Basement Studio

EDIT: I am trying to learn the sketchup application. I added a possible layout in sketchup to the attachments list. I also resized the pictures to 640x480 so the scrolling would not happen, sorry about the first pictures I put up. My first real post so please forgive my complete newb pictures and such. I have been lurking around here for awhile and picking up on some information but I am about ready to start fixing my tiny little office in the basement into a somewhat temporary control room/tracking room. I will do a more complete studio design when my oldest some moves out of the house and I will have a majority of a 1000 sq. basement to myself. I need to take some pictures for everyone to see where I am starting from and what I am dealing with and will do so tonight when I get home from work. Goal: To use the space as a somewhat temporary (3-5 years) mixing room and a tracking room. I need to get as good of drum sound as I possibly can in this small space (please don't laugh, it's all I have :) ). Accuracy of sound and overall acoustics is my primary goal for mixing first and then tracking. I am not so worried about isolation but any help in insolation with the budget would be great. The traps that I build and most of the materials I want to be able to reuse when I have the chance to build a more suitable space. Pertinent information: I have attached my hairbrain idea/initial plan and the dimensions (done in Pbrush). I am trying to learn sketchup but have not quite figured it out as of yet. I have added something that resembles my room in sketch up below. There are pictures of the room below as well. I will be doing all but the plumbing myself. DIY Bass traps and early reflection panels and all other work will be done by me. Floor - Concrete untreated Walls - See picture. Concrete walls are painted white right now and the 2x4 walls are sheetrock on the other side and just bare 2x4 framing on the interior of this room. Ceiling - 6'10" - Exposed Floor joists right now... Water Heater will be removed and so will water softner. ---------------------------------------------------- Budget: $3000.00 Questions: 1. Ceiling height is a big concern since it is only 6' 10" from concrete floor to bottom of ceiling joists. My plan for the entire ceiling was to use an unfaced rolled fiberglass insulation between the floor joists and just cover that with burlap (after using class A flame retardant on the fabric). This would hopefully make the ceiling "dissapear" sorta speak from most reflections and make recording drums doable. I am not sure what I cna do to isolate from upstairs? Will the insulation give me any isolation? Is there something I could put above the actual floor joists that would deaden more sound from getting into the room? 2. In the back of the room by the door, there are some heating vents and a laundry shute that cannot be removed. My thought was to wall it off and loose a couple of feet of space from the length of the room and use the space behind the new wall as a sorta closet for cables, mics, etc... Is this a stupid Idea? I would think it would give me some isolation from upstairs since the laundry shute and one more of the heating vents would be outside the interior of the room. 3. If you look at the picture, I thought if I built a custom 4" or 6" bass trap type wall on the furnace side and the oposite side of the furnace. I could mount them on hinges and use these to semi close off a suedo booth when not tracking drums. Things like acoustic guitars and vocals. It would hopefully provide some isolation from my computer noise that will be sitting next to my desk or mounted in the rack on my desk. 4. Obviously, the water heater is going to have to move and the cost is around $550 to buy a "direct Vent" model and another $500 in plumbing costs (I have a plumber friend that will help redo all the plumbing). So the waterheater and hopefully the water softner will move to the laundry room where there is already a gass line and exposed ceiling to route the vents for the unit. 5. I have the furnace power switch mounted on the furnace so If I need dead silence, I can turn the furnace off and turn it on again when not tracking. But i am hoping the "bass trap" type wall I wanted to build infront of the furnace will help keep some of the noise out of the room. Any design help on these temp wall will be helpful :-) Again, I hope I am giving the information needed. So let me know if I am missing anything. I am new to acoustics and will be buying Rod's book asap. but I thought I could get some pointers and more information here as I am learning more about things... Most of all, will this even remotely work? Thanks everyone :-) MP54U

According to your drawing you have the right idea....plenty of bass trapping spread out over as wide an area as possible and broad band panels at the first reflection points. It's a good start, for sure. That water heater is a bummer from a reflections standpoint...not sure what you can do about it though. I'm not sure how well this will function as a dual-purpose space though...it's a very challenging room because it's so small and there are so many irregular surfaces. You have to make the best out of what you have though, so it looks like you're heading in the right direction. Frank

Thanks for the reply Frank, I am removing the water heater. Only problem is that it eats around 1/3 of my budget :-( So after the plumbing, I have roughly 2k to spend on the rest of the project. Since the room will only be this way for about 3-5 years, I will get the most out of what I have :-)

mp54u wrote:

Thanks for the reply Frank, I am removing the water heater. Only problem is that it eats around 1/3 of my budget :-( So after the plumbing, I have roughly 2k to spend on the rest of the project. Since the room will only be this way for about 3-5 years, I will get the most out of what I have :-)

That's better. It'd be good to get some measurement software and get a really good idea of where you're at currently, then the effect treatment has on the space. You'll be able to spot treat from there. It'll really help you use the space you have to your best advantage. Frank

I can do that, but looking around the forums and on realtraps.com and GIKacoustics.com, the software they are using for testing is more than I can really spend right now. I found info in the forums here about REW and will be downloading that. My question is what Mic should I use for the tests? for SDC's I have Rode NT5's, MXL 991's. For LDC, I have the AT4050, SP C1's, AT4047, Oktava MK219, My guess is that all of the above Mic's will not be perfectly flat for testing. Is there a cheap condensor that will work for the measurements if none of the above will work for the REW tests? Looking around, a few people have used the Behringer ECM8000 Microphone, will that work? $49 at GC and I could grab this on the way home... Also, what Preamp to use for the test??? I have the 002R tweakhead mod pre's, Seventh Circle Audio C84, N72, A12, or the Presonus Digimax LT Pre's. The C84 is a nice clean preamp with good clean gain so maybe that would be what I would use???? Thanks again for the replies and help :-) mp54u

OK, GC doesn't have the darn ECM8000 in stock. What about the DBX RTA-M Measurment Mic? Seems comparable. Has anyone used either of these? Should I be too concerned over this.

mp54u wrote:

I am not sure what I cna do to isolate from upstairs? Will the insulation give me any isolation? Is there something I could put above the actual floor joists that would deaden more sound from getting into the room? MP54U

This one answers the question you didn't know you had yet. Nails protruding through Subfloor from Tile and other areas. Another good one on how to add isolation in overhead joists: Basement Combination Room Construction Under Way