Part 2 - The Room Matters More Than the Gear  

One of the easiest traps in home recording is believing the next piece of equipment will solve the problem.

A better microphone.

A more expensive interface.

Different monitors.

Another preamp.

A new plugin.

Sometimes better equipment really does make a difference. But before spending money on any of it, there is something considerably larger influencing everything you record:

The room.

A great microphone in a bad room still hears the bad room.

A better pair of monitors doesn't eliminate low-frequency problems caused by the space you're mixing in.

And no microphone upgrade will stop your neighbor's lawn mower from appearing in the middle of a quiet recording.

Before worrying about gear, understand where you're putting it.

Every Room Has a Sound

Stand in an empty bedroom and clap your hands.

Listen.

You'll probably hear some combination of reflections, ringing or a short echo.

Now imagine replacing that hand clap with a snare drum.

Add cymbals.

Add a guitar amplifier.

Add bass.

Add vocals coming through a PA.

Suddenly there's an enormous amount of acoustic energy moving around a relatively small space.

Sound leaves an instrument, reaches the walls, floor and ceiling, reflects, and comes back into the room. Some frequencies reinforce one another. Others partially cancel. Low frequencies can accumulate in particular locations while high frequencies bounce from hard surfaces.

The musicians hear all of this.

So do the microphones.

That's why the physical room should be considered part of your recording system.

I Learned This From My First Studio

My first dedicated rehearsal and recording space was a 12×20 barn-style shed kit purchased from a big-box hardware store.

It wasn't designed as a recording studio.

It was designed as a shed.

I modified it while building it, including adding a loft for storage. At the time, that seemed practical. Unfortunately, the 2×4 beams supporting the loft spanned the twelve-foot width of the building and left me with a ceiling a little under seven feet.

That became particularly noticeable behind the drum kit.

Cymbals are loud, reflective instruments, and they're positioned relatively high. Put them beneath a low ceiling and there isn't much distance between the cymbals, microphones and one of the largest reflective surfaces in the room.

The studio worked, but it felt cramped and sounded like the small space it was.

There was another problem.

The building was insulated, but not particularly well.

Once I started listening critically to recordings made there, I began hearing things that weren't part of the band.

Wind.

Rain.

Vehicles.

Neighborhood activity.

None of these sounds seemed particularly important while a band was playing. An acoustic drum kit and several amplifiers can mask an impressive amount of environmental noise.

Microphones are less forgiving.

During quieter passages and overdubs, the outside world suddenly became part of the recording.

That studio taught me one of the most useful lessons I've learned about home recording:

The building itself is part of the signal chain.

The Second Studio Started With the Problems

When I later had the opportunity to build another studio, I had something extremely valuable that I didn't have the first time.

Experience.

The first room had effectively become a full-size prototype.

The ceiling felt too low.

Fix it.

The room felt cramped.

Fix it.

Outside noise entered recordings.

Improve the construction and choose the location more carefully.

We needed more convenient electrical power.

Build it in.

Equipment and cases consumed too much usable floor space.

Plan for them.

This is an approach I'd recommend even if you've never built a studio before:

Problems are design requirements in disguise.

You don't necessarily need to know exactly what your perfect studio looks like. Start by identifying what could make the room difficult to use.

Four Feet Made a Big Difference

My current studio is 12×24 feet.

Compared with the original 12×20 building, that doesn't sound dramatically larger.

It's only four feet.

But those four feet increase the floor area from 240 to 288 square feet.

That's 48 additional square feet—a 20 percent increase.

In a small studio, that's substantial.

It creates more space between musicians, more room for equipment and storage, and more separation between the recording workstation and the performance area.

This is why I recommend never evaluating a potential studio while it's empty.

An empty room always looks bigger.

Put a drum kit in it.

Add guitar amplifiers.

Add a bass rig.

Add microphone stands.

Add the PA.

Add a recording desk.

Add monitors.

Add cables and instrument cases.

Now add several musicians.

The room shrinks remarkably quickly.

If you're considering a bedroom, basement, garage or outbuilding, use painter's tape to mark the approximate footprints of the largest pieces of equipment.

Then figure out where the people go.

And don't forget the guitar cases.

Don't Just Measure the Floor

Square footage gets most of the attention when people evaluate a room.

Look up, too.

My current studio doesn't have the loft that existed in the first building. Instead, it has a conventional eight-foot ceiling.

Eight feet isn't particularly high by professional studio standards, but compared with the sub-seven-foot ceiling and exposed beams of my original room, the difference is significant.

The studio feels more open.

Microphone positioning is easier.

The cymbals have more space above them.

And the total volume of the room is greater.

That's worth considering because two rooms with identical floor dimensions can behave and feel quite differently if their ceiling heights are different.

This becomes particularly important if you're recording acoustic drums.

If you're choosing between two otherwise similar rooms, don't just ask:

How many square feet?

Ask:

How much room is actually around the instruments?

Soundproofing and Acoustic Treatment Are Not the Same Thing

This is where one of the most common home-studio misunderstandings appears.

People often use soundproofing and acoustic treatment as though they mean the same thing.

They don't.

Sound isolation deals with sound traveling into or out of the room.

Acoustic treatment deals with what sound does inside the room.

If your neighbor can hear your drummer through the wall, hanging acoustic foam inside the studio probably isn't going to solve the problem.

That's an isolation issue.

If your cymbals sound harsh because they're reflecting around a small room, adding another layer of insulation inside the wall isn't necessarily going to solve that problem either.

That's an acoustic issue.

My own studio illustrates the difference.

It has insulation.

It has absorptive panels.

It has bass traps.

Its construction and location help reduce outside noise.

But I don't describe it as soundproof.

It isn't.

It's treated and sufficiently isolated for what I need it to do.

