I searched all over the forums, and I found very little discussion on this issue. If I missed something, please link me to it, and I'll politely go away. ;)
I'm aiming to be a one-man band type of person, doing my own engineering as well. I'm aiming for a one-room studio design, where I can do my tracking and mixing in one area. This is not just for space reasons, but for ease of use as one person doing everything, drums included.
My other limitation is the fact that I want all of my gear and sound treatments to be portable, as my profession (IT engineer specializing in Linux) doesn't seem to allow any stability beyond a year or two.
Has there been any special research to go into these special requirements? Or is there not anything special that you really need in order to make a room work for both purposes?
Thank you all for your time!
The One-Room Studio
Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 2260.
In your situation, a one-room studio is probably the best thing for you. It's basically what I'm doing, and while I do a lot of recording for my band and other people who come thru, I do a lot of my own recordings with me playing everything, and it's always been preferable to have it all in one room.
Portable treatment may leave you with a somewhat lacking sound treatment system, but if you can do semi-portable stuff you'll be just fine. When I use the term portable vs semi-portable, what I mean is this; to me, portable means not attached very tightly and can be picked up and moved around whenever you want at a moments notice. Semi portable means it's screwed into the walls or ceiling, and while you won't want to be shifting it around every weekend, it won't be too much trouble to pull it off the wall when you move, and put it up at the next house.
The other thing you might want to try is adjustable absorbers. Take a look at John's work at Left Bank studio on the "recording studios under construction" page. On update 3 he has a simple plan for a 4' wide panel system that amounts to a 2' wide door, and a 2' wide space next to it for that door to swing into. The door frame is filled with rigid fiberglass insulation and covered in fabric, as is the space for the door to swing into and the frame behind the door. On one side of the door, there are wood slats over the fabric. When you open the doors, you get wood slats for a more "live" sound. When you close them, you get just fabric and rigid insulation for a more "dead" sound. Either way, they're deep enough off the walls to give a deep absorber and soak up a lot of low freq sound. I'm building a few of these, and they look promising.
This way you could have a variety of room reverb times to play with.
Anyway, yeah, you can do a search for all-in-one-room ideas and you'll get a couple responses. Most people here prefer to have separate control and tracking rooms, so it'll be a short list. ;)
Good luck!
Thanks for the reply! Yes, I guess what I mean is semi-portable treatments. It doesn't need to come down at a moment's notice, but I would like to be able to take the stuff to other recording locations, as well as the occasional convention (long story).
I suppose I can post my ideas, based upon reading forums and books, and other research. I'll need a bit of time to gather it all together, though.
http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm
these are the portables, just work them to fit for your portability :)
Keeping the angles the same.
I'm not too sure I would call 8-foot tall cabinet-sized structured made of MDF "portable". ;) Sure, you could call a walnut entertainment center portable, but I definitely wouldn't want to lug it around.
On the other hand, if you could build them in smaller sections and just stack as needed...
I have other ideas as far as Helmholtz resonators are concerned. Could you make a slat resonator that isn't a corner unit? Let's see if I can do some ASCII art to illustrate:
(this would be a cross-section)
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Make them 4' tall and stackable then :)
It would still be too big for one person to move. I forgot that as a requirement: portable for one person only.
I think my best bet will be membrane bass traps. Or lots and lots of fabric-covered rigid fiberglass.
So what u are saying is a 4 x 4 Portable unit would be a bear to move???
Try moving an old EAW Speaker for fun.
Oh yeah forgot. What if you put wheels on it like all PRO sound Companies do with there gear and racks and stuff :)
Okay, leave it up to me not to think of that. :oops: :lol:
I guess I just don't want to build more furniture that will need to be moved and stored everytime I get a new place in a new part of the country. I want stuff that will be lightweight and still reasonably effective. Tall order, I'm sure, though note the word "reasonably" in there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1992-10.pdf
I linked to this in the Acoustics forum. I think a stack of these, and some diffusors would be effective in a wide variety of rooms. This idea also fascinates me:
http://download.prosoundweb.com/~j.hall ... fusor1.JPG
http://download.prosoundweb.com/~j.hall ... fusor2.JPG
It's a diffusor design put together by j.hall, and hopefully he won't kill me for linking to his pictures. He uses these to either side of the mix position, angled diagonally from the walls, just like John's side-wall treatments. They look incredibly easy to build and they could be made very portable.
All these, plus a diffusor for behind the mix position that can be moved out of the way during tracking, and I think I'd be set.
Well, some folks on other forums seem to think I'm on the right track. Portability is definitely the key.
I guess now it's time to get down to designing and sourcing materials for my various acoustic treatments.
A big thank you to Giles and Dymaxian for your help!
I've been building all my cabinets for slat resonators and panel traps 2' wide nominal, and I have no trouble moving them around. Making side-wall slat resonators 2' wide should be easy.
Kase