Welcome to the Recording Studio Design Forum

Plans and things, layout, style, where do I put my near-fields etc.

Moderators: Aaronw, kendale, John Sayers

Corey Y
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:42 am
Location: Salinas, California, USA

Re: Welcome to the Recording Studio Design Forum

Post by Corey Y »

Hi John and everyone else. I've been lurking about, without registering, on and off over the past decade (that long?! wow). I used a lot of the information available on this forum when designing and treating my home mixing suite several years ago. I'm getting ready to start planning a build in the new year, so I decided to finally register and do things properly. I look forward to interacting with all of you. Thanks for providing such a great resource John.
Soundman2020
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Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:17 am
Location: Santiago, Chile
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Re: Welcome to the Recording Studio Design Forum

Post by Soundman2020 »

Hi there Corey, and Welcome to the forum! :)

I'm looking forward to seeing your thread about the new place, but it would also be good if you could post something about what you already accomplished in your existing space! :)


- Stuart -
Corey Y
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:42 am
Location: Salinas, California, USA

Re: Welcome to the Recording Studio Design Forum

Post by Corey Y »

Soundman2020 wrote:Hi there Corey, and Welcome to the forum! :)

I'm looking forward to seeing your thread about the new place, but it would also be good if you could post something about what you already accomplished in your existing space! :)


- Stuart -
Thanks Stuart, my home mixing suite project was very budget oriented. It's set up in the smallest room of our house, I think about 12 ft x 12 ft x 8 ft, with a window on one wall, and a small closet door in the corner on the wall adjacent to the entry door. I have a desk with a shelf, where I sit my JBL speakers on isolation pads and wanted to get as much room as possible to be able to have someone sit or stand behind me or store some small amps for a bit of demo recording for myself at home as well. I ended up buying 8 BareTraps from RealTraps, 4 with the membrane for first reflection points and 4 without for the corners. I bought a mirror/picture hanging kit from Home Depot with a French cleat set, some screws, picture hanging wire and mounting loops for the wire. Then cut up the cleat into small pieces, drilled new holes and used those to mount the panels flat on the walls. I screwed a loop into each corner and ran the hanging wire to each side of the back of the corner panels, so they would hold themselves up against the corners, with some loop side adhesive velcro stuck to the back of the frames to pad and avoid scratching up the walls. I also bought some additional absorption panels (can't remember the brand anymore) at custom sizes for behind the speakers and a cloud. I made my own mounting braces for the ones behind the speakers out of wood and screwed them into the walls, so they would sit away from walls. Hanging the cloud was a bit of a bother. I had to order it in two pieces, as they wouldn't ship one big panel big enough as I needed. So I found some metal tie plates to mount them together side by side, then installed some eyelets into the frame and into the studs on the ceiling. At first I tried using my left over hanging wire to suspend the cloud, but that did not work out well at all and it sagged where I joined the two panels together. I had the bright idea to buy a bunch of super cheap metal carabiners, since their size was just right for the distance I wanted it hung from the ceiling and they were rigged (so the panels didn't sag in the middle). The panel directly to the right side had to straddle the wall and the window, so I made a little wooden frame that I screwed the stool of the window and mounted it half on that and half on the wall. I couldn't straddle a panel in the rear left corner, because of the doors, so I took the advice of the people over at RealTraps and mounted it to the entry door instead. I had to flip around the lever handle to clear it and make a little wood mount for the bottom so it wouldn't fall off if the door slammed. It could definitely use more treatment than I have, but what I have works really well for establishing a reliable listening environment for my mixing work. I can't really take pictures, because the room is so small it's hard to get even get half of it into a shot and I'm not much of a photographer as it is. I did make a scale drawing of my plans as I went and here's the finished one (it makes the room looks much more spacious than it really is too). I got a lot of feedback from the people at RealTraps and some TapeOp forum members, as well as referencing this forum A LOT whenever possible.

How I have things set up now, there's a rug in the middle of the hardwood floor, a floor lamp to the left next to the door, a wall mounted set of lights near the right rear corner, a shelf under the window that holds guitar/bass effects pedals, and a guitar and bass amp setup under the shelf and a couple microphones I generally keep setup all the time ready to record. There's usually a chair or two directly behind me for attended mix sessions or working on demo recordings with a friend here and there. It works very nicely for my paid mixing jobs, some vocal recording and occasional guitar overdubs. I keep my instruments and a few mics in the closet and I can grab something quickly and make some demo recordings for myself any time I want.

Since we're thinking about having another child sometime in the next few years, I'm now starting to think about clearing out of that room and creating a new mix space with an additional live room. In addition, the neighborhood where my rehearsal/live room is located isn't very nice, in fact there was a shooting on the street in front of the building this week, so both are great incentive to finally break down and build myself a decent small live room at home. Either as a garage conversion or possibly as a detached structure in our back yard. That's still in the planning phases at this point though, like I said.

(EDIT: attached the picture again, apparently it was deleted in the server move)
KTK9
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat May 28, 2016 11:03 am
Location: Orange Park, FL U.S.A.

Re: Welcome to the Recording Studio Design Forum

Post by KTK9 »

Hi,

New member here.

I'm getting ready to finally build a home studio from the ground up. I'll go into details there. :)
I'm going to post a new thread to ask some questions, because some of the things I thought to be true regarding "Isolation" and/or "Sound Proofing" regarding a live drum kit and a Heavy Metal band may or may not be true.
KTK9
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