Studio Build advice needed please!

[jonesd90]

Hey guys me and a mate have decided to pool equipment and money to start our own recording studio and once we found a location we are starting to think about the design and layout of the place.

Next door there is a rehearsal room complex which we have to walk through to get to our studio which is fine as we will be using their toilet facilities etc there.

I have uploaded a really basic sketch of what our space looks like.

As I have mentioned, the right hand wall is a single breeze block wall from floor to ceiling along with the wall at the top of the diagram and the one on the left of the diagram; the wall at the bottom of the diagram is an exterior wall which is VERY thick, about 10-12 bricks thick.

We believe the floor and ceiling are solid concrete.

The only sound issue we are concerned about is that on the floor above us is a fairly serious gym e.g. occasionally there is a really low frequency thud from upstairs as some guy drops a 250KG weight on the floor.

From searching through these forums I have read that most people believe that if you have solid concrete floors and ceilings that you are ok and shouldn't really get much rumble coming through, but it is! Do you guys think that using something such as Auralex's U-Boat system will help to stop this rumble? And if so, do we need to use it between the floor, ceiling and side walls to really appreciate it?

Also, if we do go down that route, what is the best way to construct the walls, ceiling and floor? All my own research is based around making a given room sound better and not really the construction of a room within a room.

I guess my question is, if you had the space that I have outlined in that diagram and had to build a studio inside what would you guys do? We were thinking of having that chill room at the bottom, then a control room and the tracking room at the top but somebody with more experience might see a much better way of using the space than I do.

I realise a lot of questions here so sorry about that but really, any advice would be really appreciated.

Dave