let me see your studio!

[heatmiser]

Here are some pics of my garage...uh, I mean studio...

If anyone ever sees me advertising any of this stuff for sale as having been stored in a "smoke-free, dust-free" environment, you'll know I'm lying .



My son has no clue what goes on in here, but he loves it .



tascam 688 + eq + tape deck + amp + cd recorder



drum machines, pedals, etc. 1965 ampeg reverberocket amp (man, that thing is filthy ...will have to clean it some day)



'77 fender strat, '68 gibson sg & '48 kay archtop

 

[A Reel Person]

Hey,...

That's a nice space!
The 688 looks pretty macho beside the rack.
You look really young for your age!
Nice loooking guitars.

 

[A Reel Person]

Gosh,...

IT IS ELEVEN MINUTES AFTER TEN POST MERIDIAN, EASTERN, AKA 10:11 PM!

thanx!.......

 

[Obi-Wan zenabI]

yeah, well, I've got some old geezers in my band...

they were mad when it wasn't there one practice session this summer!
___

Hey, XFRANCOX, love the fixies! Nice bikes.

 

[heatmiser]

That's a nice space!
The 688 looks pretty macho beside the rack.
You look really young for your age!
Nice loooking guitars.

Thanks Dave .

I'm gonna have to move everything back indoors for the winter in the next month or so....

 

[rockerdude]

Well here it is www.sterlingsoundstudios.com

 

[smuffjules]

my studio from scratch..

Hi folks,

I have a nice separate two car garage with a workshop.

The space is about 728 ft sq or so with 31' by 23.6' dimensions.

I really want to have at least three iso booths and a main room if possible with a control room
I realize that square rooms aren't perfect for acoustics, but I can put traps in etc.
I've attahced my ideas for the room with some reasonably detailed dimensions.

The thing is, I really want to have this many isos for recording multi acoustic recordings
I'm based in Nashville. Folks love to go for that live sound, but to get a perfect recording, you don't want a bad fiddle part leaking into a good bass part etc., so its not about the separation for mixing purposes so much, but for performance.

I'd love some folks input before I start framing in the walls etc.

I really want to have the smallest iso booths I can get away with, and folks be comfortable.

Let me know your thoughts..

Here's my idea

 

[pandamonk]

Yea I got extremely lucky. Craigs List can be amazing sometimes. How do you like the Producer Station? What do you put on that slide out shelf to the left?

I like it. I don't put anthing on it just now. I don't have much to put in/on this desk yet. It looks quite bare.

 

[pandamonk]

Hi folks,

I have a nice separate two car garage with a workshop.

The space is about 728 ft sq or so with 31' by 23.6' dimensions.

I really want to have at least three iso booths and a main room if possible with a control room
I realize that square rooms aren't perfect for acoustics, but I can put traps in etc.
I've attahced my ideas for the room with some reasonably detailed dimensions.

The thing is, I really want to have this many isos for recording multi acoustic recordings
I'm based in Nashville. Folks love to go for that live sound, but to get a perfect recording, you don't want a bad fiddle part leaking into a good bass part etc., so its not about the separation for mixing purposes so much, but for performance.

I'd love some folks input before I start framing in the walls etc.

I really want to have the smallest iso booths I can get away with, and folks be comfortable.

Let me know your thoughts..

Here's my idea

Why 3 booths and live room? I'd have 1 large live room and a booth and WC in the control or live room. And you have the option to not have square rooms, so why build square?

 

[Weasel9992]

I really want to have at least three iso booths and a main room if possible with a control room
I realize that square rooms aren't perfect for acoustics, but I can put traps in etc.
I've attahced my ideas for the room with some reasonably detailed dimensions.

The thing is, I really want to have this many isos for recording multi acoustic recordings
I'm based in Nashville. Folks love to go for that live sound, but to get a perfect recording, you don't want a bad fiddle part leaking into a good bass part etc., so its not about the separation for mixing purposes so much, but for performance.

I know what you're getting at but tiny little rooms aren't going to sound good no matter what you do to them. The 9'x9' drum iso is close to a usable size, but the other two are way too small. And just on principal I disagree with the statement about live recordings, *especially* country and bluegrass. If you eliminate at least the 6'x6' booth in the live room and make some good gobos I have absolutely no doubt at all that you could get stellar recordings (all else being up to par, of course). If you're worried about somebody's screwup making it to tape and wrecking the rest of the groups' take, that's what punch-ins are for. No big deal.

