Home Studio Design
When designing a home studio, certain requirements should be met. Its important to have a proper home studio design because you need to have the best possible sound on your project. You don’t need to put millions of dollars into your space. You just need to know the basic acoustic techniques and apply them as easily as you can.
First you need to figure out the location of your project studio. You should try to pick a place that doesn’t have any outside noise. If you live by a freeway or the subway you might want to consider not making this the spot for your studio. If you have no choice though, you will have to make barrier’s to get rid of the excess noise. You may have to build walls to reduce leakage. You can do this by building a massive wall structure, and making sure there are no open joints where sound can pass through. The building materials that you can choose to use would include: Brick, concrete, glass, wood, steel, etc. Concrete would have to be the thickest and the most solid material. If you are not able to use concrete; Gypsum plasterboard would have to be the most cost effective.
In your home studio you should also be aware of your flooring. You might experience leakage from a downstairs neighbor, and you in turn might interfere with a quiet neighbor. With this in mind, a cost effective way of isolating your floor noise is is layering your floor with a carpet foam pad that is rubberized. On top of the pad you would lay plywood, and you would stabilize this by using glue or metal braces. Do not nail the plywood to the floor. After you have done that, you would put another foam pad over the structure, and top that with your choice of carpet or any material you choose.
Another handy way to isolate yourself while singing without your sound leaking would be to have an acoustic partition. With an acoustic partition, also known as a flat, you would put the musician on one side with the mic and the partition would enclose you. You can actually buy a partition, but you can also make your own using your own items around your house. If you have a mic/boom stand place it at a 90 degree angle to where it looks like its in the shape of a “T”. Then, place a blanket or some sort of thick material over the stand, and there you have your cheap but useful partition! If you want to crank up your amp to get the sound that you want, you can make your own mini isolation booth. All you have to do is make an insulated box to put your amp in, or you can put your guitar amp and drums in a closet nearby and run a cord from there to the recorder. Make sure to get balanced cords because you dont want your signal to be too low.
Last but not least, after you have figured out how to isolate your room, you will need to be comfortable in order to make your grammy award winning songs. A good set up would be using an L shaped desk. Get your most comfortable chair, and your workstation around you where you can easily get around within an arms length. If you have a lot of room, it would also be good to get a U-shaped desk. Now you are ready to Record. See you at the Grammys!
