Help needed in turning a small room into studio...

[Laynestaley]

I'm moving into a new appartment in two months and I'm planning on setting up my 'studio' in a rather small room; 2 by 4 meter (8 by 14 feet) that has one big window.
I do drums in Fruity loops and guitar and bass through a preamp so nothing will change in recording those. I'm a little worried about the recording of the vocals and the mixing afterwards though.

1. Is this room to small or can I turn it into a decent environment for recording? I'm on a very low budget for any new material at the moment.

2. I've been checking out the pics other people's studios and I saw that some use 2 computer monitors (I mean the screens not the speakers). Other then that it looks kinda cool, what do people use the second one for?

[knightfly]

Your room isn't too small, just don't waste money on things that won't help your sound as much as they claim - specifically, acoustic foam. Look locally for either Knauf fiberglas rigid insulation (put cloth over it) or an equivalent, such as those made by Owens Corning and Insulco (australia) you want a density of 3 pounds per cubic foot, or about 48 kg/cubic meter.

This is an idea of what you should plan for, if you can build things yourself you'll save a LOT of money -

http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm

Scroll to the bottom to see what the finished room should look like - then check out this site for a more rounded education -

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

When you've read up on some of this, either come back here or go to

http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

Either way, we can help you work out a plan... Steve

[Laynestaley]

Thanks knightfly,
that's a lot of usefull information there. I'm really glad the room isn't too small. Now I can’t wait to move in there. No doubt I’ll soon be back with more questions though