Please Take a Look at My Basement

[Sandcassle]

Thanks in advance for your help!

I’m getting back to recording after laying off for a few years. My goal here is to have a decent enough environment for mixing and acoustic guitar tracking. I am on a budget like most people.

I’ve been studying room treatment concepts for a while now and while there seems to be a consensus on how to treat a room, I also see varying opinions on room treatment. So I’m now to the point of being confused.

Here’s what I understand: you should use bass traps in the corners and strategically placed absorption panels to reduce early reflections at a minimum. Also, a little wood on the floor is desirable, especially when recording acoustic instruments.

The room is in the basement level. This is a rectangular room measuring 14’ x 33’, with a carpeted floor over concrete and 8 ft. drywall ceilings. The walls are mostly drywall with 3 ft. of paneling on the lower sections. The 2 short walls are solid without any windows or openings. The long south wall has an 8 ft. opening where the stairs come down and the long north wall has 2 windows and a sliding glass door as well.

To start with, I need to determine which wall would be a good starting point for my desk and monitors location. Next would be the type of treatment and their locations. Any advice from this forum would be greatly appreciated!

Please take a look at the attached photos.

Thanks,
Roy

 

[Manslick]

I'd start here.

 

[Sandcassle]

Great!
This was my first choice, until I starting reading you should set up on the longest wall.
Thanks.

 

[Chili]

That 33ft length is your friend and I'm jealous!! I think you can get by with minimal treatment for mixing. Bass traps in the corner behind the monitors, 1st point reflections including a cloud over your mix position. Then maybe some furniture, book cases, heavy curtains on the back wall. Go from there, see how it works. Add more later, if necessary.

You might also consider diffusers midway down the room, but not sure which ones or how or exactly where.

 

[Tadpui]

Great!
This was my first choice, until I starting reading you should set up on the longest wall.
Thanks.

Keep reading...you don't want to set up along the longest wall. You want to set up so that your monitors fire down the longer dimension of a rectangular room. So your desk would go along one of the short walls, like Manslick illustrated above.

That'll be a great room for mixing. It sounds like you're on the right track for acoustic treatments. Maybe even factor a couple or a few gobos so you can form a sort of vocal booth if you need a dryer room response while tracking. I wouldn't sweat about the carpet just yet. If you feel that it's deadening the high frequencies too much, then you can try some things to combat that. I find that my room with laminate flooring is a little too lively when I track vocals or acoustic guitar, and I'm looking to dampen it even more.

 

[Sandcassle]

It's great to know my large room is optimum for mixing and I feel really good about it.
Thanks for your help!

Sooo, I was also thinking I need some ceiling absorption. A cloud? I need to research this a little more.
Thanks guys for the input. Excited to get started.

 

[mjbphotos]

Yeah, what all of them said ^^^^. Is slapback echo heard when you clap your hands in there? (I assume so). Your best bet is to start building bass traps (4" thick min) with rockwool. Hand them on the side walls, use them as your corner traps, and ceiling cloud. By making them all 4", you can move and adjust as needed. Hang the side wall traps on hooks so you can take them down and use as gobos when tracking (that's what I do).
Jealous of the sheer amount of space you have!

 

[Sandcassle]

Yeah, what all of them said ^^^^. Is slapback echo heard when you clap your hands in there? (I assume so). Your best bet is to start building bass traps (4" thick min) with rockwool. Hand them on the side walls, use them as your corner traps, and ceiling cloud. By making them all 4", you can move and adjust as needed. Hang the side wall traps on hooks so you can take them down and use as gobos when tracking (that's what I do).
Jealous of the sheer amount of space you have!

Yes, plenty of slapback echo is heard when I clap my hands. I was researching building bass traps this morning and like you said, 4" minimum of either rock wool or Owens Corning 703 and I assume the rock wool probably being the least expensive.

A couple points of interest here:

Since I have plenty of room, should I take advantage of the extra space and put the panels as far away from the corners as possible? This would end up with some very wide panels if I need to go across the corners from wall to wall. I'm not sure this is really worth it. I'm thinking just building them maybe 2 ft. wide and calling it good enough. Also, I was thinking of covering the entire corner with these panels from floor to ceiling, as well as across the ceiling-to-wall corner across the room behind the monitors. Again, this might be overkill but maybe not. The more the better, right?

