Brand new home studio, layout tips?

[wavemakersdj]

I am going to be moving into a new home with a partial finished basement. The room is 18x13 in size. It's a quad level house so the basement does not have a door blocking of the stairway to get down there.

Three of the walls are drywall framed with concrete behind them for the exterior. One wall is drywall that separates the utility room with washer/dryer/furnace.

My goal is to setup a decent enough studio without making too many modifications to the house itself. I have the option of either using the space for studio +control room and monitor with headphones, or carve out a control room space in the utility room to separate somewhat control from recording.

Knowing this, I want to have at least some kind of isolation for vocal recording. I'm thinking some mic wrap panels on stands, or maybe face the wall and put some deadening material in the corner I'd use as the mic space. The thought crossed my mind to build a separate booth inside the room, but i don't think it's going to be real feasible at the moment.

For drums, I'm hoping to go with an electronic set that has midi out instead of a live mic'ed set. Too loud for the space and the wife won't like the live.

So, what suggestions would you give? Should I separate the control room from the recording space or can I get away with monitoring with headphones and park myself in the recording space without much issue? Can I use a wall corner with sound dampening pads to help isolate vocal mics? What tips have you found to get things up and running pretty quickly and avoid common headaches that seem to pop up quite a bit in your experience?

Thanks all!

 

[Brian Muth]

Be wary of corners... lots of bass build up there. Even with sound dampening "pads" they often aren't thick enough to handle the lower stuff. This is why a lot of the acoustic-panel companies make the bigger corner traps. Just making sure you don't hang a blanket on the wall and hope for the best!

You'll get away with headphones in the recording space for a while, but you'll grow to hate it. And by then all the gear and such you'll have in there will make it a pain to try and separate the two spaces later- my advice would be to split up now if you ever want it done! You can make great recordings hanging out in the same space w/o a separate control room or iso booths, but just thinking about the countless hours you'll HAVE to put in with headphones on gives me a headache! Just opinion, hope it helps.