10x10 studio with recording area??

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showtime2100

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I have a 10x10. its not exactly 10x10. I want to make it into a control room for my mixes. I was going to make the small close a booth before I read all the threads about how that is a bad idea. everyone is saying its better to just record vocals in an open space. I'm wondering what is the best way so that i can treat the room for good acoustics for mixing and still create a descent spot in the room for recording vocals given the wall treatment done for the mixing. I live in an apartment so there will be no tearing down walls or anything.
 
A small, square-ish room is going to be an acoustical nightmare.

You're going to need to have the mix position (your head) precisely 3.8' from the front or rear wall. That means you monitors are going to have to be only around 2.5' feet from your head. Not a good situation to be sure... But that (.38 of the length from the wall) is the best you're going to do in a space that size.

Bass trapping - You're going to need huge amounts of bass trapping - Floor-to-ceiling 2x4' traps in each corner are only going to give you 64 sq.ft. of absorption. With the problems in a room that size, you could easily double that and still not have enough.

Closets are worthless - The nodes in a closet are going to be *inside* the fundamental range of a baritone. The best thing you can do there is to keep noisy equipment in it and sing out from a treated corner in the room. Unless you can make the closet transparent to the low end (ripping down all the drywall, 703 in the studs, cloth on the inside, maybe peg-board on the outside) then just use it as an equipment space.

Of course, it depends it depends on what you're shooting for in the long run...
 
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I get what you r saying I will get the exact mesurements of the room for you tomorrow b/c it is not exactly a box like that. and you said instead of putting the bass traps high like the aurelex people said...I should put them in the corners from the ceiling to the floor.

you said I should sing out from a corner that is well treated. the bass traps will be in that corner. Are you saying to treat the adjacent walls to achieve this.
 
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I would go with GIK Acoustics and Real Traps before Auralex. Especially for bass traps... Auralex's "bass traps" arent really bass traps. Their stuff is better for the high end flutter.
 
Closets are worthless - The nodes in a closet are going to be *inside* the fundamental range of a baritone. The best thing you can do there is to keep noisy equipment in it and sing out from a treated corner in the room. Unless you can make the closet transparent to the low end (ripping down all the drywall, 703 in the studs, cloth on the inside, maybe peg-board on the outside) then just use it as an equipment space.

Closets are worthless - The nodes in a closet are going to be *inside* the fundamental range of a baritone. The best thing you can do there is to keep noisy equipment in it and sing out from a treated corner in the room. Unless you can make the closet transparent to the low end (ripping down all the drywall, 703 in the studs, cloth on the inside, maybe peg-board on the outside) then just use it as an equipment space.



If closets are "worthless why does Auralex sell a 4x4 portable vocal booth?
 
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showtime2100 said:
If closets are "worthless why does Auralex sell a 4x4 portable vocal booth?
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There are a lot of portable iso booths out there. Every single one of them is either transparent to low end or has some sort of diaphragmatic absorption system.

A closet has neither.

On top of that, many of those portable booths aren't much better than a closet... They're a band-aid - Not a cure. They were never meant to be in the first place. Closets are great for noisy gear. Vocal booths (I'm sorry - "real" vocal booths) are gigantic compared to closets.

Geez, the last tracking studio I worked at had a vocal room that was 11x15 with a 10' sloped ceiling and it was too small (well, it didn't have enough bass trapping - Just Auralex bass traps - which don't trap bass). I don't understand why so many people think that a closet is an acceptable size for a vocal booth. Just because some guy did it in a video or something doesn't make it a good idea...

And if you're talking about those "wall" systems, that's not a room. Those are gobos that are designed to absorb a certain amount of low end while the rest passes into the room and then absorb more from the reflection. Just like making a "room" out of any other gobos. But it's not the same as actually being in a room made of studs & plaster.

It's more like being in a room made of studs with cloth covered 703 and pegboard on the outer wall.

Wait a minute - I just read that somewhere... :hello:
 
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massive, i was wondering if i were to set up a booth in a square room in the corner, and the mic was between the corner wall and bass traps in semi cirlce on the other side, would i get good sound quality?
 
If you mean out from the corner into the traps, thats probably your best bet in that situation.
 
I understand what you are sayin massive. I want to know this. If I am recording 90% Rap vocals, would it still be bad to have an almost dead booth in the closet and to just add reverb?

Massive: Question?

If I just treat my control room for acoustics, can I just double that area as the place i record in as well if I have the artist facing out from the corner with his/her back to the corner. Will that be my best bet? I'm just I will already have bass traps in that corner. along with everything I need to get my acoustics right for my mixes, but will I also need to treat that corner with anything extra since I am recording in that and would I have to treat the opposite corner and/or walls and differently or extra since I am recording in there?
 
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showtime2100 said:
I understand what you are sayin massive. I want to know this. If I am recording 90% Rap vocals, would it still be bad to have an almost dead booth in the closet and to just add reverb?

Massive: Question?

If I just treat my control room for acoustics, can I just double that area as the place i record in as well if I have the artist facing out from the corner with his/her back to the corner. Will that be my best bet? I'm just I will already have bass traps in that corner. along with everything I need to get my acoustics right for my mixes, but will I also need to treat that corner with anything extra since I am recording in that and would I have to treat the opposite corner and/or walls and differently or extra since I am recording in there?
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If the closet is truly dead - in the problem areas - then it'd be fine. The point is that you aren't going to make a closet "dead" with foam. It requires nearly complete destruction / reconstruction to make a closet work with the frequencies that are going to be an issue. Foam isn't going to do *anything* at those frequencies.

And sure - I know plenty of people who record in their control room. As long as the room is reasonably well-treated and you face out from the corner (point being that the problems frequencies are amplified into the corner, so away from the corner - and as far away as possible from the *other* corners), that should work fairly well. At least as well as the space is capable of.
 
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