My First Home Studio (Issues & Observations)

M

MichiFHK

New member
Hi guys!

I'm Michelangelo, from Italy!

I'm actually building my very first Home Recording Studio, which just survived a 5.9 Magnitude Earthquake, happened some hours ago!

Happy to still have all my gears intact, but afraid of having a problem with choosing the best placement for desk and monitors.

Here's my problem, which I gently ask an opinion about:

The only room I have available is a sort of L shaped room, divided in two parts by heavy curtains. (the other part is a bedroom)
Moreover, there are two other separated rooms inside the main one, I choosed to use one of them as Vocal Booth, and the other one as a closet.

My concern is about the placement of the desk in the main room, because, as it is now, one speaker's early reflection point goes through an acoustic panel on the nearby sidewall, but the other speaker's reflection goes through a heavy acoustic curtain.

I want to avoid sound differences in the listening process and I'm afraid this asymmetrical situation may cause them.
I also desire to make this space sounding as best as possible.

Hereby, a link that shows my situation.

What do you guy think about it? I am a newbie when it comes to Home Recording, but I'm doing my very best everyday to produce quality ideas and works.

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/7895/homestudiop.jpg
 
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I'm having a problem uploading the picture or a link with the picture.

Trying to solve this ASAP.

FIXED IT.
 
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One possible solution might be to rotate the desk, in order to make me face the curtains: this way the early reflection points should be symmetrically sprouted into the curtains, but it will open the problem of a asymmetric back wall.
 
Looks ok to me, given your space. Is the bedroom set apart just for appearance?

I would put my bed in the vocal booth and use the bigger space myself. :)
 
I decided to separate the room with heavy curtains to make some kind of "absorbing wall", in order to use it in both desk's placement cases to help avoiding early reflections of the speakers!
But, it work also aesthetically to make some "privacy feel" in both spaces.

The size of the Control/Live Room is just fine I think, a bigger space would bring up more acoustic needs, and in case I'll have some drummers come over I can always set temporary the bed away and put the Drums in the Bedroom. In my case I'm recording primary Vocals&Guitars.
 
I'm not sure I would agree with a bigger space having more acoustic needs. Besides, your space is still there, regardless of the curtains. Bass traps need to be in the corners there as well. Remember, frequencies are going to enhance/cancel each other out at points of reflection from walls. Your room is off balance, as far as your mixing position. Control will be difficult no matter what you do. Best advice is to keep centered in any space. It doesn't however mean that you can't get good results with what you have. Just not ideal.
 
Thank for the Bass Traps hint! I may try out a couple of solutions to move the mixing position as centered and symmetrical as possible in the given room!
Also, you're right about moving the bed away, I would obtain much more possibilities to center the mixing position!

Thanks a lot!
 
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By michfhk at 2012-05-21
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By michfhk at 2012-05-21
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By michfhk at 2012-05-21
 

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MichiFHK said:
I decided to separate the room with heavy curtains to make some kind of "absorbing wall"
Click to expand...
It will do no such thing. A blanket (of any thickness) will simply kill your high's and do nothing good for your sound.

a bigger space would bring up more acoustic needs,
Click to expand...
Sorry, that's not true either. A smaller room will ALWAYS have more acoustic "issues" than a bigger room.
 
Thank you RAMI, I appreciate these infos...let's say I remove the curtains, and put Acoustic Panels and Bass Traps on the whole room (the bedroom is not treated), how would you guys reset the studio in order to make it sound bests?

Maybe inverting the bed with the desk could be a good start.
Or even moving the whole studio in the closet room! (very claustrophobic though)
 
I'm at work and I can't enlarge the screen or image on this computer. Besides that, I'm half blind:eek:, so I can't comment on the pictures you put up.

But until someone does answer you more specifically, I'll just say that as a general rule, you want your speakers firing down the length of the room. So, you want to put your speakers agaisnt one of the shorter walls firing down the longer part of the room. Hope this helps for now.
 
This is a good place to start, thanks!
Right now the speakers are, in fact, against one of longer walls..another problem that I may face is that between the bedroom and the studio there's kind of an arch, where I decided to put the curtains..I wish I had a better room!
 
Is there any possibility of swapping your bedroom and the recording area? Put the desk where the bed is, get rid of that curtain, put up bass traps and hit your first reflection points.

The issue with where it is now, as rami has touched on, is ideally you would want your speakers to be firing down the longway of the room. Also you need to treat your first reflection points to get and maintain a balanced stereo image when you're mixing. You really can't do that where your desk is as of now. You have a solid wall on the right side and a blanket on the left at the first reflections, that will skew your stereo image. In your, now bedroom, it looks like you would have enough room to pull your desk 2-3 feet off the wall, treat the reflection points, and then put bass traps up in the corners (and fill the entire corners next to the entry of the room.)
 
Yeah, switching the rooms is definitely a possibility!

There should be 2-3 feet from the wall if I put the desk there, but I'm afraid the left early reflection point would be right against the glass window in this case.

What do you mean by fill the entire corners?
 
MichiFHK said:
Yeah, switching the rooms is definitely a possibility!

There should be 2-3 feet from the wall if I put the desk there, but I'm afraid the left early reflection point would be right against the glass window in this case.

What do you mean by fill the entire corners?
Click to expand...

You can still put a panel up against the window. You more than likely have a window sill that it could easily just prop up on.

By entire corner, I mean from where the back wall stops (where the blanket starts) to the side wall on either side. Then fill the corner floor to ceiling.
 
Thank you!

I'll try to switch everything later today!

Since I'm using the Control Room also as Live Room, primary for acoustic guitar, would you treat also the other side of the room with sprouted panels and bass traps?

I'm afraid, without the curtains, any instruments could get much reverb coming from the other side of the room!

Could I put the curtains against the windows or they will kill highs even that way? I thought they had the same absorbing properties of the acoustic panels in terms of absorbing frequencies.
If not against the windows, can I put them in the vocal booth?

Thank you again!
 
MichiFHK said:
Thank you!

I'll try to switch everything later today!

Since I'm using the Control Room also as Live Room, primary for acoustic guitar, would you treat also the other side of the room with sprouted panels and bass traps?

I'm afraid, without the curtains, any instruments could get much reverb coming from the other side of the room!

Could I put the curtains against the windows or they will kill highs even that way? I thought they had the same absorbing properties of the acoustic panels in terms of absorbing frequencies.
If not against the windows, can I put them in the vocal booth?

Thank you again!
Click to expand...

You probably want to ditch the blanket to be quite honest. You said it yourself, it's going to be absorbing nothing but high end. If you used it in a small space like a vocal booth (god forbid a closet), what happens? It will leave nothing but the low end, which leaves the sound being very boxy and in some cases boomy, not what you want.

The name of the game for you is going to be simple mic positioning. Your going to want to be recording, an acoustic guitar for example, facing the opening (mics are in front of you). depending on the sensitivity and the type of microphone it's going to pick up little to none of the sound from the rear (, only real exception would be a ribbon mic. In that case, ribbons reject sound from the sides, so you would simply turn your seated position 90 degrees.

You can also build what are known as "Gobos". They're simply free standing absorption panels. You can use these to further isolate yourself from the room, that is if you have any weird unforeseen problems. If you're still that worried about it, you can build a gobo and place it in the door way when ever you are recording. Just google image some pics of them. They're quite useful to have around, especially for acoustic guitar a drums. I use them all the time.

Best of luck
 
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