Newbie Needs Help with Garage Studio Please

[slobizman]

My 16 year old son is a singer/performer/songwriter who is getting very serious about recording. Currently, he has a Protools LE Digi 002 Rack system, with a Carillon built, super fast PC. We emptied out a guest bedroom and he's doing his recording there with minimal acoustical treatment.

He's done a demo and is now creating his EP for sale, and is getting requests from other local musicians to have him do some recording for them. The small and inconveniently located guest room is no longer going to cut it.

I have agreed to build a low-budget studio in one of our four car garage spaces. But, we really need some initial help in designing it. I came across this wonderful forum in searching for ideas and it looks like I might be able to get some tips from some very knowlegable people here.

Here's what I've got to work with: the available garage space is 23' L x 12 ' W x 9' H. It is on one end of the four car garage area, so it has two walls (mostly solid cement with drywall cover, plus a small area of drywall over wood frame), an open side to the rest of the garage, and the roll up garage door side.

There is no noise coming through either of the solid walls, and as for sound coming through the garage door, we live in a quiet are with no neighbors within 500 feet. The door is tightly built and seems to be almost air tight.

Above the garage is our family room. We don't seem to get any sound transmitted down from there into the garage unless of course we're blasting the stereo and dancing or something.

The roll up door system has a track and motor attached to the ceiling which goes back about halfway through the length of the garage, and drops down maybe 8 - 12 inches from the ceiling.

I'd like to create a minimum recording studio on a budget--after all, he could be out of the house in a couple years so I don't want to throw away too much money.

My question is, what can I do with this space?

I know I need a wall obviously. Do I have to build another ceiling below the existing ceiling--I'm not really that much worried about noise transmission from the garage to the family room above. but if I must I must. Or, can I just do something to the cieling to dampen any noise transmission?

Can I just drape something around the garage door tracking and motor, and hang a heavy blanket or other insulation between the garage door and the studio? This door needs to remain operable and easily accessible because this would be an easy entrance for musicians and their equipment into the room.

I know he needs a control room. Where would be the best place for this? How large in relation to the whole space? Currently, he has his computer and recording hardware on one of those all-in-one desks with the racks built in. I'd guess it's 5 feet wide, maybe 6 feet.

Does he need to have another room for something? Remember, this is a shoestring operation to record his own music and local bands/musicians.

Can I just industrial carpet the floor?

Do I put foam all over the walls, or just in some areas?

You guys get the idea. I think we have a good size space, and I just want enough to get it functional. I'd like to follow the 80/20 rule where I shoot for 80% of the optimal design since that last 20% often accounts for 80% of the project cost Very Happy

Thanks in advance!

[DigitalSmigital]

about building a studio. But your very informative post left out one very important fact.

Does he record drums, electric guitar, vocals, bass, keyboards, trumpets?

This will certainly effect the answers you'll get.

[slobizman]

Sorry about that.

He records voice, guitar, drums, horns...everything really.

[Innovations]

Here is most likely the best place to get started.

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

And the other best place

http://www.johnlsayers.com

Remember that in designing a studio you are talking about two issues:

1. Isolation: How much sound gets out to the outside world and how much noise gets in from the outside world.

2. Treatment: How sound bounces around within the space.

Generally you need both in some degree or other, and what helps with one does not help with the other (although fortunately what helps the one does not hurt the other).

[Innovations]

I would suggest that you think of this as rather than trying to convert a garage as building a room first. If he goes away to college it could be a gym or a den or a game room. That will make you feel less uneasy about the cost. If the garage door is really built that tight then I guess your plan is OK but I would also think of how cold/hot the room would get in the winter/summer. Instruments and gear are sentitive.

There are many other questions, but to go over them all now would be overwhelming to you I think.

[mshilarious]

Ethan did a great article here:

http://www.realtraps.com/art_studio.htm

[slobizman]

Thanks everyone...

Here's an additional question, which I hope does not sound too dumb (but I am still pretty dumb on all this stuff!):

The studio will be used for both his own recording, and for doing work for others. If he has a control room and a recording room, and he's working by himself recording his own music, how does he physically do this from the recording room? Seems like he has to be in two places at once. Is there a different type of studio setup for those who work this way? If he's going to be doing more of his own music, often by himelf, than he will be doing for/with others, does it make more sense to not have a "control room?"

[slobizman]

Originally Posted by mshilarious

Ethan did a great article here:

http://www.realtraps.com/art_studio.htm

Hey, I just scanned this article and it looks like it might be what I need! The previous post of mine's question applies to the plan in this article though? This is great for a "personal" studio, but will be still be able to record other performers in this one-room setup? I'm not looking for L.A.-studio type perfection, just something that will work fine for recording local San Luis Obispo, CA musicans at reasonable rates.

Also, I'm not sure that I hae the 15' width of that plan, I might only have 13-14'. I's it critical that it be proportioanlly scaled exactly down?

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

I'm not looking for L.A.-studio type perfection, just something that will work fine for recording local San Luis Obispo, CA musicans at reasonable rates.

Hello slobizman. In your original question, you stated the room was 12'x23'x9'. First, since you have no partition wall defining the width of the room yet, I would suggest looking in the space, and deciding exactly the maximum dimension you have to work with. Even if you were to gain an additional foot, that is an additional 23 ft of floor space. If he is planning on recording bands, this is still a SMALL ROOM. I would NOT divide this space into 2 areas, as then, not only do you create 2 very small spaces, but then you must face the reality of isolating the two rooms, otherwise what is the point.
I have a couple of more suggestions though.

