studio layout help?

I am about to start turning a spare room into a music production studio. Their will be little or no hardware synths in the room as i will be using alot of software, a midi keyboard and drum pads. I do plan on building a microphone booth 4ft x 4ft x 8ft high. I would like to get the room accoustics right as i want to master tracks their for playing at gigs. I have little knowledge of how to deal with room acoustics and would appreciate any advice i could get. i've seen the sticky on acoustic panels and plan on making some up but i'm not sure how to lay them out in the room. also i would like you could tell me if their is a better way to lay out the proposed studio in the drawing. the room ceiling is 9ft high and has a ceramic tile floor workstaion(1) and the mic booth(2) thanks

i should also add that the the walls are plastered concrete block and the ceiling is slabbed, bonded and has fibreglass above it. the door is 3ft wide and has a solid hardwood door hung. the window is 6ft wide and 4ft high with double glazing. thanks in advance for your help, joe

i should also add that the the walls are plastered concrete block and the ceiling is slabbed, bonded and has fibreglass above it. the door is 3ft wide and has a solid hardwood door hung. the window is 6ft wide and 4ft high with double glazing. thanks in advance for your help, joe

Center the workstation. With that small a room, a vocal booth will reduce needed space even more. Consider isolation boxes for equipment that makes noise and headphones for monitoring when recording vocals. Andre

doonbop wrote:

I do plan on building a microphone booth 4ft x 4ft x 8ft high.

I agree with Andre - skip the booth, especially 4x4 square, and read why here: Do I really need a vocal booth?

I have little knowledge of how to deal with room acoustics and would appreciate any advice i could get.

All is explained here: Acoustics FAQ RealTraps Articles RealTraps Videos Then post any follow-up questions here. --Ethan

Thanks for the replys, I will not bother with the booth then as i live in the country and am not worried about outside noises (dogs, trucks) affecting recordings. I will just build a isolation box for the computer system and maybe invest in a pvb for the vocalist. I am still concerned about the room accoustics as their seems to be alot going on even if i'm just standing in the room talking to someone which will probably affect the monitoring. i can hang heavy curtains over the window for a start but i would like to know where would be the key area's in the room that i should place the accoustic panels? Here is the revised layout. The workstation (1) and the vocal mic area (2)

doonbop wrote:

i would like to know where would be the key area's in the room that i should place the accoustic panels?

Here's my standard reply: Room treatment is a deep subject, and a complete answer requires far more than will fit into a single reply here. So here's the short version which will get you 99 percent of the way there. All rooms need: * Broadband (not tuned) bass traps straddling as many corners as you can manage, including the wall-ceiling corners. More bass traps on the rear wall behind helps even further. You simply cannot have too much bass trapping. Real bass trapping, that is - thin foam and thin fiberglass don't work to a low enough frequency. * Mid/high frequency absorption at the first reflection points on the side walls and ceiling. * Some additional amount of mid/high absorption and/or diffusion on any large areas of bare parallel surfaces, such as opposing walls or the ceiling if the floor is reflective. Diffusion on the rear wall behind you is also useful in larger rooms. For the complete story see my Acoustics FAQ. There's a lot of additional non-sales technical information on my company's web site - articles, videos, test tones and other downloads, and much more. --Ethan

Thanks for taking the time ethan. I have plenty to take in now.