Homemade Studio on a Budget

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Bonzaho15

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Hey everyone. I'm looking to turn my old room in my house to a studio in which i'll be recording drums. I'm only 15 so this is the only option I have for space. The room is pretty small (about 10' x 10'). Theres a standard 8' ceiling with hardwood floor. There is also a window on one wall. I know these conditions are not very good for recording, so I need some things I can do to improve the sound quality in the room, again i'm only 15 (no job), so its on a pretty small budget. I'll be recording not only drums but many instruments in the same room (not at the same time). I'd consider myslef an intermediate drummer, but new to recording. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
 
have you been to websites like www.musiciansfriend.com or www.americamusical.com ? these sites offer alot of affordable gear that you could use. look at their multitrack recorders from Fostex, Tascam and Zoom. I have a Fostex VF-16 and paid $800 for it back 4 years ago, so just look around on the market and you can prolly find some good used recorders. Try to get atleast an 8-track recorder with on board effects. After that, get you about 3 good mics to start with...(Sm58, Sm57, and a good condensor mic) and that will set you up for the basics. Most of today's multitrack recorders come with on board cd burners too so that shouldn't be much of a problem. But i know how it is to be 15 and into recording. i got into it when i was 12, and my first piece of gear was a fostex 4-track tape recorder, and being only 15 with hardly any budget, your gunna have to get all this stuff peice by peice. i'm 17 now and everything i've ever had in my studio comes from just getting one peice at a time. But be patient and go for the good equipment. it will be worth saving and waiting in the end.
 
o yeah, and if your trying to tone your room down (get rid of the echo and keep the sound down) Use absorbant materials like carpet, egg shell foam, and in my old studio i even used carpet padding..it doesn't look all that well but it does the job and carpet stores practically give this stuff away. I even had some of my older friends (a guy that owned a HI-FI home studio and was in a popular band in the south) come in and they commented that they was amazed at how well something as cheap as that could do such a job. and if you want something that looks a little better, you can hang up rugs, pillows, cardboard...stuff like that.
 
I agree with the 57, and the good condensor mic (I'm assuming that you meant an LDC), but I would not get a 58 as well, because they are exactly the same mic except for the windscreen/ball thingy. If you could, I would go with a SDC, or better yet, a pair of them. Then you can record stuff in stereo, and you will also have a set of drum overheads. Its all up to you, but that is how I would do it. About the room treatment, I would just go with rigid fiberglass. Its still pretty cheap, and definitely works better than cardboard. ;)
 
Okay, so you're 15, not "only 15" - at 15 I had already been working 2.5 years (cutting lawns on the weekends and washing dishes 3 nights per week at a place called the Vienna Schnitzelhaus") so get a part time job, work and save ever single penny of your money - in fact, deposit your enite check in a checking/savings account, and make yourself a promise that you can not touch it until you have XX amount of dollars - say $1,500 to $2,000. Just be prepared for it to go out a lot faster than it came in. :)

What gear do you currently have, and what kind of recording are you interested in doing? (I mean, are you going to be ecording on a Compouter, or a stand alone unit? Do you already have any of this gear? If you intend to record on a Computer - it needs to really be a singl-duty PC - in other words - it is only used for recording, not for Internet usage or anything else - you are asking for trouble trying to make the one machine do both, because it's a hassle to lose all of your recordings because a virus you got from the net helped take out your Hard Drive.)

If you are going to be recording on a PC, let me give you a piece of advice - forget soundcards. Go directly to a Firewire interface that allows you to get at least 8 channels of audio into the PC at teh same time.

Is this 10'x10' room going to be used for anything else? In other words - what exactly will be in this room besides a drumset? Because anything and everything in it will effect the acoustics of the room. Is this still going to be your bedroom? or an office or hangout room?

Who owns the house? (Your parent(s) or is it a rental?) How much modification can you do to the room structurally?




Tim
 
The room is only going to be a recording/practice room. I don't have a band so i'll be the only one in there so space for other members isn't an issue. My parents own the house, and they're not to into me doing anything to structural. The room has an old sliding door closet that I took the door off and put my desk in there with all my recording gear i've got so far on it. Other things that will be in the room include a half stack amp, a smaller bass amp, some guitars (w/stands), a chair for the desk, and thats about it besides anything thats to small or easily removable.

As for the gear i've got....I have a fostex VF-160 and will soon be getting some SM57's (2-3 depending on $). Other mics that don't out-price the SM57 and would be good for recording let me know. I've got some older mics, but are no where near anything worth recording with.

Yes I need to do anything and everything I can to this room to make it recording worthy. But studio foam is a little pricey, as are acoustic panels. I've been told hanging things like movers blankets on the walls would help. Is this true?

As for the job, i'm looking into getting one in about 2 monthes (when I turn 16). I live a good distance from town and getting a ride to a job would be practically impossible. I do rake/shovel yards and driveways and all that good stuff, but still lack the cash needed. Luckily christmas is soon, so that'll put a small dent in the stuff I need.

Yea I'm a musiciansfriend subscriber (as everyone here probably is) but again, I lack the $.
 
Bonzaho15 said:
The room is only going to be a recording/practice room. I don't have a band so i'll be the only one in there so space for other members isn't an issue. My parents own the house, and they're not to into me doing anything to structural. The room has an old sliding door closet that I took the door off and put my desk in there with all my recording gear i've got so far on it. Other things that will be in the room include a half stack amp, a smaller bass amp, some guitars (w/stands), a chair for the desk, and thats about it besides anything thats to small or easily removable.

As for the gear i've got....I have a fostex VF-160 and will soon be getting some SM57's (2-3 depending on $). Other mics that don't out-price the SM57 and would be good for recording let me know. I've got some older mics, but are no where near anything worth recording with.

