Recording room suggestions and make my wife love me

Markweeks51

New member
My wife was previously singer and has shown interest in doing some recording for fun again. The idea is to surprise her for her birthday with a basic recording setup at home of her singing, possibly with me playing guitar. The gear is not a concern, though I have no knowledge of setting up a room for home recording...

I spend hours reading, and have found so much information that I'm now just confused. I've seen pros and cons for: Record in small room, big room, use a reflective filter, use a sound box, sing into the corner with sound foam in front and blanket hung behind, bass traps, gobos, record not in the middle, not on the edge, etc, etc, etc

Hoping somebody who has more knowledge and understanding can point me in the right direction to get the best recording I can, with what I have available. Our bedroom is roughly 18x18 with 8ft ceilings, one King bed and one wall of windows with curtain treatments. Also have a build in storage area into the wall that is 1ft deep, 3ft wide, and 8 ft tall that could have acoustic panels fixed inside it. (If that's a good idea) Otherwise, without anything permanent how can I best make use of this? Hoping to setup the room when recording, and otherwise put into storage when not.

Note, I'm in Thailand so have easy access to Foam Sound Panels, bass traps, and can DIY GOBOS, though heavy blankets don't exist nor do I have extra mattresses.

Any advice for a newbie and help make my wife love me even more? I (and my wife) will appreciate any advice you have! :guitar:
 
Don't bother with any acoustic treatment until you've experimented with the sound in the room as it is. For just recording guitar and vocals, you may need to do no more than cut any slap-back echoes down. Its when you start mixing and doing more complex mixes (with other instruments), that real treatment needs to be done.
 
Yeah, for fairly sparse singer-and-acoustic-guitar stuff, I wouldn't worry too much about the room. 18x18 is probably large enough and while a square room isn't ideal, it should still work fine.

I'd start by setting up in one of the corners facing into the room, maybe 5 feet or so from the walls, to minimize early reflections... But, I'd also experiment a lot recording in different places in the room, and just trust your ears to find something that you like the sounds you're getting.

Also... You can have a LOT of fun recording, and still make some pretty good recordings, just going with it and not overthinking things. In fact, while I myself do kind of enjoy the more technical side of making as good as possible a recording, my dad (I'm 37, got into recording around 18 or so, and as he's a musician too got him started on a recording setup) has zero interest in this kind of stuff, and just wants to make music. We both have a blast recording, and if anything I suspect he might enjoy it a little more than I do since for him he doesn't worry about the clarity with which a sound is captured or EQ or compression or any of that stuff, and for him it's just about the song. You CAN go way down the rabbit hole overthinking this stuff... but you definitely don't have to.
 
Bigger the open space in a room is best. I may have misunderstood your wanting to record vocals in corner. If that in the corner of a room, it a really bad idea. If in corner of some hanging absorption panels like OC703 or Rockwool panels Hung in the center of your space, then an absolute yes. Middle to a few out of center of your room will get better results that in a closet or room corner.

A vocal booth/isolated room under 12 x 12' will give you more issues and expense than recording in a decently treated open control room where you mix. The idea when you have a single room, is to balance the needed acoustic treatment for live recording (slapback echo control and sometimes bass buildup with room modes). Sometimes a live recording room benefits from some of these room characteristics. In a mixing environment, those anomalies that work for a recording room are not even close to what you want in a mixing environment.

Either way, forget/remove the usage or expense of 'foam' from your vocabulary completely. It will only leave you with a overspent budget and not do what you need in your space.

Rabbit hole is a good analogy. But! If you build proper absorption panels with the material best used for it. You will never 'ever' say "man I wish I didn't build these". You will always find a place for them. I have now 27 of them. I have given away almost every foam product I have purchased.
 
Thanks so much for your help guys. Your advice is exactly what I needed to hear. Inevitably as you start searching threads and posts of how to setup a room or how to use different products, there becomes never ending lists of peoples rather serious opinions of what all is needed to get the best possible outcomes. That is of course great and helpful for so many reasons, though it's also a great way to get pulled into the rabbit hole as you say. Hearing that back to basics is an adequate place to start is perfect.

I'm really looking forward to doing this and , so again, your advice is very much appreciated. Thank you all.
 
That is the point man.

Unless you spend thousands on a perfectly acoustic treated room from the ground up, it is just a guess.

That does not mean that you cannot get great results from a small room if you have the ability to adapt.

And what I mean by that is that you can adapt from what your recordings tell you by finding what your room/monitors/headphones tell you. And how they translate to other systems that others listen on. Car stereos tend to give you an instant "what the hell was I thinking". But then it depends on the car... :)
 
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