General advice for people wishing to set up home project studio?

[ez_willis]

Or you could quit worrying so much about treatment and just play music.

I agree, HOWEVER, this is the Studio Building and Display Forum where ideas about Studio Building and Room Treatment are discussed.

And to be fair, those examples of great sounding albums have ALL been remastered.

 

[gullfo]

Call me primitive but a lot of recordings now considered classic rock were recorded in environments less than ideal, using equipment that was not quite state of the art, such as:

Motown 58-73 in a converted plywood-covered-dirt-floor 2-car garage with more number one hits than all other bands combined...

 

[ez_willis]

Motown 58-73 in a converted plywood-covered-dirt-floor 2-car garage with more number one hits than all other bands combined...

...and each sounds like they were recorded in a converted plywood-covered-dirt-floor 2-car garage.

 

[Lt. Bob]

And to be fair, those examples of great sounding albums have ALL been remastered.

But remastering does absolutely nothing about whatever room acoustics were in play during the original tracking.

 

[ez_willis]

But remastering does absolutely nothing about whatever room acoustics were in play during the original tracking.

True, but I was replying to a post that was addressing equipment, for the most part.

Music From Big Pink by the Band--recorded in a basement using a 4-track and mixer (no fx).
McCartney by Macca--recorded in a farmhouse living room using a 4-track, no mixer and no FX.
Sgt. Pepper--recorded at Abbey Road using a 4-track. Most of the studios in the US were using 8-track and a few had moved to 16-track. EMI would not invest in 8-track recorders until the next year.
Abbey Road--recorded using 8-track in the summer of '69. By this time studios in the US had progressed to 16-track and Wally Heider was building the first 24-track studio in San Francisco.

 

[Dags]

if you want to go further with th bookshelf idea, you could create a QRD template to arrange them...

That's cool
In theory this should work as well as those timber slats of varying thicknesses you see in professionally designed studios. Maybe we should all invest in books & bookcases and line our studio walls with them

Hey ez_willis - not good news about the foam disintegrating & filling your lungs. That sucks!
I haven't had that happen to me (yet) but it did turn from a blue-grey to an insipid yellowy colour. I'm using the ripple foam sold as double bed mattress support which might be of a slightly different make to the standard block foam.
Had it in the old studio room and I'm able to re-use it in the new room 9 years later and it still seems to be ok.
(still waiting for builder to come back to finish steps )

Dags

 

[Dags]

I'm using the ripple foam sold as double bed mattress support which might be of a slightly different make to the standard block foam.
Dags

Side note: the foam I'm using is similar to this (just found a picture on the web)

Dags

 

[corban]

On a scale of 1-10, that pwn4ge was at least an 11.

you can't rate your own pwn4ge

 

[NL5]

Sgt. Pepper--recorded at Abbey Road using a 4-track. Most of the studios in the US were using 8-track and a few had moved to 16-track. EMI would not invest in 8-track recorders until the next year.
Abbey Road--recorded using 8-track in the summer of '69. By this time studios in the US had progressed to 16-track and Wally Heider was building the first 24-track studio in San Francisco.

Yep, an untreated bedroom is on par with Abbey Road Studios. WTF are you smoking? That actually proves the point that the musicians and the ROOM make more difference than the gear. Oooops.

 

[Lt. Bob]

Yep, an untreated bedroom is on par with Abbey Road Studios. WTF are you smoking? That actually proves the point that the musicians and the ROOM make more difference than the gear. Oooops.

Plus I've read that Abbey Road had a great room sound ..... part of why stuff from there sounds good regardless of the equipment used to record with.

 

[apl]

I'm using the ripple foam sold as double bed mattress support which might be of a slightly different make to the standard block foam.

You have got to be kidding.

 

[ez_willis]

you can't rate your own pwn4ge

I'm the only one qualified to do the job. I'm THAT good!

 

[Dags]

You have got to be kidding.

Nope.

Acoustic foam is $100 a square meter over here in Oz
This other stuff stuff I'm using is $129 for a double bed sized slab (about 4 square meters) and it works well enough to knock out that annoying high frequency room ring.
Definitely good enough for people starting out to quieten a room or a space for recording in.

Of course, the shape of the room may require further treatment in order to remove low/mid boom and we already have had some suggestions to counter those, including, very simply, putting a couple of couches in there.
NOTE: I'm not recording live drums, so I don't have huge crashing walls of sound to try to control. I mainly record vocals, guitar and occasionally bass & sax or oboe.

It also seems we don't have all the room treatment options that seem to be available over in the US, (that rigid insulation that everyone keeps talking about, for example) so we must make do with what we can get our hands on.

The foam slabs I'm using is just one option for people on a budget that I have found works for me.

Dags

 

[apl]

The foam slabs I'm using is just one option for people on a budget that I have found works for me.

I did my room for less than $150, but I'm not in Oz.

I hope that bed foam never catches fire.

Have a nice arvo!

 

[Phoneboy]

The main idea is to work on your skill as a musician. If you are good, there is always room for improvement. On a side, start recording your tunes/songs. Instrumentals would probably be a good place to start since you probably can get a good signal to noise ratio even with inexpensive equipment and spending nearly nothing on your room. Just make sure you get a nice strong signal.

Don't expect phenomenal results. Perhaps approach it with a "just need to get my tunes on cd so they don't get lost" type of attitude. As you will start recording tune after tune, you will begin to learn things about recording you didn't think about before. You will slowly start to grow and develop in knowledge and know-how.

Some time later (perhaps a year or so. depending how much time you'd be spending on recording), you will feel that you may need to upgrade and will probably understand why. You probably may have a good idea of what you need too...

Anyways, back to the basics - just start recording.

This quote is dead on IMHO. Most everyone comes here and sifts thru the diff threads that mite hold the answ to thier ? . There is all kinds of useful info on rm treatment, equip, setup, etc etc..take from it what you will but as the quote states " just start recording " You will learn the finer points as you go. Enjoy your craft. make music and have fun.


Just my 2cents (with alot of help from vadoom)


*now let me get back to googling that hetrzagog thing ma do hicky*