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Home Studio Acoustics
Easy Way to Better Sound
By Jonathan Kagi
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we want to reduce or eliminate sound reflections
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The first order of business is controlling the sound in the room. Please note the difference between Sound Control and Acoustic Treatment. Sound Control is deadening sound transmission from your studio space to your neighbors (you know, those folks who give you funny looks after band practice?!). Or deadening sound transmission into your studio space from, you guessed it, that darn dog next door!
Sound Control also involves treating HVAC, Electrical and more but in this article I am talking about Acoustic Treatment only. This is all about controlling the Sound Reflections within your space to A. Yield better quality recordings. B. More accurately listen to the playback of your music, which lets you create a better mix.
The room specs (size, shape, dimensions) will dictate your Acoustic Treatment needs. Whether you are mixing in stereo, 2.1 or surround the treatment principals are mostly the same. And even in an isolation booth (fancy name for a closet in a home studio!) it’s all about treating the space to reduce or eliminate Sound Reflections in the room.
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the space we are presented with usually
requires us being creative to achieve our goals
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In this situation I am talking about 1 room, which I will call the “Control/Recording Room”, and a closet, which I will call the “Iso Booth”.
In a pro studio, the Control Room would be dedicated only to running sessions and mixing from a console, there would be a separate “Live Room’ used for recording musicians with microphones and usually there would be an “Iso Booth” for recording vocals.
But without a million dollar budget, we make due with the available space and our ingenuity. Most of the time, whether it be a loft, garage or bedroom- the space we are presented with requires us being creative to achieve our goals.
click image to see series of install photos
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Here, I created an Isolation Booth with a window from an existing closet space. I picked up a double paned window at a local salvage yard for about 10 bucks, knocked a hole in the wall with a sledge hammer and framed in the window. It's as easy as cutting a rough opening, installing a jamb, leveling with shims, securing the window and using acoustic calk to seal it. This approach isn't studio grade but it's cheap and it serves the purpose of letting me visually communicate with a vocalist while providing OK sound control between rooms.
In the would-be Iso Booth, I treated the corners with Auralex LENRD bass traps, the walls with 2” studio foam and installed Auralex MetroFusor on the ceiling. Anywhere I could, I used Upholstery "T" Pins to secure the foam. This means minimal degradation to the walls and it means I can re-use the foam if I ever need to. On surfaces like the brick wall I used Auralex Foamtak Spray Adhesive to secure the foam. The booth now sounds great and was fairly inexpensive to install.
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THE CONTROL/RECORDING ROOM
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click image to see series of install photos
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In the Control/Recording Room, I went with a classic “dead end – live end” configuration. What this means is I deaden the front console wall with absorptive studio foam and use a diffusion array on the back wall to maintain a nice, controlled ambiance or, a “live sound” in the room. I then applied Versatile to all 90° corners- for bass trapping purposes.
Lets look closer- I apply 2 and 4” pyramid studio foam to the front wall (or, monitor wall). I flanked the side areas of the mix position (also known as the early side walls) using, MaxxWall. On the back wall, I applied T Fusors, dispersing reflective sound – rather than absorbing the room’s reflections-hence, I create the live end.
Even though I used the “dead end – live end” configuration on the front and back walls, ALL corners in the entire room have bass trapping applied from floor to ceiling.
You can make your ceiling any height by adding a cloud or several clouds. In this application, I hang a cloud from the ceiling, just above the mix position. This is because this room happens to have very high ceilings.
The cloud is constructed of a simple piece of 1/8 inch plywood with 2” diamond cut studio foam on the top- providing absorption, and T Fusors- for diffusion, on the bottom. I simply applied the studio foam with Foamtak and the T Fusors with sheetrock screws
The height from the floor to the cloud is dictated by the length of the utility chains I used to hang the cloud from the ceiling. There are equal length chains on all four corners, at mid length on each side and one in the middle. The chains are all secured using eye-screws.
click image to see series of photos
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On the monitor system, I used MoPads: for Source Isolation. They decouple my near fields from the console furniture and speaker stands.
And I used Gramma: for Source Isolation to improve the response of my subwoofer system.
Now I am ready to track vocals or instruments using my new Isolation Booth. In my Control/Recording Room, I can record instruments direct-in to the DAW, or by using headphones instead of monitors when working with mics, and I'll also be able to hear my mixes' playback more accurately.
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Our tutorials and course technology teach you and enable you to learn everything from home studio acoustics, Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) optimization, studio configuration, audio hardware and audio software plug-ins to power cleaning, recording techniques and mic placement to DAW mixing and DAW mastering. Each DVD features expert professionals in genres from rap production to hip-hop and rock to classical and more. Our pro audio training courses are for the Engineer, Producer, Mixer, Musician or Hobbyist who may prefer relaxed and guided self study or want to suppliment an Audio Recording School or University Audio Engineering program.
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