Making the best of my recording envirment.

[musix]

I have a room in my basement I record vocals in. It has extra insolation an acoustic ceilling and carpet. It's pretty queit but I'm not sure if it's as quiet enough for recording. The furnace is in really close proximity to the room. I usually turn it off when recording with a mic. So the room quite cold this time of year. what some ways I can use this room to my advantage? I'd like to cut down on noise when recording vocals. I'm on a homerecording buget so I'm thinking of using things around the house. I was thinking I would hang blankets from the ceiling in a 5by5ft. square. I'd place the mic in the middle and record. I read it in the musicians guide to homerecording. Any good advice in getting noise in check. musix

[getuhgrip]

Working with the budget you advise, I'm thinking pillows, blankets towels, sofa cushions and all your wife's clothes stapeled to the walls and ceilings. Wear thermal underwear and mittens, but don't turn the heat on! The motor from the blower will make noise. So will the transformer every time the thermostat cycles. Don't have a fire in your sound booth. You'll pick up the crackling in your recordings, plus it'll burn all the oxygen and cause you to pant. This won't sound good.

Now, if you find you can spend a few bucks, you can get rolls or panels of foam at the hardware store. This will look a lot better than your couch cusions and your wife won't keep coming into your vocal booth to find a sweater while you trying to record!

Good luck.

[Chris Shaeffer]

Just about anything that you put in the room- provided it doesn't resonate, rattle or buzz- will help absorb sound. Old furniture, boxes of random stuff, whatever.

Sounds like you've got it pretty well covered, though. What does the room sound like? What noise do you hear when you are standing in there? What noises come across over the mic when you record?

I've found that I have the best success reducing noise when I target specific sources of noise.

[SPINSTERWUN]

LOL @ getuhgrip's post.

[musix]

I was just wondering what other people do to deadin sound where they record. I'm pretty new to recording been doing it seriously only a year. the acoustic celling in the room is fairly low. Is that a problem because I sing standing up.

[mrbigputts]

I find that and old matress makes a great temporary wall
when recording. Not to be left unattend near a furnace of course
that temporary wall also makes one hell of a fire hazzard.

[chessrock]

Let's see . . .

There's the foam stuff you lay down underneath your carpeting. And, of course, there's always the carpeting itself, for that matter. I like the mattress suggestion. In particular, I like the foam padding that goes on top of the mattress.

The Asian screen divider is a good thing. Cover it with thick blankets, sleeping bags, etc. Sleeping bags are your friend. The height of the screens may be an issue if you're tall, though.

Should you ever record more than just yourself, they're okay for isolating some of the different instruments/performers.

Also, if you know of any used office furniture stores, the cubicle dividers can be had for very cheap.

[offbeatguy]

There are some really great ideas here regarding materials, but since you're using a basement room with square corners for the sound to bounce around in, I'd suggest taking some room dividers, blankets...whatever, and run them across a couple of the corners to cut down on the number of right angled corners in the room.

Mike