21 minute read
How to Set up a Home Studio
How To Set Up Your Home Studio For The Best Sound
Agood sounding home studio starts with careful planning, measurement, and a realistic expectation of how well a room can function within the constraints of your budget and the physical limitations of typical residential rooms. Converting an apartment, spare bedroom or garage into a studio presents built-in challenges because they weren’t built or intended to be proper recording studios or mix rooms.
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For now I will set aside a discussion about sound isolation or soundproofing as it will be covered in a subsequent article. Know that with professional recording studio design, proper sound isolation must be considered as part of the initial, ground-up construction. In typical home studio room conversions it’s nearly impossible to “add on” truly effective sound isolation to existing structures.
The overarching goal when setting up any home recording studio is to provide a viable space where you can produce, record, and mix music while confidently making crucial artistic decisions throughout the process. The only way sound and the spatial effects of stereo or surround productions can be recorded and mixed accurately is by working in as acoustically neutral a room as is possible. Two key considerations for sonic accuracy at the listening position are the proper setup of the monitor loudspeakers and the application of acoustic treatments. You have to be able to predict how your end product will translate to the outside world when played on consumer-grade speakers and/or headphones. Barry Rudolph
Let’s Start With The Room’s Size and Shape
When selecting a room for your studio, you should try to use a rectangular-shaped room, as they tend to have the best potential for proper bass reproduction. Try to avoid square, round or irregular rooms, as they tend to be more problematic.
Most residential sized rooms are in the range of 3 meters wide by 4 meters long or even smaller (10 feet by 13 feet). Typical residential ceiling height is somewhere around 2.6 meters (8.5 feet). Begin your planning process with precisely measuring the dimensions—length, width, and ceiling height of the room you want to convert into a recording studio.
For easy measuring, I use the Bosch Blaze Pro Laser Distance Measure GLM165, but you can use an ordinary tape measure. Get a friend to help you by holding one end of the tape while you take the measurement at the other, or thumbtack one side of the tape to the wall to make one-person measuring easier..
When planning your furniture and equipment layout, I recommend drawing (try a drawing app like SketchUp) a dimensionally accurate layout of your room. Include all architectural features you cannot easily change: the location of doors, windows, support columns, closets, alcoves, and varying slanted ceilings.
The biggest acoustic problems in small rooms stem from the fact that low frequency wavelengths, the physical length of the sound wave, are much too long to be contained within the room’s dimensions without reflecting off a nearby floors, ceilings or wall boundaries. For example, a 20Hz waveform is approximately 17 meters (56 feet) long, while a 100Hz waveform takes up about 3.5 meters (11.5 feet).
If you have the option of more than one room, try setting up a pair of monitor speaker on stands so that they project down the longest dimension (length) and start listening to familiar music to get a “sense” of your particular room’s character and feeling. Listen in one room and then the other to see if one feels more comfortable to you.
Placing Gear In Your Room
A symmetrical layout of the equipment around the listening position promotes better workflow because you are always at or near the listening position while making gear adjustments and DAW tweaks during a mix or recording. It is essential that the intrinsic beauty of symmetry is applied to the positioning of your monitor speakers, the listening position, and the application of acoustic room treatments—absorption panels, bass traps and diffusers. The ultimate goal is to get your studio to function as a system and not a bunch of random pieces of gear thrown into a room.
Symmetry, as an abstract, is easily applied to the layout of your studio. Symmetry can separate a random and haphazard music setup into a reliable “tool” you can trust to evaluate your mixes and performances. Think of your left and right walls as mirror images of one another with your mix position in on the centerline. Any treatment you put on the wall to your left side should also be placed on the wall on your right. It is important to match the acoustic space around you at the listening position and the space around your monitor speakers.
Speaker Positioning
I recommend placing monitors on stands, instead of on a desk surface, as this allows for easy minor positioning adjustments in the future. The monitors are to be positioned in the front of the room and just in front of the 25% point in the length dimension. At about the 38% point of the room’s length—approximately halfway between the 25% location and the 50% point is the ideal listening position lengthwise in the room. Referred to as the 38% listening position, this location is a good compromise between the severe room modes of vibration. The various peaks (where frequencies are reinforced and sound too loud) versus nulls (where frequencies may cancel) tend to be present at 25%, 50%, and 75% positions in the length dimension of any room.
Symmetry is assured by locating the listening position at the 50% point, or centerline, of the width dimension. The intersection of the 38% point in the length dimension and the 50% point in the width dimension is where you would sit—the listening position or “sweet spot”.
