Hi guys, well heres my story, I'm a 32 yr old guy from Dublin, Ireland. I've been recording at home for the last 6 yrs, but only over the last 2 have I spent serious amount of time doing it. I have persuaded my other half to let me build a small room in our back garden for me to record in. Below is a sketch of the floor plan that I have in mind. It is not to scale but I have the 2 wall measurements on it, these can not change and its the largest I can build. It will be single story 8 ft high. So basically I'm a singer/songwriter. I do my drums using EZ drummer so I won't be recording Live drums as much as I'd love to. I'm hoping to build a small isolation booth within my little room for guitar amps and vocals as the room will be quite close to other houses I want to soundproof the iso booth so that you cant hear the guitar amp outside the room but I can't afford to soundproof the whole room. I'll be recording acoustic guitars in the middle of the room and was gonna make moveable panels to control the sound. I have a large collection of books that are in my attic, I was thinking of having a large bookshelf on the back wall, (diffuser maybe?).. Any advice on how I could get the best out of this space would be greatly appreciated. I have only started to dig the foundations at the moment and I can only build to these dimensions, 9ft x 12ft x 8ft high, There will be 2 skins of blocks with insulation inbetween and the interior finished with 2inches of insulation then drywall. If anyone could give me advice it would be greatly appreciated, especially around acoustics, As always thanks guys...
Getting to build my own space at last...
- Thread starter sausy1981
- Start date
Thanks for the reply mate, The iso booth will just be big enough for me to stand in with a mic, or to place an amp with a mic on stand. I'm setting aside €600 - €1000 euros to acoustically treat the room, but I will have to learn how to do a room eq test and what action to take with the results, I'm not just going to go out and spend that much money on treatment and then just place it randomly. I was kinda hoping that someone might know what the best options were for treatment with the dimensions i've given but i suppose thats probably impossible. The room will be built with 2 walls 4inches thick concrete blocks, with 50mm insulation inbetween, then inside there will be another 50mm of insulation covered by 2 layers of 12.5 mm sheet plasterboard.ya got the right idea man.
Rectangle = good.
I gotta feeling that iso booth is gonna make it cramped after ya get yer gear n shit in there. The fact ya don't do drums will help tho.
Are you doing a double wall type of setup?
Any thoughts on treating the space yet?
ashcat_lt
Well-known member
In a room that size your best bet is going to be to kill it completely dead with some overkill treatment and then, if necessary, add some reflective surfaces to liven it back up. My feeling is that the two layers of concrete should give you plenty of isolation and the door and windows are going to be your weak points for sound getting in and out.
I think you should build the inside wall "inside out". If you really feel like you need more mass after all the concrete then put the sheetrock right against the blocks, between the studs and cover that with insulation. Otherwise you're making a "three leaf" system, which is supposed to be bad. Also, this puts the absorbtion inside the room where it belongs. You wont have waves hitting the hard sheetrock and bouncing back, so you wont have to add quite so much absorbtion on top of all that. Do something similar with the ceiling. You might still need some bass trapping in the corners.
Once that's done it might be too dead, in which case you can add plywood parabolic diffusers in strategic places to give it a bit more life.
I think the Iso booth is going to want to be a free-standing structure inside the room - preferably floated from the floor and definitely not sharing walls or ceiling. I'm not completely sure you'll need it though. I'd say build the main room first - using double paned glass and a heavy, well sealed door - and then try it out. Crank up your amp (during daytime hours) and measure the SPL outside and around.
I think you should build the inside wall "inside out". If you really feel like you need more mass after all the concrete then put the sheetrock right against the blocks, between the studs and cover that with insulation. Otherwise you're making a "three leaf" system, which is supposed to be bad. Also, this puts the absorbtion inside the room where it belongs. You wont have waves hitting the hard sheetrock and bouncing back, so you wont have to add quite so much absorbtion on top of all that. Do something similar with the ceiling. You might still need some bass trapping in the corners.
Once that's done it might be too dead, in which case you can add plywood parabolic diffusers in strategic places to give it a bit more life.
I think the Iso booth is going to want to be a free-standing structure inside the room - preferably floated from the floor and definitely not sharing walls or ceiling. I'm not completely sure you'll need it though. I'd say build the main room first - using double paned glass and a heavy, well sealed door - and then try it out. Crank up your amp (during daytime hours) and measure the SPL outside and around.
Excellent, Yeah I'm definetly going to build the main room first and hopefully I can come up with a way to seal the window and doors while I'm using the amp.. The inside out wall idea is genius and yet so simple, But I'm going to be mixing in this room aswell so with it being too dead I might suffer from excessive top end in my mixes, but I'll defo look into it. Excellent advice and feedback mate, Thanks...
