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I just went through the same thing.
1) Obviously you have to make certain of the zoning. I am in a zoning where I can operate my studio. But the studio has to be less than 50% of the floor plan, only a certain amount of employees etc. So make sure you figure out if it's legal to run business from your home.
2) I wouldn't get too caught up in the construction, live room construction, control room construction. My studio is relatively small, but sounds phenomenal. I didn't do much special construction.
tracking room 1 is 15x12x10. Tracking room 2 is 20x10x10. My iso room is in the back and is 5x8. Obviously they are properly treated. The walls are wood and the floor is thin carpet. Everything sounds fantastic and there was no special construction. My control room is 12x10x10. It has wood walls and concrete floor, again sounds perfect no special construction.
3) Also consider power. I don't know what to advise you on this. I lucked out and my house is technically considered 2 habitations. There is a main house, which is connected to the back house. The back house is the studio. Which is around 1500 square feet. It is connected to the main house, but has it's own power meter and 100 amp service. This was important to me because I have 40 amps that run hvac/lighting/tvs/radios... then i have another 60 amps that is isolated and balanced power which feeds the control room and tracking room. This cost me $500 or so to do. The main house has its own 100 amp service, with separate hvac.
I really lucked out on this one.
4)Make sure you don't piss of your neighbors. Stock, my rooms were pretty good in the isolation area. Inside the control room was 90db, outside the control room was 65db.. At my property line it was 60db. The tracking room was similar. 100db in the tracking room translated in to about 60db outstide and 55db at the property line. This still pissed off my neighbor at 4am. And after 2 cop calls in one week, I had to close off a few windows and doors, and I can now hopefully bang on drums and no one will hear it.
5) Don't track with mics in the control room. Never rely on tracking in your control room, unless you are tracking something that is di'd... Or you have a guitar player in the control room, amps in the tracking room.
6) It would be nice for you to have 2 ac units. One for the house, one for the studio. AC's ruin reordings. I am lucky to have main ac in the main house. I use Portable ac's and window ac's for the studio. This way I can keep the house cool or warm and I can blast the ac/heat in the studio until mics are hot, then turn it off and on when necessary. This is definately a clutch feature.
All in all home studios kick ass. You have all the benefits of not having 2 mortgages. That is key. It only costs me $1700/month to live and operate my studio. That includes utilities, phone, cable, internet, dvr, etc... That is definately the biggest plus
But also be aware of the downsides.The whole home studio stigma. Every kid with an mbox and an sm57 has a home studio. So when you tell people you have a home studio, that is typically what they expect. I have a cool studio in my house, but people have no idea how cool it is until they walk in. The always expect like a digi002 and a small rack... But when they walk in and see my console, huge racks of gear, and my 37" lcd screen, they usually freak out. It's quite humorous actually. They never expect it. Which is finally the best thing, to see the look on their faces when they walk in, and their expectations are totally surpassed/
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