Am I Screwed? Studio size help

Hello, I have a bit of a problem I think. I have a 7x8foot room that my wife says that I can put a studio in. Some people have told me that there is no way that I can get a good mix out of room that small?? I have a pair of M-Audio BX8 monitors and I am not looking for “pro” mixes but I don’t want them to suck. What can I do???? I record all in the Digital domain.. my guitar goes direct through my Boss Gs-10 and I do all through the PC. Thanks for the help……

It's possible, but it won't be easy. If you're handy at basic carpentry, you can try to build a bunch of the angled wall units John has plans for- Put them everywhere you can along the side walls. Then put as much absorption on the back wall as you can. After that, the only thing you can do it learn the sound of the room really, really well. A good mix can be gotten out of anything if you know how to mix in that room- you just learn to compensate. A good sounding room makes it much, much easier, and in that room you describe it'll be a challenge without treatment. Think you can sketch up the layout? What is the room, a spare bedroom? If it is, and it has a closet, is that closet near the entry door? How about windows? I've heard of people using the closet of an extra bedroom as a 24" deep bass trap, and if you can arrange the room so that a closet is on the back wall, you may be in much better shape... Just thinking out loud. Kase www.minemusic.net

Ok here is a sketch of what I want to do. I only have this amount of space to work with so I hope that I can get some help to do the best that I can with the money that I have. The room is not built yet, it will be going in my basement. I have the studs and drywall to build the room left over from the remodel of the rest of my basement. I have about 400$ that I can spend on items to go into this room. I will be mainly concerned with Mixing in the room. I do all my recording Direct and I am not so concerned about the room being sound-proof and I am about it sounding good so my mixes don’t suck. I have M-Audio BX8 monitors to mix on. I also would like to have a small part of the room to do Vocals or acoustic stuff occasionally. Thanks for all the help this Site is great!

Hrm... well, it could be a lot worse. To be honest, having those dimensions on the room, the basement is the best place for it, because you know you won't have to worry about windows or anything. If you're building all these walls new, what you should do is frame up the walls as normal, then put 2 sheets of drywall on the outside and NONE on the inside. This'll give you a 3-1/2" deep space between each stud to use for trapping. Give me a bit, I'll try to come up with a few thoughts on getting this to work. Does it matter where that door is along that wall? If you can keep it 12" from the back wall, you can put some respectable trapping back there... Kase www.minemusic.net

Kase I have time... I wont start building it for a month.. I am just trying to make sure that I do it right for the Money that I have! I really appreciate all the help as I am new to this!!!! It does not matter where the door goes but on the Right side where the rack is and where the desk is are the backsides of existing walls. Thanks

