John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I've posted on Homerecording.com twice and I really cant get a good answer or a good mind picture set in my head of what my studio set up will look like. My sister recently bought me recording equipment(sisterly LOVE ). I have a basement room that is rectangular and that's 15 feet by 32 feet. I'm going to try and record rock/soul/funk music in it. I'd prefer to have visual contact between the control room and the vocal booth and the live/rehearsal area. Because it always is funny to see your friends sing. I need to fit a lot of shit into one place. I'm a girl I don't know much about building or design( . I know how to ROCK ) so I would need to know all the measurements and things to build to tell the contractor. So all the help I can get would be great. I know this is one of those questions that is like roll your eyes annoying but it would be really helpful. I hear a lot of good things about the people on this site.

Thanks
Jesse. S


The list of GEAR :
MONITOR SYSTEM: The 2 stereo HAFFLER AMPLIFIERS,150 watts per channel
The speakers are TANNOY NEAR FIELD 6.5 flat response
MIXING CONSOLES: YAMAHA 03D and TASCAM 312B
THREE DBX PATCHBAYS
KAWAI 8 channel midi patch bay
PROCESSING RACK: includes:
ACM power center with lights-
LEXICON ALEX with ac adapter and manual-
KORG A-3 processor with ac and manual-
KORG D1-PRO DIGITAL TUNER with ac and manual-
Beringer SNR 1000 denoiser with ac and manual-
ROLAND M-BD1 bass & drum module with ac and manual-
E-MU Pro-cussion drum module with ac and manual-
ROLAND JV-880 with ac and manual-
LEXICON MPX-100 dual ch processor with ac and manual.
All mounted into a custom made red oak natural finished cabinet.
TASCAM TSR-8: ½ inch tape recorder
All the cables needed,
EXTRAS :
midi and patch cables
a custom stand to mount the TSR-8 deck
the de-magnetizer
2 reels of 456 tape
the RC-408 remote for the TSR-8
Boss remote foot pedal for TSR-8 great for punch-in recording
3 spare reels
1 spare hub
cleaning fluid
Boss DR-550 drum machine (battery use is find, but using the ac adapter (included) is somewhat loose at times
Boss (half-rack classic) digital delay (right side needs repaired) FATAR Studio 49 keyboard.
[/b]

post a picture of the layout and hard obstacles

Best,

Dave

I found this... do to the fact that I cant make my own...Would this be alright for me ? I was thinking of having a vocal booth .. how could i add that ?

Jesse,

Don't take this as criticism because it is not intended that way. The folks here will work with you on your design ideas, but they won't design it for you. That being said, what dbluefield was trying to say was to start the ball rolling by outlining your space in a sketch. Do a search and find out how to download a copy of the demo version of Smartdraw which is a favorite here. Start with a basic outline of your space (15'x32' you said?), then mark in the spaces you think you need (ie. control room, live room, vocal booth, all in one room, etc.). Define what you want to do (record just yourself, record instruments one at a time, track a whole band at once, etc.). Once you've been able to process these thoughts you can better analyze your space and with the help of these folks you will get to your objective. This is a great DIY learning place, but everyone expects you to learn about studio design, not just have them design it for you.

It sounds like you've got a decent start on your studio with your equipment, now the real fun begins. Trust me, if you stick with it to learn this studio design stuff it will make you a better recording engineer since you will learn how your room shapes your sound.

Cheers,
Darryl.....

Well put, Darryl -

Jesse, welcome to the forum, and congrats on having a sister that must truly love you - Darryl's right about what you need to do - John, Thomas and myself all do this in our "spare" time, and there isn't enough of that to do everything for all the people who want to build studios or just improve their space. I've been working on a generic set of drawings showing more construction detail and have yet to get the time to finish those, but will post them as a "sticky" when they're done - that should help a lot of the types of questions I get on the Construction forum.

Meantime, there is a lot of info both here and at the sites you can reach by clicking on the John Sayers Productions logo at the top right of the page.

I've tried a couple of times in the past to help people go from "what's a hammer" to "this is my studio", and it's 'way more than I can handle. There are books already written that can help here - one place to look for these -

http://www.contractor-books.com

On the SAE site itself, here is a set of pages you can print out that would help any good contractor build what you need -

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_mate ... stics3.htm

You (and your contractor) should check out ALL the pages on construction, and the rest of this site will be a goldmine of info for you and your recent "goodies" -

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

You have some very usable gear in hand, but please don't think that's all you need - the acoustics of the room you put it in will make or break the sounds you get.

My point here is, even though we can't do everything for you (we all have to earn a living too), please stay with it til you find a way to get things done. You'll be very glad you did... Steve

Complex,

The picture you posted is my studio. If you follow the thread you'll see that the control room is still in progress; my eyes opened to a few critical things by the good fortune of this forum. If you have any questions shoot.

Just post a rough picture (as they say, it's worth more than a thousand words) showing entrance, stairs, non-movable objects like sumps/heating/ac/water heater etc., tell us the ceiling height. Does it need to be isolated from the rest of the house? i.e. Does it matter if the people upstairs can hear a guitar and drums blasting? What are your recording goals, as mentioned above? All these things affect what anybody might draw for you. But first we needs a picture with some hard measurements and obstacles.

Best,

Dave