How Small Is Too Small - Control Room

I want to break up my current room into a separate control room/live room. My dilemma is that I currently use my room as dual purpose, both as a rehearsal room and a recording studio. My room isn’t huge, approx 23’ long with widths of about 9’ and 11’. I’d like to build a separate control room in the space, but at the same time, leave enough room for a 4 piece band to rehearse. How small would be too small? My initial plan is on the SketchUp drawing, but I don’t like how small it will make the live room. That was the original size of the room before I opened it up and it was just too small for live band rehearsals. Should I just resign to the fact that I’m stuck where I’m at? I can’t have both a recording studio and rehearsal room? BTW, the room is located in my basement in Dover, Delaware. The dimensions given in the SketchUp are about as accurate as I could get. And I probably have about $500 to play with in construction materials. As usual, I’ll be performing the labor.

Oops, my SketchUp file was too large. Here it is: http://mysite.verizon.net/btlovin/images/Studio_1.skb

And here are a few images of the current room and my recording rig. Thanks

KnuckleHead wrote:

Should I just resign to the fact that I’m stuck where I’m at? I can’t have both a recording studio and rehearsal room?

Not really. I guess it depends on what you want to accomplish by having a separate control room. For over 10 years I have had a 12 by 22 room for rehearsing a 7 piece band and recording. I wanted some iso for critical tracking so I built a 5 by 7 vocal/ guitar booth and left the rest for a main tracking / rehearsal room. If you need additional iso for noisy computer etc, you can build a 2nd smallish iso room for the noisy equipment. I recently built the new studio (about 900 sq/ft) and I had gotten so used to working alone in a large tracking / mixing room that I made a similar but larger set up in the new place. I think you'll be surprised at how many people prefer to have one larger room that 2 small rooms, particularly if you operate alone most of the time with just a few people. My thoughts anyway. Tom

Thanks for the input Tom I guess the reason for the separate control room is to help with the acoustical aspect of mixing. And it researching that, it lead me to believe that the best way to accomplish this was to have a treated room which means I have to build something, so why not go big :twisted: (or small in my situation). It basically comes down to me not being happy with my current layout, so I want to make some changes. BTW, I checked out your studio; nice place.

Thanks. I found I could treat the room for mixing and it still sounded great for recording. Until you get into a pretty big room the sound of the ambiance in a small room is not very tasty. Mixing in a larger room was nice because others could sit in behind me and listen in during edits and mixdowns (not that you always want THAT by any means) I think with your set up you could build a booth and a mix nook and still have room for rehearsals. At least it would fit your budget.

I agree with Tom, if your budget is really only $500, use that on room treatments. build ing wall to divide the space doesn't absolve you of needing room treatments and proper isolation is all about details, some of which will likely cause the work to go past your budget at this point.

OK, let's talk treatments then. I'm gathering that I definatly need some bass traps in the corners and some sort of acoustic panels on the walls and perhaps a cloud overhead of my console. What else? How do you acoustically treat a long, oddly shaped room? thanks

thats the essence of it. corner bass trapping - consider wall-ceiling and wall-floor corners if needed. on the walls and ceiling - staggering the absorbers so they have some gaps and don't completely cover the surface. this way you keep some life in the space and things stay better balanced. use standoffs on the wall and ceiling absorbers to improve their effectiveness. if you have a small budget, start with the corner traps and if necessary, hang some small blankets on the walls (leaving gaps, and folds) to cut the flutter echoes until you can measure the room response and determine what other treatments you need when you can afford it. use only fire retardent treatments to avoid serious injury or death in the event of a fire.

Something like this?

yes. you can put one on the back of the door as well.

i remember reading somewhere to offest the panels from L wall to R wall. in other words. . . if a standing wave was to bounce directly back and forth from L wall to R wall, one side will always have absorbtion.