Creating a Professional Recording Studio in Your Home
Music recording in a professional studio can be an expensive proposition, with studio time ranging anywhere from $50 to $500+ per hour at high-quality studios. Even if you're fortunate enough to find a budget studio offering low rates yet passable quality, it doesn't take long for the dollars per hour to mount up. This can cause you to rush when recording, leaving you with a less than enviable finished product.
One solution is to build your own home recording studio where you can put down song tracks any time the mood moves you, and not have to answer to anyone for the time and trouble song recording requires. Building a DIY recording studio in your home can be a challenging yet rewarding project, and for anyone serious about recording, it's something that can pay for itself in short order. You'll be able to play and record to your heart's content without having to spend cash by the hour. And, if you get good enough at recording, you may even be able to rent out your services to other like-minded musicians who would love to record on the cheap. Let's get started!
To get started creating a professional recording studio setup, the first thing you'll want to determine is where in your house you'll be setting up your studio. Interior rooms will be easier to soundproof than rooms with exterior walls, especially if you live on a road with lots of traffic. Ideally, you should have a large room with high ceilings and lots of irregular surfaces. This will provide you with the best acoustics. Noise is the primary enemy you'll have to deal with when setting up your in-home studio. This includes noise entering your room from outside which, when magnified through a microphone, will be LOUDER than you think. Some common causes of these exterior disruptions may include:
Cars
Neighbors
Neighborhood dogs
Birds
Plumbing
Rain
Wind
These noises can be effectively dealt with through the use of a variety of soundproofing techniques. Also consider that not only do you want to mitigate any noise coming into your studio room but also prevent the sounds you're making from affecting those outside of your space.
Effective Soundproofing
There's a wide variety of high-quality products available for providing effective soundproofing for your sound studio. If you've read the blog post, “Minimizing Noise Through Walls,” you've learned some of the many ways noise can enter into or escape from an enclosed space. It can travel through windows, doors, floors, ceilings, walls, vents and even through electrical outlets.
If you're setting up a bare bones room without any current soundproofing or acoustical treatments, you'll want to consider ways to handle all of the above-mentioned causes for unwanted sounds in your studio space. Fortunately, you have access to effective, affordable products for doing just this.
Walls
The above-mentioned blog discusses a couple of ways for soundproofing walls, both interior and exterior. Adding insulation to interior walls is not typical in the construction of standard homes but it is essential in any wall assembly. Building a room-within-a-room is the best option for optimal sound reduction. Unfortunately, this option will reduce the interior room dimensions at least 12” in width and length. There is, however, a more practical solution that only requires roughly 5” of floor space in each direction. This option isolates the walls by using isolation clips, Hat channel, Green Glue damping between two layers of drywall. There are several variables that determine the best option for each application. Let our team of experts offer the option that is right your studio.
Ceilings
To enhance and allow superior and professional sound, you will need to utilize an isolated ceiling system that consists of sound absorption, mass, isolation and damping materials. Contact our team of experts for a consultation – we are here to help!
Floors
Keep the sound from traveling through floors by applying a premium carpet, tile or wood underlay product. Treating floors with an underlay is especially important if your studio is on the second floor or above. Choose between mass-loaded vinyl and closed-cell foam. Keep in mind, the construction of the building will be a major factor in soundproofing, and while it is not always feasible to convert an old building to condo specs, there are always steps that can be taken to minimize the sound traveling through the floors.
Doors
It's important to seal doors in order to prevent against transmitting sound through the cracks and crevices that surround the door. This can be done by installing door frame seals to your already existing doors. For optimal soundproofing, consider installing acoustic studio doors, specifically designed for this purpose. Windows are also an important consideration and can be replaced with custom soundproof windows.
Don’t Overlook Acoustics
Once proper soundproofing is implemented throughout your designated studio space, it is time to consider the acoustics of the room. Reverberations can severely diminish the quality of recordings, and acoustics aim to manage it. Sound energy is converted to a quiet kinetic energy that creates a cleaner sound with the use of Acoustic Wall Panels. Consider options such as the Ambience Wall Panels, SONEX Panels or Whisperwave Wall Panels to enhance the quality of sound in the studio. The addition of Whisperwave Clouds suspended from a ceiling will serve to further improve the room’s acoustics and are always an excellent addition to any space, especially when high ceilings have created space for unwanted noise to reverberate.
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