There’s elegant, there’s ideal, there’s optimum. All of these ideas are enemies of the actual construction of fun and satisfying layouts.
IMHO, for what it’s worth, I’m just saying … it seems to me you keep coming up with objections to reasonably good suggestions. The sketch I drew (admittedly very quickly) has separate rooms for layout and drum kit. It’s a principle that has worked for others. I’m sure you could make something fit, even if the sizes must be juggled. My point was just that making two identically-sized square rooms is probably not the approach that yields the longest straight layout segment to model the Santa Barbara station, if that’s your goal.
Byron and Jetrock, I totally appreciate the brainstorming you’re taking part in with me. I appreciate it!
Byron, I’m not trying to come up with objections, rather just make sure I’m taking everything into consideration.
I busted myself while rehearsing with some guys a week ago - caught myself mid-song figuring out if a 4" wide piece of wood could tuck right in front of my drums - sort of like hovering over the front of the bass drum - so that I would just have one section of very narrow shelf - maybe 2 tracks wide, that my drums face right into.
This way I could have 4" wide shelf, plus 5ft wide drumset, then another foot or two of shelf layout behind me.
This would mean the main place where the layout interferes with my drums would be behind me. So by removing the stool (us drummers call them thrones for some reason), I’d have instant isle access.
I assure you I’m not just throwing around numbers, etc., I’ve been CAD’ing this stuff up (in Solidworks) as I come up with these various ideas.
You know, I’d love to see MR’s annual MRP mags focus more on small layouts. I think most people are in the same boat as me - trying to cram stuff into a small space (rather than all the gargantuan sized plans that are more academic than practical).