Very small room - help needed

Hi - I have spent the last three days reading threads here and I must say I'm very happy I found this board - thank you. Now on with my own problem. The room I plan to use as a home-studio is only around 16' by 8' (5m x 2.5). It is the last room in a long house, first floor, so 3 walls are outside walls (colombage wall, wood and brick covered inside with mineral wool and 1cm plasterboard). The inside wall is made of plasterboard and mineral wool. The floor is concrete, ceiling is plasterboard and mineral wool hanging from the agglomerate wood of the second floor. There is no door yet on the inside wall - and I need to soundproof especially this side for a peaceful family life. The opposite side is near a (quiet) road and needs soundproofing as well. Two huge windows on each small side of the room. Please see attached image from SmartDraw. I mainly plan to do self - DAW recording of acoustic and electric guitars and small percussions, as well as some vocal work. I can use, on occasions, another room for piano or drums recording. I own a pair of Tannoy Reveals (red) and NS-10s. I think I need a small vocal booth to peacefully record my little Fender amp, acoustic guitars and vocals. Also this booth will help isolate the loudest things (like guitar amp) from the rest of the house. And vocals won't be disturbed by noises from the road, the bathroom or the rest of the house. Do you think a design like the one attached would make control room and booth too small for "leisure" recording ? Should I stick to a single room design ? I plan to work in three steps : 1) Put a door on the inside wall for soundproofing 2) Make the booth 3) Treat the remaining as a control room Any idea/advice is welcome. Thank you

I forgot - Ceilling height is 7.5' .

As small as you room is, the division is cool but for acoustical treatments unless you don't mind losing almost 2.5 feet of floor space (side to side) I'd build the portable tratments and place then in these rooms http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm

Thank you - so I guess I will make the booth a "room in the room", and keep the remaining of the room as is with portable treatments to make it more suitable for mixing and editing. Depending on how the booth will sound once build, I will add treatment as well. Probably the booth and double door will be soundproof enough for quiet work and family life, as sound in the control room will not be that loud. One more question though : the booth door seems to "get in the way" of the DAW/console desk - do you think it would be wise acoustically and practically to rotate the control room and have the booth door at the back while facing the window ? Thanks again.

I would say that it would be more a question of ergonomics and convenience. You can deaden the exterior booth wall on either side of the door with bass traps, use thicker insulation on the door for absorption, use portable treatments on your side walls, and very thick acoustcal draping over the window. And end up faring pretty well. I would also use the space on either side of your window for bass traps as well.

I'd suggest going with one decent sized room instead of splitting the space up into two smaller spaces. If you do a good job of treating the room, you should not have any problem recording vocals or acoustic guitar in there. For electric guitar, you have a few options: 1. turn down (not likely) 2. get a smaller amp 3. build or purchase an enclosure for your amp I like the 3rd option - it allows you to use your current amp and crank it as loud as you like, without disturbing anyone. And building (or buying) one of these is a lot cheaper than building out a separate booth & control room. Your existing room isn't large, but its big enough that it would be a pleasant place to sit around and play guitar or sing. Building a tiny booth creates a closet like atmosphere that few folks find comfortable. If you can get away with a one room layout, I think you might prefer it in the long run. Here's a link to several commercial products and DIY designs for amp isolation chambers: http://www.amptone.com/index.html#iboxprods good luck

Thank you for your suggestion - that's quite a dilemna. The reasons why I would like a separate isolation booth are : 1) better isolation from the outside noise (family noise as well as the daily truck that collects milk from farms, on the nearby road) for acoustic, percussion and vocal recordings - this can be solved by making the whole room more soundproof, but much smaller too. 2) better isolation of the rest of the house from loud noises (guitar amp) - you have a point, this can be solved by an amp closet. 3) getting the real sound from the microphones instead of amp leaking - this can also be solved by an amp closet, but that will not work for vocals or percussions (when I'm not the one playing). The reason I first ruled the amp closet out is that I feel I need to experiment and train my ear on microphone positionning, record with multiple microphones, etc. My amp is not that loud: it's one of those small tweed Fender Pro Junior. I may plug it on sometimes on Mashall 1960As cabinet (the one with 25W reissue speakers). As I have never been locked in a booth, I cannot really tell whether this small booth will be comfortable enough. I will string the room this week end to have a more physical view of the booth. Thanks again. Gwen

Unless you plan on having a bunch of folk in there (more than 4) I;d split it up. nothing like having a vocal booth. I despise cutting vocals on headphones (as the engineer). IMO you cant really hear the true sound of your recording. Just my opinion however.