R
RAMI
Guest
I have ti disagree with the "over treatment" thing. If you're using the PROPER materials (not anything with the word "foam" in it), you can't over-treat a room. It won't make it too dead, it will tame bass frequencies, which is 99% of the problem in 99% of rooms (can't believe how often I type that phrase).
Bass traps in as many corners as you can, including wall/ceiling and wall/floor, is always a good start. At the very least, start with bass traps in the 4 corners. There's no need to test the room for that, you will definitely need bass traps in the corners of any room. Nothing random about it.
Bass traps in as many corners as you can, including wall/ceiling and wall/floor, is always a good start. At the very least, start with bass traps in the 4 corners. There's no need to test the room for that, you will definitely need bass traps in the corners of any room. Nothing random about it.
Thanks man, Yeah defo gonna plase base traps floor to ceiling in each corner, Also the iso booth might not be needed if the spls ourside the room are quiet enough when playing through the amp and they might be as I only use a blackstar HT1, Altho my bass amp is 30 watt. I've got some advice from glenn from GIK and the video on their site was excellent, One of their room treatments might be within budget. I was particulary interested that some diffusers on the side wall towards the back of the room could help with a nice little tracking area and this is exactly where I'll be tracking acoustic guitar and vocals in my room.... I'm hoping to have the foundations done by the end of the month then have it built and weather tight by the end of February then I'll have march and maybe April to get inside done... I'm so excited, I'm like a big kid HA HAI agree.
You will most definitely need to trap, at least, the 4 main corners. Probably more but that will be a good start.
I think you'll have a cool little room here man.
Dogbreath
Im an ex-spurt
My room is just a little bigger than yours and at first, I had a small iso booth. Except my iso didn't work worth a shit
so I just tore the wall back out and made my room a bit bigger.
I also raised my roof to an angled pitch of about 10'6" (ish)
I track and mix everything in there, including drums, and I ended up with pretty decent iso all the way around.
But...I also built a room within my garage so I'm sure that helped.
BTW....if the loud jammin is pissin off the neighbors, bring em beer.
worked for me.
GIK Acoustics
New member
BTW....if the loud jammin is pissin off the neighbors, bring em beer.
worked for me.
I suggest this everytime I see a thread that says - "I'm in an apartment complex and I need to soundproof my walls!" - I suggest bringing neighbors beer & baked goods often instead. Much lighter of a budget that way
--
To the OP; I would suggest against having a booth in the back unless it's absolutely necessary for isolation reasons. Just like a very small room will sound 'boxy' and need a lot of treatment, an iso-booth is an even SMALLER room. If you must do it, I would treat the booth and make it completely dead, and with decently thick insulation instead of foam. Luckily, some R-19 pink fluffy insulation in the mic booth covering the walls with fabric covering that would do a pretty good job to start (and is cheaper than foam).
For your room - definitely bass traps in the corners, panels at first reflection points - and diffusion is very helpful in the back, especially when you're recording here. You can use this as a general guide for treatment: Acoustical Room Advice - GIK Acoustics - feel free to send in a form or e-mail us if you have any questions.
Stupidly I didn't even think of construction methods to help the acoustics of the room. As I'm building the room from scratch I caan shape the interior to certain extent. For example I don't have to have 90 degree corners, and I could build "SOFFITS" where the walls meet the ceiling, altho I have to look into the construction of soffits and the benefits... I've attached a revised floor plan, the red line is drywall with insualtion behind... Would this type of shape help with low end response or is the corner of a room still a corner 90 degrees or not. What kind of things could I do during construction to help with the acoustics of the space.. Also I've gone off the idea of an iso booth. Thanks guys.
GIK Acoustics
New member
Sausy,
I wouldn't worry about angling the corners as shown. There are many many aspects that go into the design of a room. Things like angled walls, soffit mounted monitors if you wanted, etc. I would recommend checking out Rod Gervais' book "Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros" - it is quite cheap compared to most acoustics texts, and has great information from isolation, to size/shapes of the room, to treatment, etc. If anyone has some ability to do construction I always recommend his text. I haven't even built a studio, but still referred back to his book many times. I think you will find hundreds of questions answered, as well as things made aware to you that you would have otherwise overlooked.
I wouldn't worry about angling the corners as shown. There are many many aspects that go into the design of a room. Things like angled walls, soffit mounted monitors if you wanted, etc. I would recommend checking out Rod Gervais' book "Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros" - it is quite cheap compared to most acoustics texts, and has great information from isolation, to size/shapes of the room, to treatment, etc. If anyone has some ability to do construction I always recommend his text. I haven't even built a studio, but still referred back to his book many times. I think you will find hundreds of questions answered, as well as things made aware to you that you would have otherwise overlooked.