Recording Room/Booth DIY Questions

[win_by_default]

My band and I recently made a little recording booth at my friend's house using some 3/4" MDF with the ceiling and floors covered in that egg crate foam mattress stuff that you put under your bed sheets, and some carpet padding on the floor. The room is a small 5x7 area with a slanted roof (it's built in a shed that was used as an office for a small business), the roof slants down at about a 45 degree angle. Do you think it will sound OK if we record in there? There's really no echo or anything inside the room. Is there any suggestions to get the best possible sound for little or no money? Thanks.

Kyle

 

[Trumpspade]

Trial and error.......That's what worked for me to get the sound that I wanted. I checked websites, I got information from people who had established studios, but I found that it was all relevant in my final decision. I improvised (Put up and tore down) and kept recording until I got the sound that I ws pleased with.
I'm sure you'll get alot of good info here.....

 

[Pacifica604w]

Uhh.... egg crates and foam matresses...... Two words...... Great White. Be careful!

 

[win_by_default]

Uhh.... egg crates and foam matresses...... Two words...... Great White. Be careful!

I don't get it.....

 

[demensia]

A few weeks ago a small venue (with an old 80's band "Great White) burned down and alot of people were killed.

Thats what their talking about.

 

[Riverdog]

Depends on the sound...

How you want the room to "sound" depends on what kind of control you're looking for... If you want a room to cut out all the high end and echo so you can add your own effects in a controlled fashion, It sounds like your room should work very well...

And do be careful with hot lights and such...
It would be unfortunate to hear of a home-made recording studio going (quickly) up in smoke...

Good luck...

 

[chessrock]

Is there any suggestions to get the best possible sound for little or no money?

Yea. Record as much as you can direct. Seriously, though, it sounds like the area is just too small for anything other than a vocal booth. In order to really get that sucker sound-treated, you're going to need a lot more stuff -- like layers and layers of it -- and bass traps; all of which will chunk in to the available space you have to work with.

I would guess you could make it in to a very nice, usable iso-booth for vocals and/or guitar amp.

 

[Dani Pace]

Entire band in a 5X7, you guys must really be small!!! Seriously, it sounds like you may have a good room for one person at a time to work in if you are mostly recording direct, I'm not sure how you can even fit a set of drums in that small of a place, let alone mic them to sound decent. You might want to reconsider the eggcrate, while it does difuse sounds it does not block very much, keeping outside noise on the outside is a lesson I had to learn the hard way. Shipping quilts are much more effective. Carpet remnants work well too and are pretty cheap and can be put on the walls and celing with a staple gun, indoor/outdoor if you want to soften a room, thick shag if you want to really deaden it. There are lots of ways to improve the sound of a room, you may find you need a bigger one. Best of luck, Dani

 

[tanlith]

Some "Acoustical engineer" at a recording seminar (clinic... whatever it's called today) once responded to a question about egg crates & foam like this:

"Hold an egg carton up between you and your mic and talk... does it make any significant difference? No. Go buy some proper acoutic foam."

Of course he was an arrogant prick. (At least that seemed to be the general concensus) But he has a point...

Hold various materials up between your mouth and a friend's ear and talk... try stuff out and see...

Another very impotant thing he mentioned about acoustics & recording... no right angles. Make sure the booth is not "squared off" ie: walls cannot be 90 degree angles.

I could get into a 10 page discussion as to why complete with calculations, but I won't... unless you all really want.

Another thing, 5' x7' is a bad ratio... The optimal room size is 25' x 25'. With a room this size you can achieve just about anything you would want to in a multimedia studio and it will so give you good room acoustics. The minimum size being 12' x 15', but you will have to deal with early reflections off the back wall... there's actually an entire section in Math dedicated to this sort of sound wave behavior. With the right set of equations you could probably eliminate most of your acoustical problems.

Of course the 25' x 25' assumes you'll be adding refractors etc...

... Unless you're just using this as a vocal booth??




- Tanlith -