Garage to Studio conversion - what to look for in a garage?

Burgundia · 15th March 2010

Hello everyone! I'm currently looking for a house in Long Beach, CA (just south of Los Angeles) and I'm focusing on ones with detached 2-car garages because I'd like to convert the garage into a home recording studio. Ideally I'd like to split the space into a control/mixing room and a tracking/live room for recording individual instruments. The neighborhoods I'm looking at are not in a flight path, and the houses are set back at least 15 ft from the street and the garages are set back much further than that. Virtually all the garages are avg size, unfinished 22 x 22 ft with double-car-wide garage doors, concrete slab floors and trussed roofs that go from 7 ft up to maybe 10 or 11 ft. Many of them also have one wall that forms part of the property line with a neighboring home.

So I have two questions:

(1) Is my dream of a live room + mixing room combo doable in this space, or should I think about building the mixing room as an extension on one side? Roughly how much would it cost to build such an extension? ETA: already got answers to this one, yes it is clearly doable. :-)

(2) Any tips in general on what to look for in a 2-car detached garage that would make the conversion easier? (For example, from my reading so far you can't just remove the trusses in the roof if you want a vaulted ceiling, so a non-trussed garage would be better, if I can find one.)

For the sake of discussion, let's assume I manage to get into escrow by April 30th and close by June 30th, in which case I will have an $8K budget to play with. (Fingers crossed!!!!!

)

I've tried to provide as much info as possible, but certainly feel free to ask more questions!

Ethan Winer · 16th March 2010

Trusses themselves are not a problem acoustically. What matters is how large "things" in the room are, in the sense that large surfaces reflect more.

--Ethan

Burgundia · 18th March 2010

Ethan, thanks for the information. I just discovered & ordered Rod's home studio construction book today, hopefully it will give me more insight. Also going to poke around your website a bit. :-)

philvos · 12th November 2010

Hi Burgundia,
I am looking for the same information to convert the garage to recording studio. do you finish your yet? if you found any information or know some one that you can refer, please let me know.
Thanks in advance.
Phil
yahphilvos@yahoo.com

15th March 2010	#1
Burgundia Gear interested Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 7 Thread Starter	Garage to Studio conversion - what to look for in a garage? Hello everyone! I'm currently looking for a house in Long Beach, CA (just south of Los Angeles) and I'm focusing on ones with detached 2-car garages because I'd like to convert the garage into a home recording studio. Ideally I'd like to split the space into a control/mixing room and a tracking/live room for recording individual instruments. The neighborhoods I'm looking at are not in a flight path, and the houses are set back at least 15 ft from the street and the garages are set back much further than that. Virtually all the garages are avg size, unfinished 22 x 22 ft with double-car-wide garage doors, concrete slab floors and trussed roofs that go from 7 ft up to maybe 10 or 11 ft. Many of them also have one wall that forms part of the property line with a neighboring home. So I have two questions: (1) Is my dream of a live room + mixing room combo doable in this space, or should I think about building the mixing room as an extension on one side? Roughly how much would it cost to build such an extension? ETA: already got answers to this one, yes it is clearly doable. :-) (2) Any tips in general on what to look for in a 2-car detached garage that would make the conversion easier? (For example, from my reading so far you can't just remove the trusses in the roof if you want a vaulted ceiling, so a non-trussed garage would be better, if I can find one.) For the sake of discussion, let's assume I manage to get into escrow by April 30th and close by June 30th, in which case I will have an $8K budget to play with. (Fingers crossed!!!!! ) I've tried to provide as much info as possible, but certainly feel free to ask more questions!

16th March 2010	#2
Ethan Winer Gear Guru Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: New Milford, CT, USA Posts: 12,050	Trusses themselves are not a problem acoustically. What matters is how large "things" in the room are, in the sense that large surfaces reflect more. --Ethan __________________ Ethan's audio book is coming!

12th November 2010	#4
philvos Gear interested Join Date: Nov 2010 Posts: 1	Recording Studio Hi Burgundia, I am looking for the same information to convert the garage to recording studio. do you finish your yet? if you found any information or know some one that you can refer, please let me know. Thanks in advance. Phil yahphilvos@yahoo.com

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18th March 2010	#3
Burgundia Gear interested Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 7 Thread Starter	Ethan, thanks for the information. I just discovered & ordered Rod's home studio construction book today, hopefully it will give me more insight. Also going to poke around your website a bit. :-)