John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello Everyone,

I've been hanging out around here for awhile and now I am finally a home owner- I'm excited to get going and finally put to use all of the great info I've picked up here. My question is simple- I am turning the guest bedroom into my studio. I will use the space for both tracking and mixing. It is small- approx. 11' x 10'. Before working out the design I need to decide on the flooring. It is carpeted now, but has softwood flooring beneath it. I am having the wood refinished in other parts of the house before moving in and my question is whether or not for a room this size I should tear the carpet up or leave it down. I know that in most situations you would want the wood flooring, but I have heard a few people say around here that in a particularly small room there is benefit to carpeted floor.

thanks in advance,
Kini

Even in a small room, you need at least one surface dead of any pair of parallel surfaces; carpet only absorbs high mids to high frequencies, which leaves the room sounding dead but not evenly absorbed. You'll likely end up with absorption ("cloud") over your mix area at least, so the most flexibility for sound control would be to use wood floors; you can always put an area rug down to change the sound, but it's not practical to put wood OVER carpet if it's too dead... Steve