HELP!

[Terrapin Jed]

My band and I are trying to make a studio out of a bare room. At this point it is about 20 X 12 with a concrete floor and bare sheet rock walls. The ceiling is about 8 feet high. We are going to attempt to record and album and we need to know how to treat this room for as little money as possible. What do you all suggest?

[kendale]

Aloha and welcome to the forum,

My band and I are trying to make a studio out of a bare room. At this point it is about 20 X 12 with a concrete floor and bare sheet rock walls. The ceiling is about 8 feet high. We are going to attempt to record and album and we need to know how to treat this room for as little money as possible. What do you all suggest?

Congrats on your studio build! Any chance you could please:

Edit your profile to include your location. This is very important, because this is a worldwide resource, and as such, material costs and availability vary widely. For example, masonry is cheaper than gypsum in some parts of the globe, whereas it's the exact opposite in other regions.

You'll probably get more of a response by doing so and this will really come in handy two or three posts down the road. It's also part of the forum guidelines: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231 Thanks!

While you're there, if you could try to answer the bold points in order to provide a better idea of what your needs are, that would be helpful.

Here's a good read:
SAE Website: http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html
(be sure to click on the acoustics, absorbers, construction tabs at left, and tabs that appear at the top of the pages)
Wall Units - http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm
Recording Studio Design Forum Reference Area: http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2125
More Useful Links: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1168

Looking forward to your build!

Aloha

[Terrapin Jed]

Wow Kendale, thank you so much for the info. I'm sorry I am new to this forum....I love how organized you guys are. So here is my best shot. I updated my profile to show where I am from which is central North Carolina. I read the links that were attached to your post and I really appreciate it. Right now all we have is a concrete floor and sheet rock walls......it is completely bare. I recently purchased the equipment to record with and we will be running logic on a new Mac Book Pro, MOTU interface, Dynaudio BM5a's, etc...budget equipment that will hopefully get us decent results...but I know that it doesn't matter what equipment you buy if your room sounds bad. When we play live, we have pretty loud stage volumes, but this room will be mostly for recording (and practicing I guess) where the levels will not be too loud (If I can tame my Two Rock!!!!). We have drums, bass, keyboards, percussion, and 2 guitars.

The thing is that we don't have very much money. We were going to lie down carpet, which I see it may not be a good idea to put carpet directly on the concrete, and after that we have been brainstorming on the possibilities. We don't want to spend too much money (ie, less that $500) so we understand that there may be lots of work involved. Is this something that is possible in your opinion, or are we looking at hanging blankets all over the place and crossing our fingers? It looks as if building some absorbers with Corning 703 may be the only thing we can do, is that accurate?

Thank you for being patient with me as I learn what I see now as an art. Treating me like a moron will not hurt my feelings, I am a moron when it comes to this.


Terrapin

[kendale]

Aloha Terrapin,

thank you so much for the info. I'm sorry I am new to this forum....I love how organized you guys are.

No worries! We all were new to this at some point. Thanks for updating your profile

Right now all we have is a concrete floor and sheet rock walls......it is completely bare.

Perfect! A brand new, canvas to work with! A couple of thoughts here:
- How high is your ceiling?
- Could you post a few pics of your space (600 pixels wide works real nice )

When we play live, we have pretty loud stage volumes, but this room will be mostly for recording (and practicing I guess) where the levels will not be too loud (If I can tame my Two Rock!!!!). We have drums, bass, keyboards, percussion, and 2 guitars.

What kind of isolation do you require? (How far away/friendly/understanding are your neighbors? )

In regard to your recording process, are you planning to record the entire band at once, or doing more than a few overdubs?

The thing is that we don't have very much money. We were going to lie down carpet, which I see it may not be a good idea to put carpet directly on the concrete, and after that we have been brainstorming on the possibilities. We don't want to spend too much money (ie, less that $500) so we understand that there may be lots of work involved. Is this something that is possible in your opinion, or are we looking at hanging blankets all over the place and crossing our fingers? It looks as if building some absorbers with Corning 703 may be the only thing we can do, is that accurate?

SAE Website - http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html
For an instrument to sound good you must hear a balance of its high and low frequencies. If your room is too dead in the high frequencies the instrument sounds lifeless and tubby, whereas if it's too live in the high frequencies the instrument sounds distant and has no presence. To balance a room you must have a true balance of the high frequencies and the low frequencies with the right amount of deadness to liveness.

That being said, laying down carpet will do little more than absorb a little of your high freq's while providing a nicer place to stand in/on. Perhaps if you were to a price check on the following items in your area to see what's the "best bang for your buck." What you need to ask for is either rigid fiberglass, such as Owens Corning 703 (un-faced) or rockwool, mineral wool, somewhere between 2 to 4 pounds per cubic foot density; Johns Manville and Knauf also make similar products.
- Roxul AFB Mineral Wool
- Owens Corning 703
- Owens Corning "pink fluffy stuff" unfaced
Let us know what this stuff runs in your neck of the woods.

Looking forward to your progress!

Aloha

[knightfly]

Nothing in Chapel Hill, but these guys usually have a couple of things that'll work and their prices are pretty reasonable (at least here on the OTHER coast :=)

http://www.spi-co.com/servicecenterdirectory.mv

Try to find some of the choices Kendale mentioned, and just hang some 3 or 4" stuff from your ceiling any way you can (leave a few inches behind it, and NO plywood or other backing on the batts) - then, lean some more batts up across all your corners, floor to ceiling - finally, clap in the middle of the room and add smaller chunks of the same stuff to walls randomly til you don't hear the "boing" sound after your claps - finally, plug in, tune up and crank it... Steve