You're also messing up your control room with that booth. The acoustics will be problematic. I'd kill that one and the small one in the live room. The 9x9 booth can stay, but I'm not sure how usable it will end up being...that's going to be a very tight drum sound. The big room might end up being much more useful most of the time.

Frank

 

[Muyukiguki]

Check me out

I have a pic of my new board on the homepage of my website www.123studiorecording.com and have some more on my Myspace at www.myspace.com/123studio . I need to update some of the pics, but you get the idea!

 

[Obi-Wan zenabI]

I know what you're getting at but tiny little rooms aren't going to sound good no matter what you do to them. The 9'x9' drum iso is close to a usable size, but the other two are way too small. And just on principal I disagree with the statement about live recordings, *especially* country and bluegrass. If you eliminate at least the 6'x6' booth in the live room and make some good gobos I have absolutely no doubt at all that you could get stellar recordings (all else being up to par, of course). If you're worried about somebody's screwup making it to tape and wrecking the rest of the groups' take, that's what punch-ins are for. No big deal.

You're also messing up your control room with that booth. The acoustics will be problematic. I'd kill that one and the small one in the live room. The 9x9 booth can stay, but I'm not sure how usable it will end up being...that's going to be a very tight drum sound. The big room might end up being much more useful most of the time.

Frank

Square rooms-- equal length and width-- would accentuate frequencies and make nodes even worse than most rectangular rooms.

I have a 20x30 space and I just kept it all open. For what I do, it's nicer to just have the whole room for the band to be in and mix in. My wife and I go up to the studio to hang out and drink martinis and play cards after the little guys go to bed or have a bunch of people over and make an event out of it. It's kind of like a big den with a home recording theme.

I just tend to vote for the larger more useable spaces. Just get yer gobos going and live with the live sound feel. It's home recording! KISS is a good rule to follow.

If I were you and set on dividing up the space, though, I would go with some trapezoids... like two or three across the back wall and one where you have the control room. Check out that John Sayers site....

 

[smuffjules]

I guess I could use baffles instead of booths.
How good are baffles in terms of separation?

The reason I want separation is so that for instance, I have a great guitar part, but the fiddler messed up.
Sure, I can punch in the fiddle, but I don't want the old bad fiddle part to have leaked into the perfect guitar part.

When you have five musicians playing acoustic instruments, you don't want any bad parts leaking into anything else.
That's my reason for so many booths.

It seems to be fashion these days here in Nashville to record this way.

But, some bands DO like to record totally live in the room which is why I'd like a good main room too.

So, space, while i'm lucky while I'm lucky to have it, still needs to be used wisely.

I could build triangular booths instead of square ones I guess, and just bring two walls at an angle from the back wall to the side walls.

I basically want to have the two options of separation, or live one room band recording if Possible.

I have a friend who has a 5'6" square booth that I have used, and seems to have adequate space. He carpeted the floor and walls and the room is dead. It seems to sound fine for recording. That's why I figured on 2, 6 ft square booths, just from personal experience of recording.

The same friend has a 9x10 drum booth, which is more than adequate. by that token, I figured my 9x9 would be fine too.

If I put bass traps in the room, and just basically deaden the room by the use of carpet, foam, getting rid of angles with soft matter , should the square room end up sounding okay???

The WC I need really for convenience, and not have folks going into the house with the dogs etc.

what would be the minimum dimensions for a vocal booth, or acoustic guitar booth/fiddle/ double bass etc??

Thanks

 

[witzendoz]

Hi,

I would avoid square / cube shaped rooms at all costs. why build them square and not rectangles. if you do a search for "room ratios recording calculator" you will find information and calculator downloads that you can use to design room sizes.

Cheers

alan.

 

[pandamonk]

I guess I could use baffles instead of booths.
How good are baffles in terms of separation?

The reason I want separation is so that for instance, I have a great guitar part, but the fiddler messed up.
Sure, I can punch in the fiddle, but I don't want the old bad fiddle part to have leaked into the perfect guitar part.

When you have five musicians playing acoustic instruments, you don't want any bad parts leaking into anything else.
That's my reason for so many booths.

It seems to be fashion these days here in Nashville to record this way.

But, some bands DO like to record totally live in the room which is why I'd like a good main room too.

So, space, while i'm lucky while I'm lucky to have it, still needs to be used wisely.

I could build triangular booths instead of square ones I guess, and just bring two walls at an angle from the back wall to the side walls.

