Advice on home studio equipment placement?

[gary1981]

Hi there

I would love a little help on this please, if any of you would be so kind..

I am moving into a new apartment and want to set up the spare room for home recording/mixing of acoustic singer/songwriter music as best as possible. The room has a 3.3m ceiling, and is 5.4m long and 2.2m wide, with a window in the middle of the 2.2m wall, approx 1m wide. Wooden floors, and what appear to be heavy stone walls. I have heard high ceilings can
a big plus, and the ceilings are very high, but can anyone advise as to where I should be setting up my monitors, and if I am to record vocals and guitar, where in the room would be a good spot for this? Should i lay carpet? or just a rug under the mic area? Or no rugs at all?

I would also appreciate a little advice on controlling the room acoustics... would deadening the room with foam help? Or should i leave it to get the most out of the high ceilings?

Apologies if these questions have obvious answers, but I am a bit of a newb in home recording and the front page of the forum said not to be scared to ask

All the best

Gary

 

[mjbphotos]

Do some reading here in the Studio Building section of the forum. Do NOT waste your money on foam. You need bass trapping (rockwool). A room that small/narrow, with stone walls, lots of trapping.
Your room's narrow width doesn't give you options - is the door in the opposite 2.2m wall as the window, or in one of the long walls? Either way, you are going to want to set up your desk on one of the short walls, and you'll need bass traps in the corners behind the desk and in the opposite corners as well. A ceiling cloud (a trap above the mixing area), and traps on either long wall at the 'point of first reflection'.
Once you have some traps in there, you'll have a better feel for whether a rug is needed.

 

[gary1981]

Thanks a lot for the reply. This kind of advice was exactly what I was hoping for. As the room is quite narrow, I was thinking of maybe partitioning it a little, to make it less of a long rectangle. Maybe that would help... The door is actually at the opposite end of the room to the window, but on one end of the long wall, not on the short wall opposite. I will read up as much as I can, but some straight up advice like this is great, so thanks.

 

[mjbphotos]

Don't make the room any smaller with partitions! If the door is too near the other short wall to allow a corner bass trap, then set up the desk on the window wall, put a heavy drape over the window, and traps in the corners.
You can build bass traps yourself (lots of youtubes, links in the studio building part of this forum), or buy them. 2'x4'x4" can be hung form hooks, stacked, etc - makes it easy to move them as needed. The side wall and cloud can be 2". Look at OC 703, 705 or Roxul rockwool.