Building Your home recording studio !

I believe that you're interested in doing a quality home recording , and I think you've come to the right place.

On this page I'll discuss all things that matter or could matter when you want to record your demo at your own place.This way is for my opinion the best solution to record your demo.

Nothing better than the calms of your own trusted home. No clock is ticking, no hours to look at. Work at your own schedule and tempo. Take a break or not. It's all up to you. Live is beautiful and it's staying that way, and than I didn't mention the price of hiring a pro studio.

However, let me remind you on the fact that there is still quit some work to do after the home recording is done (when all the instruments and vocals are recorded).

First of all there is the mixing of the instruments and the vocals and than there is the mastering of the demo recording. For the mastering , you probably need some help.

You can find a mix-and master-engineer in the yellow pages and of course in a recording studio. You can always phone them and ask to speak their master engineer. If he is willing to help you, he won't work for free. A mix-and mastering engineer can start from $ 50 par hour and higher.

Every song can take about 5 till 8hours mix-and mastering. If you have taken some mix- mastering lessons, you can always try to do the job yourself. But, make sure that you make a copy of the recorded instruments an vocals, in case thing has been going wrong, nothing has lost. Otherwise...your loosing a lot of time and money if you all the recordings have to be re-done.

So, that problem is solved. Up to the next one...

How to make a fantastic sounding demo recording!

First....What you surely not must do.

Is to record your songs on a twenty year old cassette recorder in your bedroom. O.K., you can make use of a fantastic computer, with an amazing professional sound cart and soft ware that really knocks your socks of.

You still will hear the annoying noise in the background of traffic, dogs or an air plain that fly over. There is only one thing that you can assure yourself of a perfect noise free demo recording.For that purpose there are two solutions!

For that purpose there are two solutions!

First solution.

You can buy an home recording studio and let it be build by a team of professional studio builders.

Advantage, you are now the owner of a perfect home recording studio.

Dis advantage: This will cost you a fortune ( or almost). Let's say between,$ 10.000 and $50.000. That's a lot of money,specially when you just starting up. If you really can afford and money isn't an issue,then I probably would do the same and let it have been build by the pro's .

However,the most of us are not so fortunate and shall do it or try to invent something else.

Easy? Maybe ..Let's move to the...

Second solution. Building your own home recording studio!

And that place will be, let's say, the attic, where there is still plenty of room left(for a home recording studio I surely hope so). I'm not going to give to many details, because every place you want to build a recording studio, it Will be a different situation. Depending of how much space there is that you can use.

Also, try to find some one to help you. Some one who has experience with building things. ( and two heads know more than one) Be careful with the electricity.

Ask advice to people who know what they are doing. If you haven't the experience with electricity, than leave it the professionals who knows their job and I'm sure you love your home and live.Isn't it?

sound absorption material!

.Sound absorption is more important to isolate your home recording studio,than the acoustic materials are. Sound isolation and sound absorption are in fact the same thing. They prevent that sound and noises infiltrate into your home- recording demo.These materials are:

Rock wool, acoustic mineral wool, glass fiber wool, special isolation material, rubber mats.

For strength and stability we need:wooden press plates, plane balks(22X38) (50X50)

How much does these sound absorbing materials cost?

If you just doing the way I did and go to a store where they sell construction materials to build your own home recording studio with. Than you find(maybe clothe to) these prices.

Pressed wood plates/ 6mm: 2,44x 1,22:$9/ £5/7,99euro

9mm: 2,44x 1,22:$12,80 / £ 7/ 10,98 Eur. Balks: 50x50. per meter:$1,10/ £ 0,65/ O,97 euro. 22X38. per meter:$ 0,53/£ 0,30/ 0,47 euro.

rock wool roll(6m) per m2 :$ 8,1 /£4,50/ 10,98 euro

Every country shall have a different price I suppose. When you use fiber glass or rock wool, make sure that you wear a mouth mask. That' s to protect your longs against very small floating fibers.

Starting with...

The attic itself. You have to make a room in a room. So, you have to closed the whole attic so-that their are no openings, gaps or cracks in the whole space. On my attic, their where already two rooms,so I needed only to closed the other space I wanted to use.

I use wooden plates and isolating material between the wooden balks, and then I nailed wooden plates against the wooden balks also, so-that everything is shut of very well. Then we finally can start building our home recording studio.

The building of your home recording studio ....

Starting with the floor.......

When we want a sound isolation as good as can be, we have to work with layers.

