General advice on a space I am about to rent

M

mikoo69

New member
I would like to thank everyone in advance for checking this post out. I need some quick general advice on a space I am about to rent; even if that advice is "don't rent this space! it's an acoustical nightmare ; )"

The space is a 1,200 square foot concrete room (10 ft ceilings, with piping/beams hanging down), that we plan on using for rehearsal and live band recording. I do 8 track live all-analog recordings with some really top notch recording gear, and have been looking for a space as a semi-permanent home. I am not ready to build out a "professional" studio; it's going to be a very DIY project. I need some basic advice on what I can do to this room to get it suitable for rehearsal and live recording.

Currently, the room reverberates tremendously when we are just speaking inside the room. The main goal is to get this reverb tamed so a loud rock band can play in there, and we can track it live to tape (overdub vocals). The reverb already sounds phenomenal, but it's out of control.

I am just looking for some basic advice right now, i.e. what's the best way to spend a very small budget at this stage. We would like to spend $5,000 on materials over the next 6 months; we will do all construction ourselves; possibly a one room studio, possibly with a control room+ one iso room. However, for the immediate future (next 2 weeks), we would like to just to get the space up and running for rehearsals and recording, we are thinking of getting as many cheap rugs/carpets as possible for the floors to start. Not sure what else to do at first, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I have some pictures of the space but it won't let me post links. If you go to Facebook and look up "Fallout Shelter" (it's new page with only 4 likes) you can see pictures of the space.

Thanks! Mike
 
I'd start with the usual corner bass traps, and a drop ceiling with insulation above it. Use rockwool panels on walls to tame reflections. Leave the floor uncovered, or at least not wall to wall carpet. Hard floor and treated ceiling will always sound better that carpet floor and nothing above.
 
What kind of budget do you have? I have been tracking in an old factory too but it's not as "bare bones "as what you have there.
 
Is the location isolated enough that you won't disturb anyone, or that the recordings won't pick up passing cars or people on the street?
 
the location is far off the street so no street noise. we are going tomorrow to test it to see how well the room is isolated from the upstairs building, but i was assuming since it's a cornet structure, that we'd be pretty isolated in there.

budget is about $3-5K. we don't need this space to look "professional" just need it to sound fine for a loud rock band to play all in one room, track and mix.
 
I have posted another Facebook album with specific measurements/images of the space. I still can't post links, so if you read the thread above, you can find the link to our Facebook. Any specific suggestions will really help.

Thanks!
 
in terms of a ceiling cloud, do i need to cover the entire ceiling or only the area about the drums/mixing area?
 
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