Yes I need to do anything and everything I can to this room to make it recording worthy. But studio foam is a little pricey, as are acoustic panels. I've been told hanging things like movers blankets on the walls would help. Is this true?

As for the job, i'm looking into getting one in about 2 monthes (when I turn 16). I live a good distance from town and getting a ride to a job would be practically impossible. I do rake/shovel yards and driveways and all that good stuff, but still lack the cash needed. Luckily christmas is soon, so that'll put a small dent in the stuff I need.

Yea I'm a musiciansfriend subscriber (as everyone here probably is) but again, I lack the $.
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Instead of SM57's, I would suggest you look at MXL microphones.

Here is what I would try to get if I were you:

MXL 990/991 package. either of these could serve as an overhead - at this point, you don't really need to close mic each drum. I personally prefer small diaphragm condensers for recording - they have a faster response time, which means the recordings have more "impact". They are also more crips sounding than dynamics.

I'm not familiar with the oktavia brand mic's - I know some people really like them, but I've never used them so I can't suggest them. I have several MXL's (well, actually I have 10 MXL's - I'm virtually weeding everything else out, because I like them so much.)
They are hard to beat for the price. The only thing the SDC's are not really good for are the kick drum - BUT depending upon how you tune it, and how much muffling you use in it - you can use one for the kick - you just have to put a little distance in between it and the drum.

Build yourself a kick drum tunnel - do a search, I've posted about this several times. It's almost like a little "room" you build in front of your kick drum - and you put the mic in there, and it isolates the mic and the kick from the rest of the drumkit.

You can use a speaker (6.5" through 10" seems to work the best) to add low end thump to the klick drum. You wire the speaker to an XLR cable, and use it like a giant microphone. You will need another mic to pick up the mallet attack of the kick, but you can use just about any mic for that - probably even one of the ones you already have. If you build your kick drum tunnel out of wood, you could build the speaker inside of it and kill 2 birds with one stone. Don't spend a lot of money on the speaker if you do this.
Check out http://www.partsexpress.com for speakers.

Learn to Solder!​

Since you are doing this on a budget, you need to learn to solder. Don't waste your money on cheapo connectors. Spend the extra money and buy Neitrik - they will last twice as long, and you can get Carroll brand mic cable in a $100' roll for relatively cheap.

Here are some pages that I wrote several years ago on Soldering.
http://www.angelfire.com/fl/Brownsound/diy.html

Just buy a "pencil" style soldering Iron.
You don't NEED one of those fancy soldering stations - I've been soldering for over 20 years and have never had one yet. I still have the same $20 Soldering Iron that I put together from Radio Shack parts when I was 21 (I'm 37). (They used to sell a handle with different parts that screwed onto it so you could build a custom one)
You can get a good one for probably around $30 and it will last you for years as long as you take care of it.

I make all my own cables, because I can get a great quality cable for the price of an economy one. I have more time than money so, the entire 10 minutes it takes me to make a mic cable is worth it to me.

Don't waste your money on "claws" - you can get Onstage brand booms for $20 each if you buy one of those packages of 5 at Musician's Friend. I have them and they work jsut as well as a German mic book that I paid almost $70 for. In fact - they look almost exactly alike.

Learn to really tune your drums well - because this will make or break a drum recording moreso than the number of mic's you have.




Tim
 
yeah a job would do wonders lol. I worked my ass off for about 8 or 9 months, makin only $100 a month, cleaning/moping/vacuming the local church (yea that's prolly agenst the worker's union but it's like that down here in the dirty south lol) and i spent the money i made (around $900) on my recorder (vf-16). I see that you already have the vf-160, which seems to be a good recorder (never had any problems with my vf-16), but yeah i could have never got the stuff i have now without a part time job, christmas/birthdays and very supportive parents lol. I would just suggest (as everyone else here would) get a part time job, save your money, get your gear, use it for a few years, then sell it for newer better gear, or if you have the resources, keep the old gear too and have alot of gear ;) lol
 
Alright thanks. I'll check out those mics. Now what about the room? I need to make the actual room itself better for recording, and i'm starting from nothing here. Any ways to make the room better for recording would be awesome to know. Thanks
 
Bonzaho15 said:
Alright thanks. I'll check out those mics. Now what about the room? I need to make the actual room itself better for recording, and i'm starting from nothing here. Any ways to make the room better for recording would be awesome to know. Thanks
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Well, how close are your neighbors?


You could build a small frame and plywood "lid" that fits over the windows.

Also, you don't need to completely foam the whole room, you could buy some cheap panelling and glue the sound proof panels to it in a checkerboard pattern, then mount the panelling to the wall. Thatway you aren't glueing the foam directly to the wall.


Tim
 
Neighbors are not an issue. I live in the country sort of and my neighbors arn't close. So I don't really need soundproofing, I just need good acoustics in the room for the recording.
 
Any ideas for good (not to mention cheap) sound quality improvements to a room?
 
Bonzaho15 said:
Any ideas for good (not to mention cheap) sound quality improvements to a room?
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So tell us what the room is like?

Floors: Wood? Carpet?
Walls: Sheetrock? Wood? Paneling?

I have a trick that works, but it would require some light construction.

You take 1"x2" furring strips (1"x2" boards) and tack them to the wall around 18" apart, running lengthwise around the room, then you go to you local carpet outlet, and ask them if they will sell you carpet samples.
Then you hang these on the wall, starting at the bottom and going up, and let the rows that are above hang over the lower ones. That will kill all of the reflections in the room. (This is what I did in my home studio.)



Tim
 
That sounds like a pretty good idea, i'll have to run it by the parents first though
 
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