Layers on the floor, layers of plates and isolation material for the walls and layers for the ceiling. It's works like a silencer of a pistole or the silencer of a car. Layers prevent that sound transmit trough the air.

The isolation material absorbs the sound. If your home recording studio looks a bit out of hook. Don't bother about it, parallel walls reflect sound better and that's not so good for a home recording studio. Or you must place absorbing materials to the walls of your studio ( on the end when your studio is finished)

And we'll starting with the floor.

We use old carpets (vinyl or other) and we use it in multiple layers . At least 4 or more.You can make use of rubber mats if you find them, that would be even better ( rubber is an excellent sound absorber).

Upon the layers of carpet you must make one layer of balks, wooden plates and isolation material, so-that you have a space where you can put the cables trough for the electric devices.

Nail or screw the balks to the wooden plate, and fill the spaces with sound isolation and use glue to fix the material.If you wish, you can put the cables that you'll need in your home recording studio( this is much easier than the put them later on).

When you use more than one plate, make sure the construction holds together with the balks that you have nailed to it.

And also,make sure that the floor is water-level. That's important for the studio that we will build upon that( flat) floor.

Next step....the walls!

2/ Isolation material

3/ Concrete floor

4/ Carpets.

5/ wooden Balks( 0,50X 0,50 Cm)

Again, work in layers and use screws. This takes a bit more time than nailing but the construction of your studio will be more solid and make it easier to separate the pieces and build it up again (if you want to move or if you want to make the studio bigger). If you use an electric screwdriver it's all done in a few ......( but don't forget to load the battery)

I have made a plan of.........

the design of how the walls are build and how the construction can be placed. I took three layers of isolation and wooden plates. This will be sufficient enough for keeping noises out and in.When all the four walls are build, then you need to make the door-post and the double doors with isolation material on the insides.

On the edge of the doors , on the inside, you have to put rubber strips too. It makes a complete air and noise free entrance. Make sure you have calculated how wide your door-post and doors will be.

2- The wall of the studio-

Black = rubber stripe

red= wooden plate

blue= carpets

grey= concrete floor

3. Yellow= isolation material

brown= wooden multiplex plates

When rubber is placed on every wall, the ceiling can be build. Starting on the same principles as the walls. One layer at the time.

The first plate fixed with screws on the walls covered with rubber strips, this will shut of the studio completely. So you build up the roof, layer by layer as the walls where build.

When all the layers (3) are build then you have to put some wooden plates on the rim of the roof, so everything is shut of properly.

O.K. Next

Airconditioning....

The rubber makes the whole home recording studio sound free and also air free. Of course , you will need the air if you wish to stay alive, incase you wish to stay in your home recording studio for a while.

So, you need to make a kind of ventilation system that sucks the air in and that keeps you alive .

How to make such a ventilation system?

I do it my way, and I do it like this. Two sides of the studio must be perforated with holes(3 or 4). Every hole 1,5-2 Cm Those holes will allow to flow the air in on one side and the other side to escape out of the studio and noice free too.

The problem is, how to make this system without the disturbing noise of the ventilator can getting in? Not only the noise from the working ventilator, also, you have perforated the wall?

There can come noise trough too. How we can prevent that noise comes in. First saying that you have to put plastic(electric) tubes into the holes, to prevent that little pieces of the isolation material comes into your studio( nasty for the longs as I mentioned previously).

Cover the holes with layers as you would build a wall, but let the holes open, of course. Use rubber instead of glass fibers or rock wool to isolate these layers. Make that the layers go down to the floor and close these layers 10 ctms above the attic floor or your own made floor with carpets and wooden plate.

Put a rubber strip(as you have done with the walls of your studio) so-that everything is completely sealed and shut.

After that,you have to make a hole into the layers (or make the holes before you make the layers of the air-bridge) Then,you have to connect a plastic tube to the hole. On a distance from about one meter or so, the other site of the plastic tube goes into a box where a ventilator blows air out and sucks air in on the same time.

Because the system is completely closed, air comes in from the other holes on the opposite site of the studio. On the opposite side,where the other holes are , you make the same construction for keeping the noise outside and letting the air inside.

However, the testing can take some time before your studio is completely noise-free .

But at last...Now your home-recording studio is ready to proof drive . First of course, you have to install all the recording equipment and the materials ( computers and mix-table, mics and amps..)you need. And then you can start recording into your own studio.

Wish you lots of fun with your recordings....

The webmaster..
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