Although we're calling these panels "bass traps", they're actually Broadband Absorption Panels? and this same design panel would also function fine on the side walls and ceiling cloud just like you said.

And those corners that are 33 ft. away, I'm thinking they need nothing. I'm thinking if I treat just the mixing area, I should be fine since I'm "near field" monitoring away.

Thanks for helping me get this figured out. I'm a musician first and foremost. But I have to learn about acoustical engineering, recording techniques, miking techniques, mixing techniques, etc. to take advantage of this new recording technology that was all but a pipe dream not so long ago. But I also know there's always been more to getting a quality recording that just hitting the record button and start playing.

 

[jimmys69]

Your space is almost exactly the same size as mine.

I use 4" thick Roxul 80 throughout. 10 2'x4'. Two of those are above my mixing position. 4 on each side down the length of the room spaced 1.5' apart starting from first reflection point. I have two straddling the corners behind my desk that are 7.5' x 2' x 4" that I just lean in the corner as the door to my drum room is in one of the corners.

The back wall of the room has a couch, shelving, PA, and large thick floor rug hanging on the wall.

Have never found need to trap that end of the room. I take two of the wall panels and hang them in a 'V' about a third of the way down the length of the room near center when recording vocals.

Wider bass traps behind monitors would be better if you have the space. If I had your layout I would go 3' wide/4 or 6" thick from floor to ceiling and place pink fluffy behind them.

 

[Sandcassle]

This might be the spoiler. I've been pricing monitors. A person can spend as low as 79.99 up to a gazillion.I can afford 200 to 300 for monitors when I add in room treatment.

So, my question is: Should I wait until I can buy decent monitors costing at least 1000 before I spend the money and effort for the room treatment? If this is the case, it's ok. It just changes my timeline for doing this project. I'll need to wait at least 6 months before I start. I don't want to treat the room until I have adequate monitors.

Your thoughts about this?

 

[jimmys69]

Well, you have to balance what you hear in with what you have to hear from. Trust me it is not an easy thing to determine what is best without having both..lol

That being said, I still use a couple pairs of $300 used monitors in my studio. The key is learning what any pair of monitors is 'telling' you in any environment. You can mix with anything. How much time it takes you to get those mixes to translate on other systems is directly relative to the room you are mixing in as well as what you are listening to.

The best investment IMO that I ever made was acoustic treatment. Yes, better monitors are next on my list though I wouldn't even consider the cost of them before treating a room well.

It really depends on what you plan to do. Some get along just fine with headphones and EDM. Ugh...

My personal opinion/advice would be to build basic treatments for the room. Every room will always need/benefit from it. When your budget allows better monitors, then spend there.

 

[Sandcassle]

That being said, I still use a couple pairs of $300 used monitors in my studio. The key is learning what any pair of monitors is 'telling' you in any environment. You can mix with anything. How much time it takes you to get those mixes to translate on other systems is directly relative to the room you are mixing in as well as what you are listening to.

Ok, great. That makes sense. An expensive pair of monitors won't help your mixing either unless you have sound treatment, whereas inexpensive monitors with a treated room at least gives you something workable. You'll know, for instance, if a mix sounds really nice on your system, it'll translate on other systems with, let's say, too much low and mid. You'll know you need to cut back on those frequencies in YOUR mix environment, to maybe even the point of sounding a little thin. But it will sound fine on other systems.

So I'm on the lookout for some inexpensive monitors for now. I like the idea of some used "higher end" monitors rather than new "entry level" monitors.

Thanks to all the great peeps on this forum!

 

[mjbphotos]

This might be the spoiler. I've been pricing monitors. A person can spend as low as 79.99 up to a gazillion.I can afford 200 to 300 for monitors when I add in room treatment.

So, my question is: Should I wait until I can buy decent monitors costing at least 1000 before I spend the money and effort for the room treatment? If this is the case, it's ok. It just changes my timeline for doing this project. I'll need to wait at least 6 months before I start. I don't want to treat the room until I have adequate monitors.

Your thoughts about this?

Room treatment first. If you can find used monitors in the $300 range, great, but I don't see them often, except KRK Rokit's which get mixed reviews.
For under $300 you can get JBL LSR305s 9actually under $250/pair if you wait for a sale). There low end is pretty good for a 5" speaker, and as long as you have trapping behind them (rear bass ports), they're pretty good for that price range.