Which room should I treat? Need some advice...

J

JeffreyC

New member
I would like to really treat one of these rooms well to improve my recordings. I'll be recording electric gtr, acoustic gtr, vocals, harmonica, lap steel. I'll probably go direct on some tracks as well. I have a drum kit too, but I'll likely not be recording drums. So....

Ok here are my options. We have 2 spare bedrooms upstairs and I could treat one of those or treat my unfinished basement (larger room).

Bed1 - 13'9" X 10'2" - one window and one closet
Bed2 - 13'3" X 10'2" - one window and one closet (better view of the Rocky mountains - :)

OR my unfinished basement. This room currently has plastic covered standard insulation covering 90 % of the concrete walls. I've added some Auralex foam to the exposed concrete and some of the sheet rock that was added in the stairwell and to separate the crawl space from the basement.
There are exposed joists above supporting the floor above - so I could attach sound treatment to those. This room is C shaped with the stairwell coming down in the middle of the room/rectangle. As you come down the stairs there is a furnace and hot water heater exposed. There are 2 windows in the room - flooring is raised wood subfloor with some carpets/rugs down.
See attached pic - this room would cost a lot more to treat acoustically and finishing the basement is not an option at this time.

BasementMeasurements.jpg




So, please tell me what you would do and why? Are the bedrooms large enough to get good results? If you need more info, just ask. I'm new at this.
Thanks!

Well apparently I can't post the link to the pic because I don't have 5 posts yet. :(
 
If it was me, I'd treat the basement room on the right:
- Dimensions are acoustically a bit better than the bedrooms (more rectangular)
- Furnace and HWH are more out-of-the-way (HWH can be a pain).
- Exposed insulation reflects much less than drywall in the bedroom
- I just prefer basements - more secluded, less hassle for the rest of the family
 
Can I please get more thoughts on this and treating the irregular shaped basement? I can provide more info if needed. Thanks.
 
How you treat it depends on where you plan to set up your playback system, and where you plan to record. You have two halves, and they're similar, so maybe use one half for each?
 
How you treat it depends on where you plan to set up your playback system, and where you plan to record. You have two halves, and they're similar, so maybe use one half for each?
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for responding Ethan. I appreciate it! Your videos and site are awesome btw - :).

That's a great idea and I have thought of that. Right now, I have all of my stuff set up in the room on the left side (it's a bit larger). I'm planning to leave everything there for now until I can get the basement completely finished. So, if I keep my studio where it is now, I guess my main question is will I notice decent results just treating that side (left) since the stairwell wall only partially divides the 2 sides. Or, will I need to treat both sides?
 
Jeffrey,

I'd say you need to treat all corners with bass traps, and use broadband absorption on any bare flat surfaces that are within 10 feet of an instrument or microphone. This doesn't mean you need to treat 100 percent of those bare surfaces, but maybe 50 percent.

--Ethan
 
Jeffrey,

I'd say you need to treat all corners with bass traps, and use broadband absorption on any bare flat surfaces that are within 10 feet of an instrument or microphone. This doesn't mean you need to treat 100 percent of those bare surfaces, but maybe 50 percent.

--Ethan
Click to expand...

Thanks so much Ethan! That's what I was looking for - :D
 
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