Please help me with my live room!!

Started by shanex100 on 4 February 2009. 0 replies.

Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 11662.

Hello All!! First off, I just wanted to say that I've been reading/lurking here for the past few years and while I’m still a "newbie" I feel like I've learned so much from all of you. I hope someday I'm able to offer the kind of knowledge you've all given me. I can't thank you enough!! Here's my story so far: (I'll try to keep it short and to the point and apologize if I go into too much detail) I'm located in Milwaukee, WI. I moved from my home studio into my current space 1 1/2 yrs ago. It was an already built studio but was more of a place to do overdubs and not so much a place to track live bands. There was just a control room and big live room. I just finished building an 8'x10' dead room and a 5'x7' amp/iso booth (both with 8' ceilings) in the live room about 4 months ago. I've included a couple before/after pics to give you an idea of what I did and what I'm working with. Live Room: By the drums it starts out at about 9' wide and as you move out into the room it grows to 15' wide. The room is 33' long but the dead room takes up 10’ of that. So I have about 23' of length in the room with an 11.5' ceiling. There’s a drop ceiling with your standard office 2’x4’ drop tiles but there’s a layer of 4" 703 resting on top of the drop ceiling and about 6"-8" air gap between the 703 and the buildings rafters. The walls are drywall and 2 of the walls have a stucco finish to them. The floor is the natural wood floor of the building. I made a floating drum platform with the left over material I had from the dead room/iso booth that has come in pretty handy with getting the drum vibrations off the building. Yay for U-boats!! The 4'x8' panels on the walls of the live room are made up of 2" hull board insulation (my local dealer said it was their version of 2" 703 type stuff) wrapped in fabric with home depot fence lattice on the face of the panel framed up with 1"x4" pine. They're hung so the insulation has an air gap of about 3"-4" between it and the wall. A friend of mine gave me the plans for these panels and told me the insulation will help bring the brightness of the room down (which they did!!) and the fence lattice would act as a DIY diffuser (I have no clue if that’s really the case at all - and/or if it's really doing anything at this point). What I DO know is that once I put the panels up it helped A LOT with the high end in the room. The dead room and iso-booth are floated up on U-boats and are not touching each other or the buildings walls. They are 100% floating. The black panels above them are 4" 703 also framed with 1"x4" pine and covered with burlap. The same goes for the other black panels on the walls. I was told I should put some bass traps up in my corners - but the room is not very bass'y. I would like to put MORE bass in the room if anything. It’s a bit cold/thin sounding. Again, things improved once I put up my panels but I'm wondering if just more panels are the answer or if there’s something else I should be addressing. I'm also wondering, if I keep putting more treatments in the room that just attack the high end will I just end up with a dull room?? Plus wouldn't that also kill the liveliness of the room?? Because I like the liveliness I get right now (I'd love even more if possible??) I just feel the room is a bit harsh. I'm a pretty handy guy so I feel like I could make most treatments if I need to. My budget is around $600-$800 at this time. I should also mention that I rent - I didn’t mind building the dead room and iso booth because I signed a 4 yr lease and figured I'd like to make the best out of my recordings while I'm there but I'd prefer at this point to be able to take anything from here on with me when it comes time to move on. Any advice you guys could give would be very appreciated. Please let me know if it would help to post some different pics as well. Thank you in advance for your time and offering a place to ask questions. I hope all is well. Take care, Shane Hochstetler www.howlstreetrecordings.com
Image not preserved: Front Live Room 9-18-08.jpg
Image not preserved: Back Live Room 9-18-08.jpg
Image not preserved: Old Live Room Front.jpg
Image not preserved: Old Live Room Rear.jpg
Image not preserved: Blue Print Layout.jpg