Let's have fun at my expense! Design my new recording/mastering room ...

1) Dunno, i'm in the same situation as you where this winter will be converting a room into a "dream" studio.

2) In an ideal world I would/will run a ring circuit for general purposes (hoovering, heater etc) - you can.t have enough sockets in a room. In France there is a minimum of 5 by law ! Plus a dedicated line and a multi plug for PC/Monitor(s) which don't draw much, going into an "onduleur" (sorry, its French, can't for the life of me think of the UK translation for a back up continuous voltage thingy).

All the other objects with out-board power supplies also don't draw much in amperage, so you could plug them into another "onduleur" and multi-plug just in case.

My mate (also a guitarist in our covers groupe) is an electrician so he does all the wiring/routing for me.

3) Personally i would bring the ceiling down to 2 metres (sorry, in France ! ) making sure there was a minimum of 20 cm of either rock wool or other isolant. Cover the plaster board with a thick paper.

4) Put them all 1 metre above the floor level, "in case" of flooding as you so predict.


I look forward to hearing other points of views greater than mine, especially concerning the different traps. For accoustic guitar i have thought of making a small closet style room with high sides to keep the sound inside. I will be using a NT2a and a sm58 (yeah i know ......).


Good luck and really interested to know how it eventually turns out.


Cheers,
Jerry

Do you know much about wiring Bub?

Not sure what your code is there. Some things to keep in mind. 
6 Outlets per circuit
Depending on the space available in the box. Id consider 2-12/2 (20 amp) circuits.  Thats a total of 12 outlets on dedicated circuits to your area.  Make sure there is a good earth ground off the main box as well.


As for the walls, they will radiate noise from above, Id pack with insulation to deaden the noise that comes down. Make sure your bottom wall plate/sill is a treated 2x4. (If water has been a prob, space the bottom plate off the floor by placing treated 2x4 spacers under the bottom plate every16" or so) The rest can be standard 2x4s. Im sure the floor has some sort of grade and a drain somewhere so std 8' studs probably wont work.
Use the Moisture Grade (Green Sheetrock)  

DONT FORGET about lights as well when wiring.  Ducts for heat (if walls are going up 

Nice with the Fireplace  (PICS when ya get it done PLZ)

Heck post before and after



ADDED  Are your exterior walls cinder block or poured foundation?  Personally Id leave them as is, paint if ya want and hang your sound panels (whatever) up. If you decide to cover and are concerned about the moisture, put a thick (6 mil) plastic vapor barrier up against the concrete first then bulid you walls with the bottom plate spaced off the floor with a treated 2x4 as well

Dont forget a good dehumidifier (As big as ya can find for winter/spring) I like mine between 40-50% RH-No more than that. Dont need NO MOLD.


As for the floor, Id also consider a large area rug instead of putting down a floor just in case of leakage/condensation

Bub I know electricity will knock me on my butt.
The rest is a mystery although I wired my shop and wired the
room for my recording gear.

Not only is my recording room on a sperate circuit but it has its own ground.
I don't know if that means anything but that's the way I wired it.

And if I did it again I'd put all the room lights on a different circuit and ground and
maybe an outlet or two with them for weird stuff like dehumidifiers.
Again...don't know if it means anything but that's what I would do.

Bub-
1. If it were me I would use every inch of that 20x20 space. Serious acoustics design can rack up $$ even if you do it all. Unusually angled opposing walls are best. In other words to intentionally make the walls off kilter in order to offset any resonance effect of frequencies that happens with exact parallel surfaces.
  In order to reduce or eliminate sound waves getting into the rest of the house usually a room is built within a room and riding on some kind of shock absorption pads and insulated well. Good recording studios use double drywall with spacers in between.

