Here's my dilema ...

Bought the new/old house, getting all settled in. Didn't realize that there is not a single outlet in my basement until the other night when I went down to start staking out a place to put my recording room, which leaves me wondering, how in the hell did they watch TV down there ... they have 4 cables in different spots of the basement coming from a multi-switch satellite dish outside?????

Anyhoo ... Now I'm dying to put X2 to the test, but I have nowhere to do it. We plan on having lots of company, so I don't want to take over either of the spare bedrooms, it has to go in the basement.

It's concrete ... except for the ceiling, which is the exposed side of the upstairs floor. Just rafters, plumbing, duct work. Extremely neatly done I might add. As basements go, it's really nice. I also have a fireplace down there (that makes two of us now digi2ns ).

I know this is an open and loaded question, but what would you do with a space that's roughly 20ft x 20ft. There's much more than that down there, 2200sq ft all together, but the area I have picked out is about 20 x 20 ft.

1. Should I utilize the entire 20 x 20 space, or is it overkill? Is it better to have a smaller space when micing? I'll never mic an electric guitar amp, but I will mic acoustic guitar and vocals. Is it better to have the room elongated, or square?

2. I have to run all new electrical from the box. How many dedicated lines should I run? I'm thinking 6. One for each powered monitor (I have 2), one for the PC, one for the DC powered peripherals that run off wall warts such as my DAW monitor and Fast Track Ultra, then the lights, tube mic pre and tube compressor (I think these should be ok on 1 circuit).

3. The ceiling is 8' tall. Is there some kind of height to width to length ratio I should be using? I'm willing to put in a drop ceiling. Black of course.

4. I have a motto, and it goes like this, "A basement will get wet. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when." So I don't want to put up permanent walls if I can avoid it. Or if I do, I want to put them so they are away from the concrete walls so I can see when the leaking starts.

I'm sure others have run in to this. Any ideas, brainstorming, thoughts would be greatly appreciated ..

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

I had the electricians that wired my new room give me one 6 outlet 30 amp circuit for all the gear.

The rest of the boxes are for everyday use and to meet code.

There's  lot less chance of ground loops if you run all your gear off of one good clean circuit.


best regards,
mike

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

In the USA we have the NEC. (National Electrical Code) which is pretty standard and adopted by the jurisdictions. Installing outlets according to the NEC will provide a minimum number of outlets. You are free to install more and specifically where you need them.  Any wall space 2 feet or wider gets an outlet, and no spot on the wall is to be more then 6 feet from an outlet. 

Most studio gear including computers, video display and speakers will not even come close to overloading a 20 amp circuit so if you have one or two circuits feeding the outlets you will have more then enough power in that 20x20 room. If using 2 different circuits on studio gear, the possibility exists to have ground loops and other electrical issues which can be inconvenient in a studio. 

Be sure the circuits are properly grounded. Install one or two outlets (the more the merrier) behind where the desk will set. I recommend using a UPS to provide surge protection and battery ride through on the circuit powering the computer and studio gear. A plug in UPS is what I use. 

For water seepage..... if the foundation outside is not set up properly with drainage pipes and waterproof membrane.... you will have water seepage to one degree or another.  Installing the foundation drains can be very expensive. I saw another method which involves cutting a section of the concrete floor near the walls with a concrete saw ( about 3 to 4 inches wide and a few inches deep) and creating a sloping trench into which seeping water flows and by gravity is fed to a sump and is then pumped out. Quite a bit of work but it beats puddles on the floor. 

With the water issue resolved I would not hesitate to frame out the walls and install (green/blue) sheet rock (water resistant like in a shower) and build the studio as you want it.  I'd use area rugs on the floor. You could probably install some of the flooring as well which has a vapor barrier on the concrete floor. 

Good luck and keep us posted on the progress. 

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.

Wow...  A 20' x 20' area...  Noice!   Not sure about needing a drop ceiling, but you might want a slightly raised floor if you're worried about it getting wet (though you may need to do some other preventive measures first - that kind of moisture is no good for gear!).

Once you have it wired for power you're next biggest hurdle sounds like it's shape.  Square with a low, flat roof is ripe for weird echoes and bass buildup.

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.

I agree with the comment about getting all the electronics off the floor.  If you've got electronic instruments with pedals (drums, keys, guitars, etc.), you probably want to raise them up a few inches.  Power strips on the floor are a potentially bad idea. 

Getting a sump pump on a backup generator is a good idea.  While damage to walls and carpeting is bad, it's nothing like replacing expensive electronic gear.

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.