New Studio: Suggestions???

[tomleblanc]

Well I'm finally moving into a bigger place, which means I no longer need to integrate my studio into my living room! Now I have a whole separate room in the back of the house to use, which is about 13'x11' and capreted, with pretty standard sheet rock walls and hollow doors. Unfortunately it's a bit of an annoying room in that it has doors on 3/4 sides, and a window on the only side w/o a door! One entire side of the room is closet, with TWO doors, one side is a large sliding-glass patio door w/ plastic vertical blinds, and the other side has a door out of the room and another door into the bathroom. I've attached a copy of the floorplan here; I apologize for its poor quality, but it gets the basic layout across.

I was thinking about putting my recording desk near the wall that only has a window, so that I'd have the two closet doors to my back, with my bookcase in between. The vertical blinds might be a nice diffuser if I angle them appropriately. But is there anything that I absolutely should NOT do, or MUST do, in order to make this room useable? I'll only be using it for recording guitar and vocals; no drums.

[Innovations]

Do it the other way, put it on the wall opposite the closet, then take the doors off the closet and turn it into a big deep back wall absorber and put slot resonators on the side walls.

[tomleblanc]

the closet doors aren't actually those accordion fold ones that are pictured on the diagram. They're actually just regular doors, so there's much less of an opening there than there appears to be on the drawing.

I think we're saying the same thing though...I was tentatively planning on putting my recording desk against the wall OPPOSITE the closet. What if I just opened the closet doors when I'm tracking, instead of taking them off?

[Michael Jones]

Originally Posted by tomleblanc

What if I just opened the closet doors when I'm tracking, instead of taking them off?

Unless you treat it, either for absorption, or diffusion, it will still reflect unwanted sound back to the mix position.
13' is a little too shallow for diffusion alone. Your best bet would be a combination of absorption/diffusion, with an emphasis on absorption.
See the SAE site for specifics.

[tomleblanc]

Given that I have so little useable wall space due to the large sliding door, the closet doors, and the bathroom and exit doors, what would you suggest? How well would clothes in the closet and books on the bookcase work? I unfortunately don't have much of a budget to work with, and haven't found any source of 703 around here.