Total nub here looking for advice regarding room acoustics. I've search over many threads and not sure of a few things. Looking to do some home recordings with vocals and acoustic guitar only. I will be using the rooms for recording only (not mixing). Is their a different treatment for a recording room vs. Mix/playback room? I have a 10x12 spare bedroom office all wallboard and a area rug covering a laminate wood floor. Room is very live and reflective. any thoughts here? Or I thought of using a 6x8 walk in closet with lots of clothes hanging with is fairly quite.
A mixing room has a specific goal: to let the engineer accurately hear what has been recorded without the room colouring the sound.
A tracking room, for recording, may be anechoic (ie. completely dead sounding) or a stone room (think of a cathedral sound), although usually something approaching the neutral sound of a mixing room is desirable. If your room is less that 1500 cubic feet then it may sound a bit boxy, in which case acoustic treatment to make small rooms have a deader sound will enable the engineer to add reverb in the mix.
Unless your room is 12.5 feet high it will be on the small side for recording, so you will probably want to look at installing some bass traps in each of the 4 corners and broadband traps on the walls, the ceiling and the along the corners between the walls and ceiling. How much depends on what problems your room has with particular frquencies and how live you want the sound to be.
You will want to measure your room so that you know that your money and efforts will be improving and correcting the room's characteristics. To help, John Brandt has reading and caluclators on his web site. See JH Brandt - Recording Studio Design/Consulting - Publications
