Looking for info and ideas for a poor man's home studio

[pM of impk21.co]

I jus got done looking threw some posts on this forum. Some of yall have some nice set ups or are getting ready to get something set up.

I posted about monitoring trouble. I believe it was "Texroadkill" who directed me here. He stated I needed a good monitoring environment first to get the best mixes possible, and I agree My bedroom studio does need some accoustic treatment. I was looking at some of these pics and I live in a two apartment house, even if I owned a house I cant knock down walls, and nail two layers of sheetrock around my bedroom. LOL. It wouldnt even be worth the money if I could, I only plan to be at this address a few more months. But I gotta record! I have a AKGsp1000 condensor mic used for vocals. I know its mainly intended for instruments, but that is the best mic I have right now, for those who are not fluent with the brand it is a small diaphram mic, other than that I also have a SM Shure 58. The room I am in has decent walls, but not thick, its a rectangular shape, almost squared actually. I was thinking of making some of those accoustic panels designed to help capture reverberation and what not. I know this is not very detailed, but for those of you who have been in my position and are, what do you do, what do you use? My mixes are way off. When I mix down it doesnt sound like the highes are there, so i focus on tweaking the highs, when I played the first mix in my car, whoa, it was bad, I might as well have recorded with one of those $10 Phillips mics you can buy from Wal-Mart used for home kareoke. See my point, yes/no.

How do I treat a room for accoustics, without tearing down walls and spending a lot of money? Where would I most likly want to postion accoustic panels and what not if that seems to be the way to go? If I am using some Aiwa home stereo speakers that are almost 6 years old, should I get some real monitors,LOL, you get the idea...................any advice would be appreicated. Thanx, pM

 

[frederic]

If you cannot modify the structure, intend to move soon, or not interested in spending some dollars, you'll need to go the foam, comforter, blanket, foam bass trap route and litter the room with this stuff.

If you hang it with low-tack cement (like rubber cement, but not quite, its a 3m product actually), the foam can come off the walls if they are painted with oil paint with no damage to the paint, when you move.

You can also use long pushpins, and make miniscule holes in the wall that no one will see.

Blankets and comforters can be hung using screwhooks which you put at the top of the wall close to the ceiling line, where again, no one will notice if you unscrew them carefully when its time to leave.

Certainly not ideal, but not the worse thing to do (paper eggcrates IS the worst, and I've seen this before).