In part 1 of this article we a real example of a studio needing to be built in a smaller area than the idealistic plans given in the article BUILDING YOUR OWN COTTAGE STUDIO .  I invited the reader to apply the principles given in this series of articles to this "smaller garage."  In this article I show you what I came up with. 

The Musart Studio

If I was just designing for sound I would do the above design differently.  But I have a customer with needs and wants and if it acoustically sound and uncomfortable, it doesn't meet the need of a project studio.

The first such concession to the customer was to keep the overhead garage door. This feature, admittedly, is great for loading in equipment and musicians, but such doors leak sound into the neighborhood like a spaghetti strainer.  In my article, BUILDING YOUR OWN COTTAGE STUDIO, I specify the door being closed, and sealed with caulk and fiberglass, after which a inner wall is built over the opening.  After I viewed the Musart garage, I discovered that this was a multi-section rolling door that came down inside the door opening and seemed to fill well to the outer wall.  I realized that I could hang 36" double doors over the outside of the garage door.  On the inside of these doors would be sound-absorbing panels that could actually fill up the air gap between them and the garage door.  Some weather stripping on the garage door would give it somewhat of a seal at the top,  sides and bottom.

The second concession to customer was to specify a window on the West wall and a skylight in Northern slant of the roof.    The customer wants to see the sky and the large backyard (that have apple trees that sometimes attract deer).  This "atmosphere" is important to the client, so we will make the openings like a control-room window, with thick glass and each being hung in the separate two walls that makeup the outer walls of the shell.

I would have liked to make the studio one big room with golden section dimensions but we also needed an isolation booth.  The Golden Section dimensions are 1 x 1.6 x 2.6.  The shell was 19'6"; but after we put in the inner-wall (per the plans in  BUILDING YOUR COTTAGE RECORDING STUDIO) the maximum we have is 17'10".  This would be the longest part of the Golden Section.  So if the longest dimension is 17'10", the next longest should be 10'8" - in other words the studio should be 10'8" wide.

So if I only had to use the room for the studio,  I would put cabinets on the North wall of the studio to store the mics, cords, etc. - but probably this would give more storage space than needed.  A vocal booth was needed but needed more space.  I came up with an angled vocal booth and the north wall "averaging" the dimension needed.  I also decided to make this entire wall absorb sound with 1" thick pressed-fiberglass insulation panels covered with burlap and adhered to the wall (the studio already has these panels).  The gray in the diagram indicates there panels.

The smallest dimension of the golden section would be used for studio height, and it works out to 7 feet 2 inches.  This means that everything above 7" 2" (walls and ceiling) must be sound-absorbent.  I am specify 2'x4' acoustical tile be glued to the surfaces.  The peaked roof will form the ceiling with fiberglass insulation being installed in the studs and the surface dry-walled with two layers of drywall.  The acoustic ceiling tiles will be glued to the last layer of drywall.  [This is a bit different than specified in the original article, but is needed because there will be no drop ceiling].

Over the isolation room area, there will have to be a sealed ceiling installed to prevent leakage from the main floor into the isolation booth.  This can be a 3/4 inch plywood deck that is at the 8 foot level with suspended ceiling tiles at the 7'2" level.

We did not have a lot of width to work with in the control room area.  I am specifying the double wall technique with only 1 inch is between the two walls, were I am leaving a 6 inch gap between the outer and inner wall of the studio area.  Only the South and East wall needed double-wall construction. This left the control room at a width of 7'10" - the golden section dimensions would therefore call for a 13' length.  The height would work out to be 5'3" - Therefore sound-absorbing  ceiling tiles would line the walls above the 5'3" level.

As for the rest of the design, including dry-walling technique, electrical, etc... refer to my original design article, BUILDING YOUR OWN COTTAGE STUDIO.