How to turn a bedroom into a functional recording environment?

[Cheeky Monkey]

Hi all,

I've been playing guitar and writing my own songs for 26+ years. For the past 8 years or so, I've been hanging-out mainly at songwriting and guitar web forums to improve my skills in those areas. About 10 years ago, I briefly dabbled in home recording using a low-end Fostex 4-track. I now have a collection of songs that I want to record in a full production, and with little exception (e.g. bring in a sax player), I want to learn to do it all myself. I'm not interested in setting up a whole band to record, nor do this to make money (either by recording others or get a publishing/recording deal). This is a hobby for me, for personal satisfaction only. Over the past couple of years at the songwriting forums, some of the singer/songwriters are posting some excellently produced songs (at least to my inexperienced ears), and although I don't know for sure, are doing it with pretty basic gear. The issue of actual "studios" has never come up. Rather than ask there, I think some of you can give me the best, most informed feedback based on my needs.

Gear-wise, I have a high quality acoustic and electric guitar, and a decent amp. I have some decent studio headphones, and will at some point buy some monitors. I will also have to buy a midi keyboard. My condenser mic is cheap, so I'll be upgrading in that area soon with one, and adding from there. I'm going to need a better computer/soundcard and digital recording USB in the near future too. I think I know what to do gear-wise and will research this, and other forums to learn much more. But, before upgrading gear, although I'm not interested in building a high-end studio, I recognize that I should do something to improve the space I have to work with to complement the gear I have and will acquire. My oldest son moved-out about a year ago and since it now appears that he won't be moving back home, his bedroom is the available space I have to work with that I'd appreciate some feedback about.

My house (a log house which I built 20 years ago) is a 1-1/2 storey Cape Cod style (12 pitch shingle roof with dormers). I live in the country surrounded by trees and I can make as much noise as I want, and I hear no noise of neighbors. The room is upstairs (the downstairs is log, upstairs is drywall), 10' wide x 13.5' long x 8' high; is fully drywalled (1/2") and painted with latex paint; and two of the walls are exterior and insulated with about 10" of fibreglass pink. There are pine floors which have carpeting/underpad right now, but I wanted to remove it in all the upstairs rooms and finish the nice pine. If carpeting is best for a studio, I'll leave it in this room. The one odd thing about the shape of the room is that because the house is Cape Cod style, one of the exterior walls is verticle from the floor up to about 3.5', then slopes inward at about a 45 degree angle for about 5' up to where it meets the stippled drywall ceiling. There is one double-pane window, and a solid pine door that closes pretty snug. The room has three, two plug electrical outlets. I'm not really interested in floating floors, separate control rooms (realize I don't have the room anyhow) or stuff like that. Again, just a guy, his space, computer and decent (minimal) gear, guitar, keyboard and my voice -- as barely adeqyuate as it is :-).

I hope I've provided enough detail in the hope that some of you can give me some advice as to how to improve the room acoustics. Might I be able to get away with simply, strategic application of some kind of acoustic tiling, and if so, what?

Thanks to all who respond. Very much appreciated.

Cheeky

[notbradsohner]

owens corning 703 fixes just about everything acousticaly related

check out.......... www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html
www.johnlsayers.com
www.acoustics101.com


all have great info, johnlsayers is a forum just like this one, dedicated to studio building, so search around there, and come back wth some ideas

[Cheeky Monkey]

Originally posted by notbradsohner
owens corning 703 fixes just about everything acousticaly related

check out.......... www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html
www.johnlsayers.com
www.acoustics101.com


all have great info, johnlsayers is a forum just like this one, dedicated to studio building, so search around there, and come back wth some ideas

Many thanks. I'll check out the links you provided.

[Kelly Dueck]

Don't go wild with sound proofing ... you're out in the country and will close mic everything anyway so your signal to noise ratio will work for you. Use cardioid mics with tight patterns possibly even consider a less sensitive quality dynamic mic like a Sure SM-7 which'll pick up less room ambiance. You'll want to tame slap and flutter echo (some foam panels and an area rug on the floor) and trap bass ("real traps" not foam wedges will work best. Though, in a pinch wedges can help somewhat and have helped in my case.) You'll want to find a way to keep your computer quiet (get it into a well vented closet or get a model that's really quiet to begin with). You'll find computer fans surprisingly pesky ... deal with them early. You might consider a table-top digital multi-track but I personally like the digital editing capabilities of a computer/software-based DAW.

Good luck!