Building a new Home Studio - Any Suggestions???

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btref

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Hey, I can tell that there are many people in this thread who know a hell of a lot about production and engineering. I don't have much of a story yet, I guess im just a starry eyed kid trying to make some hiphop music that people can enjoy.

So to be blatantly honest, I came fore some advice. I have been recording in a tiny closet on a yeti usb microphone using garageband to do all my post production (I know, it is very advanced :P)
But next year me and a few friends are getting a place together and we are setting up a studio, most likely in a medium sized bedroom.


I currently have a macbook pro running Logic Pro 9
I have a pair of M-Audio monitors
I have a MPD 32

So my real question is, what equipment do you veterans recommend I have a budget of up to $4000 - So, How would you spend it?

Microphone? (Ive heard good things about the Rode K2, Nuemann TLM 103 and the Shure SM7B - any other suggestions?)
Interface?
Preamp?
Acoustic treatment (basstraps etc.)?
Anything else?

Thank you for your time and input
-B
 
btref said:
Hey, I can tell that there are many people in this thread who know a hell of a lot about production and engineering. I don't have much of a story yet, I guess im just a starry eyed kid trying to make some hiphop music that people can enjoy.

So to be blatantly honest, I came fore some advice. I have been recording in a tiny closet on a yeti usb microphone using garageband to do all my post production (I know, it is very advanced :P)
But next year me and a few friends are getting a place together and we are setting up a studio, most likely in a medium sized bedroom.


I currently have a macbook pro running Logic Pro 9
I have a pair of M-Audio monitors
I have a MPD 32

So my real question is, what equipment do you veterans recommend I have a budget of up to $4000 - So, How would you spend it?

Microphone? (Ive heard good things about the Rode K2, Nuemann TLM 103 and the Shure SM7B - any other suggestions?)
Interface?
Preamp?
Acoustic treatment (basstraps etc.)?
Anything else?

Thank you for your time and input
-B
Click to expand...

Add a zero to your budget?

I wouldn't spend a dime on gear until you know how much you're going to have to drop to treat the room, and since you don't HAVE the room there's little to do other then to keep on reading.

Luck.
 
Okay, hypothetically if the room was treated, what equipment would you recommend?
 
OK, you're recording in a bedroom .... what's the purpose for the recordings - demos, to make CDs to sell? Give away? How many individual tracks are you going to want to record simultaneously? What are you going to record - acoustic instruments, amped guitars, drums, vocals, nothing but MIDI?
Before buying anything, read everything you can - all the sticky-ed threads here on this forum, all the tutorials, etc. A $1000 mic in an untreated bedroom won't sound much/any different than a $200 mic in the same room. M Audio makes good starters gear, but the monitors are all low end ones, definitely consider a chunk of your change going for good monitors - but again, if the room isn't treated, then ...
 
Good points have been made, and more will be made, I'm sure. We do know the answers that don't address equipment aren't the answers you're looking for right now, but they really are more important than gear decisions. I'll just make two points that I feel don't suffer from the notorious lack of a "right" answer, much less a *simple* or even *clear* one.

1. The single most important aspect of a studio is the operator's ability to listen. Sounds simple - it's not. The only sane and relevant goal when making recordings for other people to listen to is for the recordings to do nothing to detract from the listener's ability to enjoy what the recording is of. Again - sounds simple... it's not. It's a very non-intuitive skill that takes a surprisingly long time learn. When you start to really be able to actually do that consistently you'll understand immediately why it matters infinitely more to know how what you're hearing when tracking and/or mixing is going to ultimately be reflected across every medium that it will be listened to on, than it matters what tools you use to do that job.

2. I agree with wheelema that the first investment should be in setting up your room. If you are able to - you should pay what it costs to do that and if you have to make compromises - do it somewhere else. Commercial studios don't have all the exact same magic-bullet equipment, hell the ones I've worked in have all been wildly different, equipment-wise. But whether they're built around an old SSL and a bunch of giant machines that write on tape, a C24 and a bunch of dsp units, or some Frankenstein mess of patchbays, boutique preamps and i/o, lavalamps and a DAW written in assembly language by some old-school hippie wizard somewhere, they all have meticulously designed rooms for recording and monitoring. I linked you to some articles by Ethan and Massive that will get you started thinking about that in your thread in the studio building subforum.

I'll post what I can about your equipment questions in a bit.
 
I cant thank you all enough, ill post some pictures of the layout of the room and see if any of you can recommend what i will need
 
About the acoustic treatment..

When we were recording with our band we used our saxophonist's "studio". It was a rather small room, around 20 square meters. It was soundproofed quite simply - carpets, egg cartons, some barriers shields and sound breaker bars. The trick was not to omit a single spot when soundproofing the room. You must remember that sound is a wave that can be easily reflected from every smooth surface, therefore you have to soundproof EVERYTHING - so do not forget about the table, PC case or any other objects in the room.

Acoustic treatment does not necessarily have to be expensive, especially if you do it right.
 
PaulieSR said:
About the acoustic treatment..

