Tracking Room for One-Man Takes

[Mike3354]

Hey guys, I'm moving into a new house, and connected to my room is a small walk-in closet that I want to convert into a small (and it is small for this type of thing- 6'x6') room for tracking single instruments/vocals at a time.
I plan on having my computer/preamps/etc... outside the room, and i'm just going to run the mic cables under the door into the room. The question i have is how to treat the room acoustically, since it's so small and completely barren (apart from the carpet floor).
From what i was reading, it would be best to try to pretty much deaden the bass completely, so i was thinking of putting bass traps in all the corners and then some foam in a checkerboard pattern on the walls.

Would this deaden it too much/not enough/just sound bad? I plan on recording guitars (acoustic and electric), bass, vocals, ukulele, banjo, mandolin, hand drums, harmonica, organ/rhodes piano, lap steel if it matters at all (i know the instruments would tend to make you think i am recording country-ish stuff, but it could best be described as folk-rock influenced by punk-rock ).

So pretty much: what i explained is my best idea with the reading i've done, but i couldn't really find anything on how to treat a tiny square room for recording single tracks at a time. Any input would be great, thanks.
-Mike

 

[tmix]

My honest opinion is that the room is entirely too small to worry about useable room sound, so I would (at a bare minimum) completely trap 2 adjoining walls and the ceiling, and maybe checkerboard the remainig walls.

I had a small vocal booth that was 5 by 6 foot and 7 1/2 feet tall. I did as I suggested and made a lot of good recordings out of it. I even recorded drums in it occasionally.

Vocals and acoustic guitar fared well as did the occasional guitar amp, but surprisingly, gentle percussion sounds sounded incredibly weak due to the fact of no reinforcing sound coming from the room.

My experiance anyway.

Tom

 

[cincy_kid]

with that small of a room, if you put bass traos in all 4 corners and some foam as well, you are barely going to have room to move

My live room is also very small..just a little bigger than your space and what I am doing is what was suggested to me by another forum member Pandamnk.

If you see the bottom little closet area, you will see a couple of broadband absorbers on the wall/door and then 2 more that I plan on screwing together with hinges that can be moveable for whether I am singing or micing the guitar.

That would be my suggestion. Also a reflective floor is nice, especially for recording acoustic guitar. If you dont have the time, money or desire to redo the floors, an easy fix is to take a piece of cardboard or something and place it over the carpet which should help a little..

Good luck and welcome to the boards ~

 

[Mike3354]

thanks for the help guys.
So is this (the picture) pretty much what i should do, along with some absorbers on the ceiling and hopefully a reflective floor (is that only good for acoustic guitar, or good in general? i.e. vocals, electric, bass... it's going to be a general tracking room, not just acoustic guitar.)

I just wanna make sure i get this right, because i'm kind of stuck with whatever i do in here the first time, since a lot of other work has to be done on the house

 

[mshilarious]

Just fill the closet with clothes like you normally would. Otherwise, cover every surface with absorption.

 

[cincy_kid]

and yea, a reflective floor is good for everything, especially with an absotptive ceiling...

 

[Mike3354]

ok, so pretty much deaden the whole room, except the floor? and, just for clarification, do i want bass traps or broadband absorbers, because i've read they are different (deaden different frequency ranges).

-edit-

by the way, i was wrong. the floor in there is hardwood.

-edit-

ok, so i think i figured it out. i should cover as much as i can, other than the floor, with a broadband absorber, like 703. So i just just put as many 703 panels up as my budget allows, right?