Building My Home Studio....

[theswiftone]

I've finally moved into my first house and now have the task over the next few months of building my home studio. Its in the attic of the house and first job is just to redecorate and get rid of the purple carpet haha.... I thought I would document my progress on here, so here's a few pics of what it looks like now.

[LFO8]

Your attic looks seriously nice man. You can sure make a nice little studio out of that. Just be sure to set up you monitors to be firing off into the length of the room. Otherwise you'll just be asking for an unnecessary world of acoustic problem-hurt.

[theswiftone]

Thanks man... Cheers for the advice. Yeah thats the plan, but I think it may mean one of the monitors reflections will slightly hit the window. But it'll never be perfect.....

[tintala]

Killer space man, priority 1 is to check for modes as well as consider sound proofing then bass treatment. If you can , I would do home runs from your receptacles to your power panel, that way youl have clean power, might as well make it as good as you can.. anyway... congrats.

[theswiftone]

Thanks man, and good shout on the power. Ive always had to use a hum eliminator. Yeah gunna have to do some more research on the placement of bass traps to eliminate room modes.

[abpm]

Beautiful space! Is this in Germany?

[tedlogan]

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index ... 3da2022837 these guys can help you with anything, very experienced studio builders here, but you MUST read the rules before posting, or you will be ignored. Or you can just lurk and soak in all the info.

[LFO8]

Here's also a handy web app for calculating you room modes (the pressure/problem areas in the low frequency response): http://www.hunecke.de/en/calculators/ro ... modes.html

[theswiftone]

Beautiful space! Is this in Germany?

Hey abpm, thanks. No its actually in South Wales.

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index ... 3da2022837 these guys can help you with anything, very experienced studio builders here, but you MUST read the rules before posting, or you will be ignored. Or you can just lurk and soak in all the info.

I'll check it out tonight, thanks Ted.

Here's also a handy web app for calculating you room modes (the pressure/problem areas in the low frequency response): http://www.hunecke.de/en/calculators/ro ... modes.html

Awesome, cheers LF08!


Thanks for all the advice guys, keep it coming haha....

[fishmonkey]

Here's also a handy web app for calculating you room modes (the pressure/problem areas in the low frequency response): http://www.hunecke.de/en/calculators/ro ... modes.html

like most room mode calculators, it's for rectangular rooms, so it won't give very useful results.

sound proofing (which is trying to stop sound leaving the room) isn't really feasible, so i wouldn't bother too much about that.

[LFO8]

Also, get something like Fuzzmeasure so that you can actually do acoustic measurements on your room to find out where the problems are.

[Tarekith]

That looks like it could be a cool space!

After years of taking measurements and using that to help me plot out my studio layouts, these days I do all that with a grain of salt. Definitely good to know the basis of what you're working with (assuming you're capturing that data accurately enough to go off of), but I still like to sit and listen myself. The last few places I've moved to, I just set up my desk, my speakers, and a chair and try listening to everything in a few different positions. Those little furniture coasters make a great way to slide speaker stands and a desk around easily enough.

I might lean up some acoustic panels in the corner briefly, but at this point I'm not too stressed about ideals yet, I just want a feel for the room. In theory, speakers facing down the long side of the room is better. Sometimes in practice, it's not though. So try that first, listen on both axis of the room to some music you know really well. A new (untreated) room will always sound weird, but where does it sound less weird? Is there a certain position and direction in the room that sounds better to you? Are there ergonomic or aesthetic aspects you find yourself drawn to, like being too close to a door, or not facing a window with a ncie view?

Start with those kinds of questions, then decide how much you want to alter that based on measurements.

IMVHO.

[theswiftone]

That looks like it could be a cool space!

After years of taking measurements and using that to help me plot out my studio layouts, these days I do all that with a grain of salt. Definitely good to know the basis of what you're working with (assuming you're capturing that data accurately enough to go off of), but I still like to sit and listen myself. The last few places I've moved to, I just set up my desk, my speakers, and a chair and try listening to everything in a few different positions. Those little furniture coasters make a great way to slide speaker stands and a desk around easily enough.

I might lean up some acoustic panels in the corner briefly, but at this point I'm not too stressed about ideals yet, I just want a feel for the room. In theory, speakers facing down the long side of the room is better. Sometimes in practice, it's not though. So try that first, listen on both axis of the room to some music you know really well. A new (untreated) room will always sound weird, but where does it sound less weird? Is there a certain position and direction in the room that sounds better to you? Are there ergonomic or aesthetic aspects you find yourself drawn to, like being too close to a door, or not facing a window with a ncie view?

Start with those kinds of questions, then decide how much you want to alter that based on measurements.

IMVHO.

Thanks Tarekith, I always like your wisdom. Once I've redecorated I'm going to set everything up in there and see how its sounding.

[MusicIsMath]

That should do you nicely.
Clean power running via a consumer unit up there would be a big plus. Also see if you can get as many sockets as possible, dot them around the studio mid room height if possible
Doing the acoustics for it might be a bit of a mare, but you can go a long way with plenty of bass absorption and a few panels. I wouldn't get too worried about it if you aren't mastering or doing it as a full time job/occupation. You could always get a few stand-mounted acoustic panels to place around the mix position if you want to cut down the room width when doing final eq/mix.

In South Wales, as in Wales, UK? Same here if so, where in the glorious valleys are ya? or are you more towards the city/coast side?

[theswiftone]

That should do you nicely.
Clean power running via a consumer unit up there would be a big plus. Also see if you can get as many sockets as possible, dot them around the studio mid room height if possible
Doing the acoustics for it might be a bit of a mare, but you can go a long way with plenty of bass absorption and a few panels. I wouldn't get too worried about it if you aren't mastering or doing it as a full time job/occupation. You could always get a few stand-mounted acoustic panels to place around the mix position if you want to cut down the room width when doing final eq/mix.

In South Wales, as in Wales, UK? Same here if so, where in the glorious valleys are ya? or are you more towards the city/coast side?

Yeah in the UK... Nice to meet a fellow Welshman haha. Its in the Bridgend area. Where abouts you from?