Ideal home studio size and setup

NA45

New member
I know with recording setups there's different ways to skin a cat. There are youtubers like Michael Nielsen who have more of a professional studio setup where the amps are in another room, the sound is isolated with everything mic'd up with the audio he hears coming from his studio monitors.

On the other hand you have something like That Pedal Show where they're in the room with the amps, hearing and feeling every note. Their DB meters show about 100db in the room and they don't wear ear plugs and claim to not be doing any real damage to their ears.

If you had it your way how would you do it? And if you were dead set on being in the room with the amps, how big would the room have to be before you'd feel safe cranking a 100w full stack without ruining your ears?

I'm planning on moving fairly soon and am going to try and setup a home studio. Currently I'm in a non-treated 18x20 room which is definitely is too small. I have the budget to do it right - meaning build a room within a room, with proper sound proofing material. Any suggestions would be great since I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
 
You are damaging your ears at 100 dB. I tend not go above 85-90 db. My studio is 25 square meters and cranking tube amps in there is loud! And my room are full of HOFA acoustic treatment.
 
Are you including drums/bass/keys?

I have a 15'x30' area.

It is a partial workshop partial studio kind of thing. Partially treated. It's tight in there though with what I have. If I had a bigger budget I would go bigger. As far as control room, that would be cool, but I have never had that luxury.
 
I had the opportunity to build my home/project studio in a huge basement. The live room is 40 square meters (about 430 square feet) with an adjacent 25 square meters (270 square feet) control room. I'd say it's about ideal for any practical purpose, be it rehearsals, recordings, dubbing/foley, small videos etc.

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Monkey Man":3n1rfsvk said:
Awesome, Jack!

Thanks ! Took me about 10 years and a lot of dough to really finish everything... Cabling, room iso/treatment, gear etc. It's only a side-project, no my real job. It's fully functional and firing on all cylinders since 2013 ! :rock:
 
Obviously budget depending, i would work from the greatest to the smallest. Lots of people do great on minimal outboard gear and ITB and tracking wherever they have space. I think the biggest thing ( I watch a lot of these producer videos etc and dick around myself) is getting to know your room, its strengths or weaknesses (mostly weaknesses let's be honest) and learning to mic or record the signal properly given your limitations. I mean all these ambient 1200$ mics are great and everything but with a low ceiling and a small 8 x 9 space for tracking, it isn't like you are going to get this amazing sound that you absolutely need. Close mic most stuff. Then for mixing, you can DYI panel the shit out of your space and go all pro like but a lot of us have to share our space with our wives/families etc and for that, learn to know your monitors and use a reference mix. Even if you mix in a crappy bass heavy corner, if you match your levels to the reference mix, it will probably not come out that bad because you aren't mixing for the room at that point. Sounds like you have your own space to do with what you want though so this won't be an issue for you.

With some cash, asolutely do a room within a room or even just a separate room where you can track. I would leave space for a drum kit and some cabs. I would build or buy stand up baffles to isolate somewhat the instruments from one another. You could stick a drummer in the room and have the bass and guitar players sit beside you on a headphone amp or throw them in there with the drummer and record everyone at once. I'd set up a console/keyboard or just main area in front of a smaller window just to view in and give the artists a signal or setup a cam so you can talk to one another and see one another on a small screen. If you are going to track and mix ITB, and have some cash to spare once you have built your space and pimped it out with paint and lighting and electrical/patch bay etc..., I would invest in some cool outboard gear (compressors and maybe some mic pre's). I've seen a lot of guys on youtube ditching their consoles and just going to ITB mix with some outboard gear and then analog summing. I think what still holds true is that getting a good recorded tone is what is most important than anything else. You won't be able to save a shit sounding amp and mic through a 50k console. If I had the space, I would probably do a hybrid setup because working with real faders and turning knobs just makes me feel good. If I found one that had a half decent EQ, I would use that instead of all these plugins. I would track everything into the DAW using good preamps, out to the board for EQ, mix, effects (using outboard gear) and then back in through the 10 channels of conversion that I have. In closing, don't forget to pick up some decent mics.

Oh, and I am jealous AND excited for you. I had a half decent space with treatment on the walls but then my daughter arrived and that space became "living space". I now occupy a corner and a cool rack full of gear that i can wheel in. I also get to share my studio desk with my wife and now and again she moves stuff around and it drives me crazy.
 
Thanks for the replies, definitely giving me some things to consider. Nothing has been finalized on any of the properties I'm looking at, but it's possible I could be in a room as big as 50' x 50'. A room that size if sound proofed correctly without any crazy reflections going on - would that change your opinion of being in the room with a loud amp? Not saying my intention would be to dime it to 11, but enough to where I'm hearing what the amp and speakers really sounds like, not a neutered version of it.
 
Since I use a Fractal for my guitar and bass parts and a drum program, I currently don't have to worry about that but when I got a microphone recently, I started realizing how important that is. I have a Rode AT-1 and sounds great, especially for the price, but it picks up some of the sounds in the background. When I was clicking the mouse for example, I could hear it pick up between takes. With that said, it recorded fine. If I would have been playing guitar though, no doubt it would have bled in.

I always thought it was awesome when people have the cabs in another area, mic'd up. You are right though, there are so many ways to do it. :)
 
Spend some time over at Gearslutz. Warning... Your bank account will son disappear!


Home recording has come so far. The high end studios still have their place, but you can make a good sounding album from home if you have a good space. Your question is kind of open ended. What do want to do in your studio? Just tracking guitars, or will there be drums or vocals as well? What about your future needs? Maybe you don't need those capabilities now but you might in the future. Most importantly it comes down to how much room you have available and how much you want to spend.

I like having a control room, live room, vocal booth/iso booth in a perfect setting. That unfortunately takes up a lot of space. I think to answer your original question.... go with multiple rooms if possible. It just adds more capabilities to your studio.

Ed
 
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