 I doubt you are going for the pro studio so you can cheat somewhat by having junk in your space or dedicated reflection/deflection surfaces. I have the first one lol. If I were building walls I would definitly not attach the top ceiling to the floor above. It would be a box within a box. If I were going to be there for awhile and resale wasn't an upcoming priority I would ride another floor above the concrete floor on pads. Anal I know but a good technique for sound isolation and it alows plenty of room for sound insulation around sides and top.

2. Like Heb mentioned one and no more than two 20 amp circuits should be ample for a small studio unless you plan on plugging in electric heaters.All from the same ground. Outlets are cheap to buy when in the wiring stage. I would take a 20 amp feed from your panel and daisy chain outlets all around the room with maybe two or three on each wall.I run 12-2 NMB wire. This is also a good time to look into lighting. I got a good deal on a Halogen 4 light rig from IKEA. I would keep the lighting feed seperate from the gear feed if you go with anything ballast or transformer.

3. Width to length ratios are best being odd rather than even. I know this is odd compared to most construction.

4. Like the other guys said, keeping the space dehumidified will help. If the drainage around the outside of your foundation is good. If your rain spouting is all in place,clean and draining away from the house at a distance and the grade on the outside is good you should have very minimal moisture seepage. A few precautions like a sump pump hole in the basement,a dehumidifier and moisture resistant materials at the floor level  should go a long way toward any worries about water in the basement.JMO.

 If you're on the cheap throw a  rug down, put the gear up off the floor on something. Apply some acoustic foam or more rugs along the wall,shoot a few outlets to the wall from the panel,or pull a heavy gauge extension cord over with octopus outlets.You could compare mix on a good set of cans if the space isn't the best to mix in.Not the best but workable.

Ok, so I think we've established that 6 dedicated lines is overkill.

Here's what I think I'll go with:

Electrical:

1) Lights on their own circuit.

2) 3 Outlets on a 30amp breaker for high powered stuff such as my Yamaha HS-80's and the Subwoofer.

3) 3 Outlets on a 30amp breaker for everything else such as DAW, Tube Mic-Pre, Tube Compressor, Audio Card etc.

What about room size and shape? I have tons of space to work with, but don't necessarily need a big room. I basically have a 2200 sq ft area that's completely empty. I won't be recording a full band or anything like that, so I don't need a huge room, I'm just saying the space is available to set up a good sounding room.

Make sure you have enough plugs for the lava lamps. 

Starise


 Unless I were going to subpanel I would go with a 15 or 20 amp circuits. I'm thinking that Mike has a 30 amp subpanel feeding 15/20 amp breakers.

 30 amps direct to a receptacle running 12-2 or 14-2 wire could be a fire hazard.
 
http://www.californiaelectrician.net/kitchen/wires.html
 

+1 here Bub
I dont believe anything you have will require more than 2 20 amp ckts. (IMO I cant think of anything you'd have there that would.


If you have 2 spaces in your panel just get the StabLock breaker (or whatever is required) and run your 12/2
30 amp will require 10/2 which wont fit any switch or duplex outlet.
Use one circuit for all your DAW, Monitors, Electronics etc...  and the other for general purpose things inside the room.

Place your dehumidifier outside of the room in another area. As long as theres ventilation down there, it wont matter.


Just as an added measure for electrical noise, anything that has a transformer like older guitar amps, put those on the general purpose ckt. (Might create phantom voltages, noise on the lines)

Just trying to think from a budget home studio stand point but doing it right. 

Another thought on the lighting-CFLs or LED lighting will not produce any noise on the lines (or shouldnt)

My past work included Licensed HVAC Contracting, Sales & Install and electrician in the state of Arkansas (Just FYI)

@digi2ns & Starise:

You're right ... it's been so long since I wired a 30amp circuit that I was getting confused between the 20 and 30. I used to wire 30amp circuits for high volume copiers. It took a special plug and heavier wire.

Glad I started this thread, I was thinking of way too much overkill. I'm a little paranoid because in my old studio, I had everything except one small light, on a single 15amp line. I used to get random line noise and the lights would dim sometimes.

