A one man band studio

Hello everyone. Ive been reading this forum for the last 3 days now and have been literally blown away by the amount of information contained here. Ive been planning my basement studio for well over a year now and after looking at all these specs and plans I find myself lost as to what to do next. All these studios feature The control room, studio one, studio two, vocal booth etc. but I'm left asking one simple question. What is the best way to go about constructing a studio for a one man band? ie: the one person who does both the instrumentation and the tech side. Now this question may not be as daft as it sounds because at the end of the day I want as soundproofed studio as I can possibly get, especially when it comes to the vocals, but if im standing in the vocal booth who is going to hit record? :) Same with the drums, guitar, keyboards. Should I be considering some kind of remote control facility in each room/section or should I be concentrating on one big room? Any and all help on this matter would be much appreciated.

Looks like you need a big Control room/studio. That's feasible - what sort od space are you looking at?? cheers john

Not a lot of space really. Eleven feet by Nine. 76 inches in height.

Yeah, do it all-in-one-room. You'll still have to hit record, run behind the drums and play, then run back to the console to hit stop, but it's better than running from one room to the next. Most well-built control rooms will function as tracking rooms just fine.

Or get a wireless keyboard and a mouse and a music stand :) Bryan Giles

:D okay taking into account what you all said, ive drawn up a little idea of what and where I think things should go given the limitations of the area and the restrictions of the shape etc. The purple bits are where i think bass traps should go. The dotted line is a demarcation for a possible vocal booth?? The drums at the far end, keyboards to the right of the console, and I think guitars and basses can pretty much go anywhere??? Is any of this layout okay do you think?

That doesn't look like it is to scale for the dimensions you provided earlier. Did you "acquire" some more space? Otherwise, the only other real comment I have to offer is a logistical one. You will probably get tired of running back and forth when tracking, so getting some kind of remote control capability will most likely be high on your list of improvements once you get started. Darryl.....

Ok it's monday and peple have good sense of humor. I was just looking at the space and thinking... Wow that looks like my 5 yr olds drum kit miniturized. U smacked it out the park DDev Hey grab smartdraw or something and lay your room out more to scale cuz what you draw is impossible. with 11x9' of space :)

sorry guys, the only thing I had to hand was Windows Paint :oops: And yes your right that is so drastically NOT to scale. Gimme a day or two and Ill find one of these programs, someone I know has been using a simillar thing to design her house and garden so I'll see what I can muster.

hi i've had the same problem but got myself a long usb cable and monitor. hooked up my monitor, keyboard and mouse. it's a quite comfortable situation like this. i can move my controls to anywhere i want in the recording room. bc

Is this better? Basically its an old house, around 1880 I think. Brick floor. Thick walls. The two protrusions at the top of the picture are the base of the chimney stack. There are two ventilation outlets at both the left hand side of the picture and the right hand side. The electrics for the house are on the 90 inch wall, and so is the gas supply. Im thinking obviously im going to have to put a floor in yes? so the 76 inch in height is going to reduce dramatically. Rockwool insulation and then plasterboard for the ceiling maybe? And what do you think the best positioning for the monitors, the desk, the keyboards, drums and the vocal area would be gievn the shape of the room. :)

Let's start with a drawing that's to scale. ;) cheers john

So you could do something like this. You must understand the room is very small - a drum kit would take up most of the room :) cheers John

WOW, firstly thanks for taking the time to do that for me. That was very nice. Secondly I had no idea that i would potentialy lose so much space, but at the same time I can understand why, so thanks again for fleshing it out for me. I'm gonna have to call it the shoebox when its done :)

Secondly I had no idea that i would potentialy lose so much space

well I did give it the extreme makeover - you may wish to back off a bit ;) cheers john