A rather small room in the basement...

I'm finally attempting my first post, hoping I haven't forgotten anything :) I have a small basement studio that I've been using for a few years now. I've been slowly upgrading equipment as well as gaining experience, and I think it's about time that I consider improving my listening environment. Orignally (last year) I had planned to start from scratch and actually build an isolated studio...until I found this forum and realized that I don't have the time or, being a college student, the money. However, from what I've read here, I figure I can at least tame the room slightly and actually benefit from my monitors. The room itself creates a bit of an odd situation. It was orignally a single room built in the basement...4 walls...mostly square...but the back wall has since been torn down. The "studio" is the finished left hand side of the included floor plan, separated from an unfinished portion by a fabric divider (merely to keep saw dust from my dad's wood working tools out of my equipment). Unfortunately it must remain this way for now...so I have no way of treating the back wall (curtain). Goals: As stated before I want to simply improve my listening environment and provide a decent place, even if its just a small corner of the room, for vocals to be recorded. I have no need for any sort of isolation as my parent's are not bothered by the noise, and the loudest thing I record is vocals. The house is relatively quiet as well, so I'm not too concerned about external noise entering the room. I'll just have to make sure my mom doesn't start vacuuming while I'm laying down a vocal take :P Current Construction: From the floorplan's perspective, the leftmost wall, the top wall and the rightmost wall are all backed by concrete. The rightmost wall however, is bare while all the walls on the carpeted "studio" side have studs and a layer of rigid insulation and drywall. The right, unfinished side has an bare concrete floor. The sliding glass door is covered by a heavy drape. The curtain divider is actually the padding that goes in the roof of a car. Its the only material that JoAnne Fabrics had enough of for me :) Finally the "bottom" wall is not backed by concrete, but divides the room from the rest of the unfinished basement. The ceiling is 88" high. Oh, and please bear with me...I just downloaded Sketchup about an hour ago, so my drawing is rather bland. I'm sorry if I've missed any vital pieces of information. Just let me know and I'll update as quickly as possible. Along with the floorplan I've included some pics of the room before and after all the equipment was put in. Thanks so much in advance for any input and advice. Andrew http://fromthecave.dmusic.com

maybe something like this if you're feeling constructive :-)

Thanks for the idea! Looks good. I also forgot to mention a nasty flutter in the room...will the angled walls take care of that or will I need additional diffusion/absorbtion? And as for the section of wall in front of the fuse box...can that simply be a door or does it actually need to be a removable section of wall? Andrew

the angled walls will help with the flutter echo and you'll add absorbing material behind them. you may also need some additional absorption on the front wall. you can add these as needed. also hanging a cloud overhead in both the mix and mic positions may be helpful. here's a variation on this theme.

Awesome...thanks for all the help. I probably won't be able to start any work until summer once I'm back home from school, but when I do I'll be sure to post pictures and let everyone know how it goes. Thanks again! Andrew