I'm not looking for L.A.-studio type perfection, just something that will work fine for recording local San Luis Obispo, CA musicans at reasonable rates.

There, you have already stated a criteria that defines many things. Lets define some more.
First, has he already aquired enough microphones to actually record a full band at once, or is this going to be a track by track, section by section scenario? This will define some things.
For instance, IF, investment in high isolation construction is not within the scope of this project, then you must define EXACTLY the method by which you plan on isolating the musical sections per track. Let me explain.
IF, you are planning on recording a full band in a "performance" mode, then you must have a way to isolate the various musical instrument "sections" from
each other, or there will be NO way to keep each section from bleeding into the other sections mics. Usually, this is done in a fairly large room, via the use of "gobos", which basically are mobile isolation panels made of 2 or more "acoustic" screens. These come in a variety of types, usually having an absorption side, and a reflective side. However, it is the distance between these sections that will allow these panels to do their job. Gobos will do little to isolate a drummer from an adjacent vocalist or flute player. In fact, this is exactly the point. Isolation of drums from vocals or lower amplitude sources when simultaneous recording is of necessity, is the main problem in small footprint spaces. Therefore, the use of multitrack overdubbing is the usual method of choice when tracking. This is why I asked. For small spaces such as this, for simultaneous tracking of amplitude different sources, you NEED an area that is physically isolated from the main space. And this space SHOULD be large enough to accomodate the size of an average set of drums.
That being said, this will actually difine the rest of the room, depending on the layout of the isolation "booth". In reality, this "booth" is the studio, built within the control room. The rest of the control room floor space becomes the "live room". Then you can use gobos to flexibly semi isolate other instruments such as horns etc. However, here is the rub. Since the limited square footage of the space would only allow ONE such booth, and isolation of the rest of the space from the outside world is by choice less than optimum, the need to record drums simultaneously with low amplitude sources such as vocals, sets up the possibility for ruining a track by transmission of outside environmental noise such as a siren, dogs barking, aircraft or traffic etc. Therefore, overdubbing of either of these two types of amplitude differences becomes paramount to successful track isolation.
That being said, these are the types of things that will define your choices in room layout, as a booth big enough to accomodate a set of drums, with iso walls will definetly eat up a good chunk of floorspace, which reduces the amount of space for other musicians, AND creates a smaller space for quality monitoring at mixdown. Not to mention the geometry of the mixing space, which is no easy task with even a large space. The only alternative to NOT using a booth, is recording drums IN the control room space, and overdubbing low amplitude sources afterword, which THEN is STILL possibly compromised by lack of isolation from the outside world. My best advice is to take a reality check on his recording methodolgy, which will THEN tell you what it is you MUST do to achieve the results that are acceptable. Isolation is in the ear of the quality control authority. Usually, if not acceptable, this is the CLIENT But then it is TOO LATE!!
fitZ

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by slobizman

Hey, I just scanned this article and it looks like it might be what I need! The previous post of mine's question applies to the plan in this article though? This is great for a "personal" studio, but will be still be able to record other performers in this one-room setup? I'm not looking for L.A.-studio type perfection, just something that will work fine for recording local San Luis Obispo, CA musicans at reasonable rates.

Also, I'm not sure that I hae the 15' width of that plan, I might only have 13-14'. I's it critical that it be proportioanlly scaled exactly down?

Yes there is room in that setup for recording others. You might want to have a flexible desktop setup so you could work from either side--so you could gain room for tracking, and face the musicians. It would be mighty clever to have a board on a big lazy susan with all the cabling routed through a center hole. Or if you used a digital mixer with outboard converters, there would be a minimum of cabling going up to the desk. Obviously, I don't know what your plans are for gear, I'm just daydreaming.

That's not critical though, there is room in there for a band. The need for isolation rooms is overestimated--you can accomplish a lot with portable absorbers--although musicians might have a negative impression of a single-room studio. If that's a big deal, just tack on a 6x6 room on one side and banish the problematic musicians there.

As for scaling, you don't want to scale down just one end, because then your walls would move closer to parallel. So if you lose 2' in width, I think you'd want to lose 3' in length.

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by RICK FITZPATRICK

IF, you are planning on recording a full band in a "performance" mode, then you must have a way to isolate the various musical instrument "sections" from
each other, or there will be NO way to keep each section from bleeding into the other sections mics. Usually, this is done in a fairly large room

Rick has a good point here. You really don't have the space for full on rock band, all instruments live mode. You can do the '50s and '60s method of entire band with just a few mics, but you need a good band!

Hopefully most bands are comfortable with the few-tracks-at-a-time approach.

[slobizman]

Rick,

Thanks for taking the time to post such an informative post.

I asked my son and he will only be recording one instrument at a time, as he's been doing in his smaller setup too.

[DDev]

Since tracking one instrument at a time is the case, then Ethan's room design is probably the best bang for the buck you can do for your space. The only change I would suggest would be to add a small isolation booth for critical vocal tracking. Everything else can be handled with portable gobo's, as Rick mentioned, and it will work fairly well. This is pretty much what I do and I think the results I get are decent enough for good demo quality (every once in awhile it even sounds almost pro, but I think that is really an accident!!).

Keep us posted as you go along. We all love to see pictures and progress, and to hear success stories, as well.

Darryl.....