Construction / acoustics advice

[Adamroo610]

Hello everyone. My name is Adam and I'm in the process of building a home studio in my basement. I just want some advice from experts prior to my finishing.

I'm building the studio in my basement. The room is 10ft wide by 18ft in length. (That's with frame and drywall installed) I'm limited on space so I was going to use the whole space for controls and recording equip. Instead of having to build a iso room.

Here's my dilemma, behind where I would put my control desk, there are louvered pocket doors which lead to where the furnace is..... And I know it's going to cause an issue, sound wise.

Should I sacrifice and build a small iso room (10x10) or makeshift something to block the doors during recording sessions?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Bop Stop Studio]

ISO room is the safest bet. Sounds like your doing either just vocals or overdubbing individual instruments?

as you mentioned the doors are slotted, likely meaning the furnace needs airflow thru the doors, blocking them effectively while not block air flow might be a bigger challenge then one might think. Possible, but some thought about an effective design will be needed for sure.

Maybe track in the area furthest away with as much barrier, gobos, etc.. as possible. I am suggesting sacrificing an intermittent furnace based sound artifact during mixing can be annoying but just do it over. During tracking it will be more than annoying, it will be a problem.

Not sure how active the furnace is and what kinds of sounds are coming out of it to tackle. I deal with building noises despite not being close to a furnace. I am in a 4 bedroom apartment, so street/auto noise, upstairs occasional thud, and sometimes some rattling pipes.

It does delay tracking during heavy traffic times, and occasionally calls for a retake which can be a big time downer.

 

[Adamroo610]

Good thing is, it's a brand new home and an energy efficient furnace. So not loud or running often but it still could cause sound issues.

I'm thinking of isolating the room although it may be small. It'll work. Do you or anyone know where I can get a studio/ sound window to go between the control room and iso room?

 

[mjbphotos]

Keep the room at full size - no isolation. If your mixing desk is facing the louvered doors, no problem, they'll create a little diffusion from that one wall.. Standard bass traps in all corners, ceiling cloud and first reflection point aborbers should do fine. IF the furnace makes enough noise to be picked up by mics, just shut it off while tracking.

 

[Bop Stop Studio]

Keep the room at full size - no isolation. If your mixing desk is facing the louvered doors, no problem, they'll create a little diffusion from that one wall.. Standard bass traps in all corners, ceiling cloud and first reflection point aborbers should do fine. IF the furnace makes enough noise to be picked up by mics, just sht it off while tracking.

See never thought of shutting it off!

yeah floating room is cool, but obviously expensive and labor intensive. Mostly it would take a great deal of space away, depending on your ceiling height it might not be the way to go.

And the plan stated above, in order, is the way to go.

 

[mjbphotos]

You work with what you have! I used to have a dark room in my basement and right next to it was the 100-year old furnace. When it turned on the whole darkroom shook - not good for exposing photo paper, so I had to shut it down whenever I worked in the darkroom. The house got mighty cool on those marathon darkroom Saturdays in the winter.

Now when I'm recording (not in the basement) I worry about noise from the fridge in the kitchen, the fish tank in the living room and the ticking of the cheap clock on the wall!

 

[Bop Stop Studio]

You work with what you have! I used to have a dark room in my basement and right next to it was the 100-year old furnace. When it turned on the whole darkroom shook - not good for exposing photo paper, so I had to shut it down whenever I worked in the darkroom. The house got mighty cool on those marathon darkroom Saturdays in the winter.

Now when I'm recording (not in the basement) I worry about noise from the fridge in the kitchen, the fish tank in the living room and the ticking of the cheap clock on the wall!

Yup same for Air conditioning. I don't have central air, so tracking we get it cold then shut it off and when we start to sweat need to refresh the air.

I am also always dealing with street noise and building noise as I am part of a multiunit home.
oh yeah rattling pipes occasionally, fire trucks, helicopters, sometimes a low flying plane. Luckily no trains close by.

No less damn electrical noise. I have plenty of power conditioners in my mixing room, but to have a conditioner at every outlet in the tracking room is annoying most due to space.

I try not to get to mental about these things.

 

[Adamroo610]

If I did isolate the room, it would be 10x11 which isn't too small considering the whole room is 10x18. Still up in the air about it. I appreciate all the comments.

 

[mjbphotos]

Consider if you are really trying to 'isolate' a room - ie keep outside noise completely out - you need to 'float' the room, using special rubber vibration pads , double- walled construction ... you lose a lot of space this way and can end up with a small boxy-sounding room.

Like Bop Stop, I deal with a lot fo extraneous noise too. When mic recording I wait until my wife goes out, or make her shut herself into an upstairs room (and I wait 10 minutes before starting as inevitably I'll hear her trying to be "quiet", walking around upstairs). then the street noise ... In the summer, my a/c for the whole downstairs is in one of my music room windows so I'll do the same thing - shut it down until it gets too hot to bear (sweaty headphones - yuk!) Even if its a little cooler (fan weather), I'll have to shut the fans all down.
You learn to make do with your recording situation. External noise gets on the track, you just retrack. I keep the rumble switch (low cut) on my Perception 220 and that cuts out most of the street noise that would get through. Unless the recording is a 1 or 2 guitar thing, usually the noise is not hearable in the overall mix.

 

[jhbrandt]

How about an option 'C'.

As you have heard me say, 'There is more than one way to skin a cat'. (poor kitty)

Adamroo, please post a drawing of your room and a few photos so that we can better recommend.
I really like Mike's recommendation as long as you DON'T need isolation. It would be a start anyway and get you rolling until you figured out how you work best..
I look forward to seeing more 'info'. !
Cheers,
John

 

[dreib]

The first thing I thought when I read the OP's first post was exactly what mjb said. Turn off the furnace/ac when needed .

That's what I have done when tracking in my basement and the couple of times I forgot a HP filter did the trick. Then I realized I only really needed to kill the furnace when recording drums or bass guitar cause pretty much everything else gets High passed anyway. Is that the best way to do it?.....no, but like has been said, you make due, and unless you say something no one will notice anyway.