John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

My room is about 14.5 ft wide x 18.5 ft long, and 12 ft high. It's pretty midrangey, and too live. I have very little money to spend, and am trying to figure out what to do to make it sound good. Most of the technical stuff is over my head.

I only have 2 corners that don't have a doorway, so I'm planning on 4 inch rockwool in the corners to trap bass, and hopefully some more somewhere else in the room. Is this a good start? Do they need to be floor to cieling to work?

Next, I'm trying to figure out a way to deaden the room a little, while keeping it a "live" sounding room. It's really hard to record overheads, or vocals in the room, because they turn into room mics.

I know bass traps are needed in all rooms, but what about reducing midrange in the room? What works best for that?


Thanks!

Mids and highs are easier to absorb than lows. If you put 4" rockwool across those 2 corners, that alone will make a noticable difference.

Besides being to live, the other problem you're most likely having is flutter echoes from having parallel reflective walls (incl floor and ceiling). I don't think you should deaden the whole room, but try to find ways to make the wall surfaces non-parallel. An easy way to do that is to build some curved panels out of 1/4" plywood. Two walls you could leave alone (not 2 that face each other- the front and one side, for example) but the other 2 walls that face them you could mount alternating panels of fabric-covered rockwool and curved plywood. This would absorb some of the mids and highs, but diffuse most of it and leave the room fairly live without flutter problems.

The ceiling in most tracking rooms is absorptive. If your ceiling is higher than 10 feet, then diffusion may or may not serve you better, but if it's lower than that, put fabric-covered rockwool up there to absorb reflections off the floor.

Hope this helps!