Need Help Choosing Best Plan For My Situation

soberty

New member
Hi, first time posting my room is 11 inches by 11 Wide 7 feet Height it has 2 windows hardwood floor drywalls. Also, have an unfinished garage that is 9 ft Wide by 19ft long height 8ft something concrete floor one wall is connected to house its drywall the other wood (pics below) Been making Hip Hop Instrumentals for a while. I have the equipment but I want to start making decent mixes and record vocals. My goal is to make an album. I have some wood materials and a couple of studs I collected if need be to start building. Right now my room and garage are trash. There is no sound isolation. I can hear cars passing by. I know I have to treat the acoustics but to record vocals I need it to be silent. I have a basic understanding of how to. But would like advice from more knowledgeable people on what is the best route. My budget is 500 to a grand possibly even more but has to save up for it.

What is the cheapest way but still decent enough to make an album?

Should I make a vocal booth improve my room or turn my garage into a recording studio or any other suggestions?:confused: Thank you!
 

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Unless you can get rid of the garage door, isolating that space is very hard, not to mention expensive just because of the size. If you're going to be there forever and can absolutely give up the garage, i.e., as a garage, then I'd maybe start tackling that bit by bit. The larger size will work to your advantage, but it's going to cost a lot to turn it into something that probably only appeals to you (potential resale negative), unless someone wants a well-isolated mancave.

Your room is not a good shape but at least it's inside and small enough to probably be able to treat within your budget and be workable for vocals. Keep in mind you can't really isolate without tearing out the walls and starting over, but you can treat well enough to usually work between the intrusive noises, so background noise is below levels where it impacts the mix.

You can seal the windows (plexiglas and weatherstrip - most noise is coming through there probably) and then cover them with heavy drapes. Weather strip the door, and put homemade treatments on the walls and ceiling to probably be a start for vocals. Bass traps would be good, too, but you'll have to treat the big surfaces to do vocals IMO.
 
The garage is not going to work, making it 'silent' - too narrow @ 9 ft wide - adding a 'room within a room' construction, you'end up with a room 8 feet wide on the inside, and still need to add trapping in corners/side walls, further reducing the width.
 
$500 is never going to be enough. I would have spent that on sound deadener for inside the walls and ceiling alone.

Have a think about how much you need it sound proof, how much noise is there outside and what hours of the day? How loud are you going to be inside? Can you get away with just using the concrete floor without a floating floor? Could you sound proof enough by putting up a stud wall on the inside of the exiting walls with high density filler in between? The new stud wall needs to be constructed from high density board (plaster board maybe) with at least 2 layers, same for the ceiling.

You could fix the garage door closed as there is no way of soundproofing a garage door, and build a few layers of board across the inside wit a double stud construction, I did this in one of my studios so it could be converted back to a garage when I moved out.

I was told by a noise consultant many years ago that noise is like water, if water can get in and out through a gap so can sound.

Alan.
 
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