When we were recording with our band we used our saxophonist's "studio". It was a rather small room, around 20 square meters. It was soundproofed quite simply - carpets, egg cartons, some barriers shields and sound breaker bars. The trick was not to omit a single spot when soundproofing the room. You must remember that sound is a wave that can be easily reflected from every smooth surface, therefore you have to soundproof EVERYTHING - so do not forget about the table, PC case or any other objects in the room.

Acoustic treatment does not necessarily have to be expensive, especially if you do it right.
Click to expand...

:facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:
 
Ok mis-believer, facepalm yourself all you want but the results weren't that shabby.. If I find those recordings I will post them but it has been quite a few years.
 
Last edited:
PaulieSR said:
Ok mis-believer, facepalm yourself all you want but the results weren't that shabby.. If I find those recordings I will post them but it has been quite a few years.
Click to expand...

FYI, he asked for recommendations on acoustic treatment, not soundproofing. There is a difference.
We need Ethan over here asap..

I'm assuming the OP wants to invest in acoustic treatment first (like the others said), and with $4000 you can make a decent home studio that has good acoustic treatments like proper bass traps, clouds, etc...

Oh, and I would be interested to hear your recordings. I never said you couldn't get a "decent" result using err, egg cartons and carpet. :D
 
Figure out what you want to accomplish first, then read and read and read some more about the how, and then go back and see if that was realistic goal, and adjust the goal if necessary. One man show, two or three, lots of overdubs, not very many, lots of electronic instruments, vs acoustic instruments?

Also, learn to listen and learn your room(s). I am not in a position to really completely 'treat' the space I have for various reasons. So, I have to work with and within those limitations. The listening aspect has been addressed before in this thread. Listen critically. Also, it can't hurt (especially when you can't fully treat your space) to compare your recordings with professional recordings. You're not necessarily comparing style but sound.

And then you have to buy:

a DAW written in assembly language by some old-school hippie wizard somewhere
Click to expand...

Just love that.
 
....no?


I mean... I suppose that soundproofing is, literally, a form of acoustic treatment, but it's not one I see recommended for our purposes....ever. Maybe if you built a studio in an apartment building, your neighbors might force you to soundproof it for their benefit. Or if your studio is 2 feet from a busy train track, you might need to soundproof for your benefit. The general idea in recording and monitoring rooms is control of the sound...not total isolation from the outside world, which is what soundproofing means, quite literally. I think you're using the term to mean sound - deadening, which is kind of the same as most suggestions, but not to the point of anechoic chambers - that's not helpful for recording or monitoring. Controlled reflections are ideal for both.
 
PaulieSR said:
About the acoustic treatment..

When we were recording with our band we used our saxophonist's "studio". It was a rather small room, around 20 square meters. It was soundproofed quite simply - carpets, egg cartons, some barriers shields and sound breaker bars. The trick was not to omit a single spot when soundproofing the room. You must remember that sound is a wave that can be easily reflected from every smooth surface, therefore you have to soundproof EVERYTHING - so do not forget about the table, PC case or any other objects in the room.

Acoustic treatment does not necessarily have to be expensive, especially if you do it right.
Click to expand...

Your right, it doesn't have to be expensive.

But Carpet and egg cartons are just going to kill the High Frequencies and leave all the nasty low freq waves. Which, if the room is of modest size, is usually the bigger problem. Your looking for even frequency response, not dead HF.
 
Nope, sound proofing and acoustic treatment are different animals.

What is colloquially known as sound proofing is acoustically isolating your studio from the outside world to prevent unwanted sounds from getting in. These unwanted sounds can be anything from engineers chatting in the control room to outside traffic. The worst place I've ever been involved in studio building was a location in north London right next to a train line (that happened to carry heavy nuclear waste trains once a month) and directly over an underground (subway) train line. Between the HF squeal of train wheels as the surface trains went around a slow corner and the LF rumble from the underground trains, that was a challenge. There are volumes of books written about sound proofing but to sum it up in a sentence, the keys are mass and decoupling--heavy solid block walls (or at least double plasterboard) and the classic "box within a box" construction.

Acoustic treatment is controlling the reflections within the room. This is where your carpets and egg boxes come in. They do little to stop outside sounds but they stop sound bouncing in straight lines, at least at certain frequencies. I mention frequencies because it's easier to stop high frequencies (which have a short wavelength) than bass frequencies.

There's one other difference between proper acoustically treated studios and the sort of thing you did. Real, professional studios often have lots of hard walls--but the goal isnt to be "dead" but, rather, to sound good. Look at photos of famous studios and you'll find lots of hard (often wood) walls but they're at funny angles and interspersed with absorbent material. I've watched acoustic consultants at work and have great respect for their skills--and know enough to realise that I need professional help.

A final thing--unless you can spend a lot on proper acoustic treatment then, frankly just making your room as dead as possible is probably your best bet. However, be aware that my background is TV studios (which generally ARE nicely dead) rather than high end music studios.
 
Lol, yup! Just goes to show what can creep in when the wife calls me to do something when I'm halfway through typing a reply!

(But the washing machine is now plumbed to our rainwater collection tank instead of the city mains as well as studio acoustics being discussed....)
 
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