Studio Layout

[WoodmanZ]

Hey everyone. Here's a picture of how my "studio" is currently set up. Unfortunately I did all this before I came across this site, or read about the importance of treating a room. As you can see by the measurements, it's not a big room. It's quite obvious that sounds are bouncing around all over the place, especially the drums. I just wanted some suggestions on what treatments to use, where I should put them, and if you would move anything around. Also, how much would the window affect the sound? I appreciate any help here! Oh, by the way, this is an upstairs room and sound isolation is not an issue unless it is beneficial. The room is also carpeted. Thanks everyone

[Ethan Winer]

Put your loudspeakers against the wall on the left, facing toward the right. That's where your listening will be. Put the instruments on the right side, behind you. Then treat the room as follows.

All rooms need:

* Broadband (not tuned) bass traps straddling as many corners as you can manage, including the wall-ceiling corners. More bass traps on the rear wall behind helps even further. You simply cannot have too much bass trapping. Real bass trapping, that is - thin foam and thin fiberglass don't work to a low enough frequency.

* Mid/high frequency absorption at the first reflection points on the side walls and ceiling.

* Some additional amount of mid/high absorption and/or diffusion on any large areas of bare parallel surfaces, such as opposing walls or the ceiling if the floor is reflective. Diffusion on the rear wall behind you is also useful in larger rooms.

For the complete story see my Acoustics FAQ.

There's a lot of additional non-sales technical information on my company's web site - articles, videos, test tones and other downloads, and much more.

--Ethan

[WoodmanZ]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

Put your loudspeakers against the wall on the left, facing toward the right. That's where your listening will be. Put the instruments on the right side, behind you. Then treat the room as follows.

All rooms need:

* Broadband (not tuned) bass traps straddling as many corners as you can manage, including the wall-ceiling corners. More bass traps on the rear wall behind helps even further. You simply cannot have too much bass trapping. Real bass trapping, that is - thin foam and thin fiberglass don't work to a low enough frequency.

* Mid/high frequency absorption at the first reflection points on the side walls and ceiling.

* Some additional amount of mid/high absorption and/or diffusion on any large areas of bare parallel surfaces, such as opposing walls or the ceiling if the floor is reflective. Diffusion on the rear wall behind you is also useful in larger rooms.

For the complete story see my Acoustics FAQ.

There's a lot of additional non-sales technical information on my company's web site - articles, videos, test tones and other downloads, and much more.

--Ethan

Ok, thanks a lot Ethan. So move the computer desk to the left side wall? What exactly do you mean when you said put the instruments on the right wall behind me? Are you speaking of the drums, and should I turn them to where they are facing the daw straight on? Thanks!

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by WoodmanZ

So move the computer desk to the left side wall?

Yes.

What exactly do you mean when you said put the instruments on the right wall behind me?

When you move the instruments to that wall, they'll be behind you when you face the loudspeakers.

Are you speaking of the drums

The drums are fine where they are. Everything else will go to the back.

--Ethan

[garageband]

I think you'll have a terrible time getting the drums to record decently in the corner. You've got a bit of a horn thing going with the shape of the corner that'll have its own set resonating frequencies, which will spell trouble for the overhead mics. My tracking room has more volume and I get the best results when I move EVERYTHING out to track drums. I would highly recommend putting the drummer's back to the "blank wall". Keep in mind that walls near HF sources (cymbals and snare) cause big time phase/comb filtering problems that will make your drums sound small and crappy.

For your mix position, stuff your stuff into the lower left corner and use some foam or fabric to deaden the center.

Parallel wallboard walls are deadly to accurate recording - I have none in my studio. Try to minimize the effects of these walls either by treatment (drapery, whatever) and/or skewing the sound sources to be off the perpendicular axis of any of your walls.

If you can arrange it, block off the door on the right keep your amps over there.

[brandondrury]

It's quite a challenge to work in such tight dimensions and nail a killer live room and killer control room. At this point, it's more an issue of damage control unless he can setup a rig that is fairly mobile to move everything around as needed. Even then, if he was to move his studio monitors to track the drums, he'd lose any potential accuracy during the tracking stages.

Brandon