunch of ethernet (which we also did), but for total flexibility and ease nothing beats the PVC pipes. They are also very cheap. Studio A to Studio B, Studio A to machine room, machine room to Studio B, Studio B to recording booth, recording booth to Studio A, machine room to living room, etc, etc. It's been the most helpful thing I've done. For the connection to the recording booth it's about a 2 foot run that we put 3 small 90 degree angles into which seems to be plenty to keep bleedthrough out. Then I covered the hole in the floor with a rug. You can also stuff some foam in there, but I think I tend to get 10x more bleedthrough from the headphones than from the PVC.

- Having a dedicated machine room is so nice. If you plan it right, the cable runs can be really short, even just 5 feet sometimes right through the wall to the back of the computers. I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this, but I bought a refrigerator thermometer and ran it through the wall and mounted it so I can always see the temperature in the machine room. I was always worried the AC would stop working and all the computers would overheat in there. I'm sure there are plenty that would work but I got this one: [EDIT: amazon links are wonky on vi-c, search amazon for "Easy to Read: Refrigerator Freezer Thermometer Alarm, High & Low Temperature Alarms Settings" it's 17.99.]


Can't think of anything else right now but may edit if I do....


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## JJP (Apr 29, 2018)

Hey folks, really appreciate the time you're taking to give thoughtful responses. This is quite helpful.


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## bbyrne (Apr 29, 2018)

JJP said:


> Hey folks, really appreciate the time you're taking to give thoughtful responses. This is quite helpful.



#1 Hire a good acoustician/acoustic designer right from the start. It's worth every penny and saves you a lot of pain in the end.
#2 Before hiring the designer go to lots of different studios and have a listen. When you find ones you like, find out who did the design and consider getting bids from three of them.
#3 It's usually cheaper to start from the ground up than. Once you get to a certain point with isolation, the cost doubles very quickly. If you locate in a place that's quieter to start, you'll save money.
#4 Having a a good mechanical engineer that works with your acoustic designer will also save you money and headache. Getting your room sounding the way you like only to have bad HVAC noise mess it up is certainly no fun..
#5 When in doubt, always circle back to #1  

Good luck !


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## Jeremy Spencer (Apr 30, 2018)

My biggest regrets?

1) Not buying decent reference monitors years ago

2) Not buying a quality audio interface years ago

That's about it.


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