There is no water problem down there in the new house, but I've always been paranoid of that kind of thing.

The basement is poured concrete, not block. There is only 1 crack and it's hairline. I imagine if that's all there is after 23 years of settling, it's probably never going to get worse. The inspector said it looked like it had been there a long time and had not gotten worse.

It has a 3 flue real masonry fireplace and it hasn't moved an inch, so whoever did it all did a good job. There's a fireplace upstairs, downstairs, and the 3rd flue is the vent for the gas furnace. IOW ... that chimney literally weighs tons and it hasn't budged at all.

I think we got the electrical squared away. Now I'm completely lost on what shape and size to make the room. According to the manual for my HS-80's, the optimum spacing is 5feet away from walls on all sides.

Any thoughts on size and shape of the room?

One thing that might help is what all is going in the room.

Approx size of desk, guitar cabs, speakers, amount of guitars, drums, furniture, etc...

Just a thought

Bub,

I'd go for making it as big as possible and then use gobos for angling the corners off when needed. I did that in my room which is 14x14. I made floor to ceiling bass traps that are 4" thick and 4' wide. If I have somebody over to jam I can move them around as needed, or put 2 in the middle for use as a vocal booth, or lay them on the sides and use them as a guitar amp iso. On a concrete floor with rugs, you could build them with wheels and move around as needed.

Randy 

Does your basement have bats?  If there's one thing I know, it's that putting all of your high tech gear in a subterranean cavern populated with bats and featuring a waterfall is the most logical design.  It also helps to have a butler to bring you snacks, prepare your gear, and keep out the riff-raff.

A car with a rocket engine is necessary, too.  A sidekick can be useful, but he'll probably tend to get himself captured frequently.

On second thought, it would appear that I really don't know that at all.

 I hear ya on that Digi2ns...Bubba I didn't know if you were aware that Bub has the tendancy to sometimes eat people. His snacks might not be the kind of thing we are accustomed to having around the house. Lets just say we don't want to be there when he gets hungry.

kev, that is a beautiful space you have there! Love the stone wall diffusion, don't know how it sounds but it sure looks good.

My own space is all about function over beauty. Some track lighting was my only concession to decor, everything else is purely practical acoustics. 

Guitarhacker

On the circuits.... the 20amp circuits should provide plenty of power. the average studio might pull 5 to 7 amps if you have lots of gear plugged in and turned on. My guess would be an amp or two for the computer & monitor and that's about it.

If you wire to a 15a breaker you can use #14 gauge wire. NMB commonly called romex. And while many outlets still permit "back stabbing" the wire into the hole on the outlets, don't do it. Strip the wire and wrap it around the screws and snug them down. It's a much better connection. I've seen too many back stabbed wires get loose and literally burn the back out of the recpt/outlet in the wall. Scary stuff.

That back stabbing option should be banned. It doesn't work and creates so many points that something bad could happen.

20 amp circuits require the next larger #12 gauge wire. If you go to a 30 amp circuit you are required to use #10 gauge wire.  Using the smaller 14 or 12 on a 30a breaker is a code violation and a fire hazard.  Wire should be sized properly and according to the breaker size.

I was mistaken about the 30 amp circuit. I meant to say 20 amp.

When I built the kennel/shed at my old house, I ran 10-2 W/G from a 30amp breaker in the house, out to a small panel in the kennel. It was about ... 40 feet or so. I buried it in outdoor PVC meant for electrical then split it off at the box in the kennel. The only thing I wasn't sure of was whether to ground it to panel in the house, or run a separate ground to the box at the kennel. I ended up running a ground to a rod outside the kennel, and I hooked up the ground to the box back in the house. I talked to an electrician and he said it didn't matter, so that's how I did it, but my gut was telling me the whole time that it was wrong and that it should be one way or the other, but not both.

Also, be aware of the requirements to use AFCI & GFCI breakers where they are required to be used by code.... again this is a safety and fire/shock hazard issue.