Ok, maybe i went off the deep end with this... Might want to open the PDF in another window so you can switch back and forth easier. With a room that size, absorption is going to be your best bet. So what I'm showing is 2x4 studs except for the back wall, which I made out of 2x8s. That deep stud space in the back will give you a real deep broadband absorber in the back. I dont think you'll be able to do this for $400, but you can get started and take it in stages. Stage 1: get the framing up, and put only one layer of drywall on the outside (you can add another later if you decide you want better isolation, but you mentioned that's not so much of a concern). I'd build the door myself, too- just make it out of 1x4 framing, put 5/8" drywall (maybe add a sheet of 1/2" plywood to the back for durability), stuff the inside with blanket insulation and cover it with fabric- maybe put a layer of 703 under the fabric too, up to you. Every little bit will help, even on the door (it's 1/3 of that wall!) Then, on the inside, stuff all the stud spaces you see with 4" fiberglass blanket insulation. Cover that with fabric, stapled to the studs. This'll make all your walls pretty absorbent, and your room will sound pretty dead, but it will suck up all but the really low stuff, so it'll get you by until you can do more. Stage 2: If you can afford to put 2" of rigid fiberboard insulation on the front and back walls during Stage 1, do so. Otherwise, that'd be the next step. Cover it up again with fabric. Stage 3: Refit the side walls. Get the fabric out of the way (hold onto it, you'll be putting it back in a bit) and then nail a 1x8 alongside each of the wall studs (or a 1x6 spaced 2" out- the idea is to have a 4" or so offset from the face of the studwall). Here you can attach 1" rigid fiberboard under the fabric under wood slats, all at an angle, so the walls would be more live without creating flutter echoes. I'd personally use 1x2 slats spaced 2" apart, but you might want to see if anyone else on the board has a suggestion- for a room this small, you might want to adjust the absorption vs. liveness... If you can get away with it *snicker* you can angle the side walls out just a little bit to keep those walls from being parallel... if you don't think your wife will mind (or notice) this'll help considerably, and it won't make the room all that much bigger. If you're building this in the basement, and you don't have much $ to put into it, I'd think you could just build right up to the floor joists above. You could try to angle the ceiling, but I can almost guarantee that'll blow your budget. Best to just build up to the ceiling, drywall flat to the floor joists and hang a 703 "cloud" to keep flutter echoes down... I think you'll find that isolation will become more important to you down the road. In the basement, if you're anywhere near the furnace and water heater, you'll be cursing every time they kick on. If your laundry center is downstairs, you'll be unplugging the washer when you want to mix. But like I said, you can start off with a single layer of drywall and add more if you need to. Good luck! Kase www.minemusic.net

WOW I cant tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to do that. I have a lot of questions..... I wish I knew more about this :oops: :oops: :cry: Should I put in a wood floor? and if so do I put it right on the concrete? When you mention Fabric what type or kind (thinking cheap here) :) how do I make those wood slats? I have a carpenter that is going to do all this for me I do music and computers not wood :shock: :D anyone else see anything? Thanks a Million

ner0z, first could you update your profile to include at least a city? It's hard enough to suggest things when I DO know prices and availability in your area, but when I don't know even what country you're in... Kase gave you some good advice, but that room will be claustrophobic with nothing cutting down the available space at all - if you were to build those slat absorbers on the sidewalls, even though they would help acoustically, you would be left with about 5-1/2 feet of side space maximum. You might be better off building the room using John's "inside out" walls, although they won't give you much isolation unless you have a second leaf separated by air space with insulation. Your ceiling height is REALLY limiting as well - are you sure you don't need isolation between the downstairs and the main part of the house? If you do, you'll need to handle that part BEFORE you build walls in the way, and you'll need to add Resilient Channel before haning wallboard on the ceiling. Otherwise, footfall noise from upstairs may be more intrusive than you are on whoever is upstairs. So, what do you think so far, and more importantly where do you live and what kind of dollars are you talking about? Also, do you have ALL the lumber and drywall you need for the construction or just part of it? Kase, you confused me with your DIY door description - got a sketch? Steve

Thanks Knightfly for the response. I live in Des Moines Iowa :shock: :D I have all the studs and drywall already for this and I have stretched my limit for now to about 600$ for the room. I am not so much concerned about the Isolation as I am having my Mixes suck (they suck bad enough as it is) If I am going to record Vox or acoustic cant I drape some kind of haging blanket? And as far as the celing goes I have to go that low because of heating ducts.. but I can sure stuff a bunch of fiberglass or something above that. Thanks