And that's enough.

You May Not Need a Soundproof Room

True sound isolation can become a serious construction project.

Effective isolation relies on things such as mass, airtightness, decoupling and damping. Doors, windows, ventilation, floors, ceilings and structural connections all matter because sound has an irritating ability to find weak paths.

You can build an impressive wall and then install a poorly sealing door.

Guess where the sound goes.

Serious isolation can also consume money and physical space very quickly. In extreme cases, you're effectively constructing a room within another room.

That can be worthwhile when isolation is critical.

But before doing it, ask what problem you're actually trying to solve.

Do you need near-commercial-studio isolation?

Or do you simply need enough isolation that your rehearsals aren't creating problems for your family or neighbors?

Those are very different objectives.

My current studio could certainly be made quieter.

But my neighbors don't complain. My family doesn't complain. Outside noise rarely interferes with our recordings.

Spending a large amount of money and sacrificing interior space to improve isolation further wouldn't solve a problem I currently have.

That's an important principle throughout this series:

Treat the problem you actually have.

Sometimes Distance Is Better Than Construction

One of the most effective sound-control decisions I made with my current studio didn't involve acoustic products at all.

It involved where I put the building.

I positioned it away from neighboring homes as much as practical.

Distance works in both directions.

The band is less likely to disturb someone else, and outside activity is less likely to appear in the microphones.

This applies even if you aren't building a detached studio.

Think about what's on the other side of the room.

A bedroom?

Another apartment?

A busy road?

A furnace?

Plumbing?

The backyard?

A garage?

Sometimes choosing a different room can prevent a problem that would otherwise cost a considerable amount of money to correct.

Now Deal With the Sound Inside

Once you've addressed isolation sufficiently for your situation, you still have to deal with the room itself.

This is where acoustic treatment becomes useful.

Hard surfaces reflect sound.

Drywall.

Glass.

Wood.

Concrete.

The ceiling.

Even the recording desk.

In a small untreated room, those reflections can become chaotic when drums and amplified instruments are involved.

Absorptive treatment reduces some of that reflected energy.

But here's another common mistake:

Don't assume covering every wall with thin acoustic foam fixes the room.

Thin materials are generally much more effective at absorbing higher frequencies than lower ones.

You may reduce some brightness and make the room sound less reflective while doing relatively little to the low-frequency problems.

Now the room is duller.

But the bass problem is still there.

That's not necessarily an improvement.

Low Frequencies Need Special Attention

Bass is one of the more difficult things to control in a small room.

Low frequencies interact strongly with room dimensions and boundaries, and you'll often hear dramatic changes simply by walking around.

The bass may sound enormous in one corner.

Move several feet and it seems considerably weaker.

This doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with the bass amplifier or your monitors.

You're hearing the room.

That's why my studio includes bass traps in the corners.

Low-frequency absorption generally requires more substantial treatment than what is needed to reduce high-frequency reflections. A thin piece of foam doesn't suddenly become a bass trap because the package says studio.

Thickness matters.

Placement matters.

And, most importantly, listening matters.

Don't Kill the Room

There's another extreme.

You install some absorption.

The room sounds better.

So you install more.

It sounds different.

Add more.

Eventually you've covered nearly every surface with something soft.

That's not necessarily what you want either.

Remember what we're building.

This isn't just a mixing room.

It's also somewhere musicians rehearse.

I don't want my studio completely dead. I want enough treatment to control harsh reflections and low-frequency problems without removing every trace of life from the room.

The objective isn't to eliminate the room.

It's to control it.

Acoustic instruments interact with the space around them. Drums sound partly like the room they're being played in. So do acoustic guitars and vocals.

The room is going to contribute something.

Your job is to make that contribution useful.

Treatment Gives You More Choices Later

There's another reason this matters when recording.

Suppose you record a vocal in a highly reflective bedroom.

The microphone captures the singer.

It also captures the room.

Those reflections are now part of the recording.

You can always add artificial ambience to a relatively dry vocal later.

Removing ugly room reflections that were captured along with the performance is considerably more difficult.

The same principle applies to drums, acoustic guitars and amplifiers.

Controlling the room gives you options.

The room sound becomes something you're choosing rather than something you're stuck with.

Listen Before You Spend Money

Before buying acoustic treatment—or another microphone—spend some time listening.

Don't play anything.

Just sit in the room.

What do you hear?

Traffic?

Neighbors?

HVAC?

Plumbing?

A refrigerator?

Computer fans?

Wind?

Rain?

Now clap your hands.

Listen for reflections.

Play some music and walk around the room.

Does the bass become enormous in certain places?

Does it disappear somewhere else?

Record something.

Listen to the recording somewhere outside the studio, preferably through headphones or another playback system.

What problems do you actually hear?

That's where you should start.

Not with a photograph of somebody else's studio.

Not with an advertisement.

Not with a list of equipment someone says every studio needs.

With your room.

Learn the Room You Have

One advantage of working repeatedly in the same home studio is that you get something commercial studios can't sell you:

Time.

You can learn the room.

Move an amplifier and record again.

Change the overhead microphone position.

Move an acoustic panel.

Move the bass cabinet away from a corner.

Listen.

Compare.

Over time, patterns begin appearing.

You discover that one corner exaggerates the bass.

You learn where an acoustic instrument sounds balanced.

You discover where the vocal microphone is more likely to feed back.

You find a better location for the guitar amplifier.

Eventually, you stop asking:

What's the correct way to set up a studio?

And start saying:

I know what works in this room.

That's considerably more valuable.

Because microphones will change.

Interfaces will change.

Computers will change.

Software will definitely change.

But every one of those things will still be listening to the room you put it in.

Before upgrading the gear, learn the space.

The room matters more than you think.