I basically want to have the two options of separation, or live one room band recording if Possible.

I have a friend who has a 5'6" square booth that I have used, and seems to have adequate space. He carpeted the floor and walls and the room is dead. It seems to sound fine for recording. That's why I figured on 2, 6 ft square booths, just from personal experience of recording.

The same friend has a 9x10 drum booth, which is more than adequate. by that token, I figured my 9x9 would be fine too.

If I put bass traps in the room, and just basically deaden the room by the use of carpet, foam, getting rid of angles with soft matter , should the square room end up sounding okay???

The WC I need really for convenience, and not have folks going into the house with the dogs etc.

what would be the minimum dimensions for a vocal booth, or acoustic guitar booth/fiddle/ double bass etc??

Thanks

Baffles won't provide much separation, but you shouldn't really need any. You can record all instruments individually. Drums, then bass, then guitar, then vocals for instance.

Square rooms are bad(cube is worse), and i don't know about triangular. Just extend one dimention so it's not square. So instead of 9x9 have 9x10. That will reduce the room nodes, then you can install bass traps and broadband absorption.

Do not carpet the walls! It's a fire hazard, and doesn't do much except at high frequencies.

There is no "minimum dimension", but the rule is that small rooms sound bad, so keep every room as big as possible.

What height are your ceilings, remember these are a dimension too, so it's best not to have the same dimension here either, ie 8'w and 8'h.

I'll draw out a plan of what i'd do.

 

[Weasel9992]

I have a friend who has a 5'6" square booth that I have used, and seems to have adequate space. He carpeted the floor and walls and the room is dead. It seems to sound fine for recording. That's why I figured on 2, 6 ft square booths, just from personal experience of recording.

The same friend has a 9x10 drum booth, which is more than adequate. by that token, I figured my 9x9 would be fine too.

If I put bass traps in the room, and just basically deaden the room by the use of carpet, foam, getting rid of angles with soft matter , should the square room end up sounding okay???

I missed the part about carpet. You don't want to do that. In terms of size, we're not worried so much about having enough space; we're worried about the horrific acoustic properties of square (worse yet: cube-shaped) rooms. If your room is 9x9x9, all of your modes will be tripled. That's bad. Virtually every square inch of space would have to be covered in treatment to make it usable, and that's not what you want for a drum space. The same can be said of very small spaces (read: closets).

..what would be the minimum dimensions for a vocal booth, or acoustic guitar booth/fiddle/ double bass etc??

7'x11' is common. For a drum booth? 11'x17' is more like it...pine or maple offset slat. Ceiling height probably won't be something you can control, so I left that out...basically the higher the better.

Frank

 

[pandamonk]

I've made two plans. One with the minimum acoustic treatment i'd recommend and a more ideal version. The more ideal could also be improved, but it would cost a lot.

What is your ceiling height? Hopefully 10'. If it's 8', then 16' dimensions won't be perfect. It's better than square, but multiples(8, 16, 32) aren't usually recommended either.

EDIT: forgot to mention. It's probably best to only have one door, only into the control room, from a sound isolation perspective and it avoids someone walking in or trying the door on a good take. Only problem is you have no fire escape...

Another thing. When you move house, this could be made into two bedrooms (if you wall off a hall), or even a 1 bedroom flat (install a shower/bathroom in booth, and livingroom/kitchen area in control room) if they don't want a studio.

 

[Weasel9992]

I've made two plans. One with the minimum acoustic treatment i'd recommend and a more ideal version. The more ideal could also be improved, but it would cost a lot.

What is your ceiling height? Hopefully 10'. If it's 8', then 16' dimensions won't be perfect. It's better than square, but multiples(8, 16, 32) aren't usually recommended either.

Nice! The one thing that might be an issue is having the WC next to the booth. If the booth is isolated properly and the plumbing done right it should be okay though.

Frank

 

[pandamonk]

Nice! The one thing that might be an issue is having the WC next to the booth. If the booth is isolated properly and the plumbing done right it should be okay though.

Frank

I thought that too, but it would be like that anywhere. Only place it would be ok is the control room, but then you would need a booth or something to even out the back, keeping it symmetrical, which would be the same problem and reduce the size of control room.

 

[Weasel9992]

I thought that too, but you don't really want it would be like that anywhere.

I agree...after trying a bunch of different layouts, the one you did makes the most sense to me too.

To the OP: I think Pandamonk has a great idea going here...

Frank