Hey Steve! I was thinking about the isolation thing, and I'm kinda caught between sides on it... he doesn't think he needs any isolation (and IMHO that'll change once his furnace fires up) but at the same time he won't be tracking drums in there or anything... If he's just mixing, intermittent noise upstairs will be a little annoying, but not catastophic. I'd think 2 layers of drywall, along with the floor deck from upstairs, would be enough for him. By the time he needs to upgrade his room, he'll be looking for a new place to put it, too. I showed inside-out walls on the PDF I drew up there... He'd kinda be building slat absorbers into the walls themselves, at least using the stud cavity as part of them... They may or may not serve as helmholtz resonators, but even just having 4" of insulation on the walls should make a difference. The fabric I'm talking about can be colored burlap or muslin. You should look for a spray-on fire treatment for it tho- don't want that stuff to ignite on you... I'm on the hunt for that stuff currently, but there's other people here who have good sources for that. The floor I'd leave alone for now. It wouldn't be too expensive, but it'd cut your headroom down a little, and your money is better spent on treating the walls right now. As far as the slats themselves go, Ner0z, just use 1x2 or 1x4 or 1x6 lumber, laid flat against the wall. If you wanted to, you could make helmholtz resonators out of the walls, but IMHO I wouldn't do that in more than a couple spots- Helmholtz resonators work really good for narrow bands of problem spots, but you need to absorb as much as you can over as wide a freq range as you can. I'm going to be alternating between 1x2 and 1x4 slats on my walls. But they're pretty cheap, so that shouldn't pose too much of a problem. If you're not doing this yourself, then you'll probably pay your carpenter more for the labor on that part than anything else- it's kinda tedious... Like i mentioned in the post with the plans, you can just put up the insulation and fabric for now, and wait until you have more funds for the slats. Biggest thing for you in that size of a room is to get that rear wall absorber. Kase www.minemusic.net

You know you keep mentioning the Furnace.... :D and the room will be 3 feet from it :shock: so when I say ISO I am thinking just having a corner or something and draping blankets for Vox or Acoustic... are you thinking more then that? but all the PROG rock that I am going to be playing I need help :lol: :lol: My carpenter works for food! so I think that I am OK there :lol: what would you recomend that I use for the rear absober?

All your walls will be absorbers. Look closely at the plan i sent. It shows drywall on the outside only, so you'll be able to fill the stud spaces inside with insulation. Build the back wall out of 2x8s and you'll have a ready-made 8" deep absorber. When that furnace fires up, you'll be wanting some isolation. If you're recording vocals in the room I drew up, you'll probably be fine as long as you drywall the ceiling. But yeah, before I was concerned about it- now you say you're that close to it, and I think it's almost imperative that you get good isolation there. 2 layers of drywall will do a lot for you, as long as your door is built well. But a furnace makes more noise than you might think, especially when you're mixing. Those prog rockers will be on your case to make sure they can hear every single one of their 32nd notes on the bass guitar, so you don't want to be trying to mix with the furnace rumbling. Good deal with your carptenter tho. The barter system is a wonderful thing.

Kase, I have found some 703 Fiber that I can get 2ft x 4ft 2inch for 8 bucks a piece. What kind of Fiberglass should I use for the other? Thanks

Check around for pricing on 703 and other similar fiberboard stuff... I don't think I paid that much for what I've been using. The other insulation I'm talking about is regular fiberglass blanket (batt) that is used pretty much everywhere. It's really good for sound treatment, but does almost nothing for sound isolation. If you drywall the outside, and put that stuff between the studs with fabric over it, it'll suck up a lot of sound for you.

If you can get 2" 703, I would stick with that for nearly ALL your inside treatment. That small a room will have a LOT of low mid problems, so you would likely get better results by spacing some of the 703 off the wall by 6-8 inches where you can. The lighter, standard insulation has nowhere near the density of 703 and will take out too much air without removing any of the "boxiness" of a small room. In that small an area, you may want to experiment with complete absorption and then play some commercial CD's in the room, adding some electronic reverb til it sounds right - this would become a permanent part of your monitoring chain, so you would need at least two different reverbs - one for the permanent monitor system, and one to add to your actual mixes. Then, you'd need to record the mix WITHOUT the "permanent" reverb, and "dial it in" by listening on other systems/places til you get your mixes to "travel" well. Here's the "disclaimer" part - I've NOT actually tried that technique, so I can't swear that it would work - my main point is, that small an area needs to be really dead to get rid of all the modal problems it causes... Steve