Room modes based on the physical dimension of the room exist in all three dimensions of the room—the length, width and height. Furthermore, there are three types of room modes. The strongest and most problematic modes are axial room modes cause by two waves traveling in opposite directions and striking two parallel walls. Tangential room modes employ four waves and four walls and are more numerous but have half the energy of axial modes. Lastly, oblique room modes arise from eight waves reflecting off six walls; they are one-fourth the energy of axial modes.
After measuring your room’s dimensions, you may calculate the 1st Room Mode frequencies present in each of the three dimensions easily using this formula: 1st mode frequency (Hz) = 344 (speed of sound in meters per second) divided by twice the room dimension in meters. So, for a 4 meter long room, the first and lowest mode would be 344/8
After you’ve set up your desk, computer, outboard gear and your monitor speakers start playing music in your space and move your seat forward and backward from your original listening position—always staying at the 50% point of the width dimension. If you are too close to the speakers you may hear the left and right speakers as separate point sources. Too far away you will not get solid stereo imaging. Somewhere within reach of your desk, there should be a location where the stereo image is solid and immersive. This feeling is sometimes described as hearing the music and not the speakers. If your speakers are placed on stands, dialing in the best listening position is easy.
Acoustic Treatment Products
The application of acoustic treatment panels centers around and should focus on the listening position. The listening position is to be as reflection-free as possible. All reflections from the ceiling, floor, and side and back walls should be at least 20dB quieter than the direct sound coming from the loudspeakers. Sometimes called the reflection-free zone, this is accomplished by acoustic absorption panels and bass traps.
Acousticians, experts in room acoustics and treatment, have only three tools when treating rooms: surfaces that absorb sound, surfaces that reflect sound, and surfaces that diffuse, or scatter, sound.
Rooms must have the proper amount of acoustic absorption at various frequencies to function well. A rule of thumb is that the smaller your room, the more acoustic absorption you will require. “The exacting use of absorption has a powerful impact on the
There are two main categories of acoustic absorbers are they can be divided by use and frequency range: velocity absorbers for middle and upper frequencies and pressure based absorbers for lower frequencies.
Absorbers
A velocity absorber slows down the speed of sound within fibrous, porous materials such as rigid fiberglass, mineral fiber, cotton/polyester fibers or open-cell polyurethane foam. Sound energy is converted to an innocuous form such as heat (not enough heat to feel any change in the room’s temperature however). Velocity absorbers work best on the middle and high frequencies above 300Hz. You can build your own or purchase commercially made absorption panels from companies like GIK Acoustics, Real Traps, and Auralex through many musical instrument retail stores.
Bass Traps
Bass traps are low frequency absorbers that work below 300Hz. Low frequencies, with their much longer wavelengths, require much more mass and density to be absorbed. Rather then using a velocity absorber, low frequencies are absorbed more efficiently using pressure based absorbers, which are constructed of pliable membranes that bend and flex with the incoming wave energy. Velocity absorbers, like acoustic foam panels, may be used as bass traps, but their required depth may take up too much space in a typical home studio.
Ideally a bass trap would not affect frequencies above 300Hz but many velocity absorption panels are sold as bass traps when they do little to actually absorb bass
Diffusers
Diffusers reduce echoes by “jumbling” and randomizing reflections off walls and ceilings to provide the feeling that those surfaces are farther away from your ears. Diffusers can help provide a sense of spaciousness to a small room.
Sometimes referred to as quadratic residue diffusers or skyline diffusers, these devices don’t remove energy from the room, but return
the sound back into the room it in a randomized, scattered manner that affects the direction and timing of the sound waves.
In professional recording studio control rooms, there are usually diffusers placed on the rear wall behind the listening position. There are no hard and fast rules here but if your rear wall is closer than about 2.5-meters, usually deep bass traps are a better idea for that rear wall.
Summary
The considerations for setting up a home studio involve proper room selection, monitor and listening position setup and the application of acoustic treatments. Keep in mind the simple ratios for the listening position and the three types of acoustic treatment and you can achieve an excellent sounding environment. Once your room is setup and tuned to the best of your ability, room correction software, like Sonarworks Reference 4, will further perfect the accuracy of your room.
[Ed. note -- This article was originally published at www.sonarworks.com – it has been re-published here with permission.]
PRESONUS
Quantum 2626 Thunderbolt Interface
We recently upgraded some of the office Macs to new machines, and along with some speed boosts and processing power, we got a slew of new Thunderbolt ports to play around with. Around the same time, as luck would have it, the folks at PreSonus sent us one of their new interfaces to test out.
Right off the bat, we loved how stupidsimple the new Quantum 2626 was to setup. We already use Studio One as our primary DAW, but configuring the I/O in any modern workflow should take just as little time. We were up and running in about a minute.
Our first tests included some simple condenser mics on acoustic guitars and scratch vocals, along with processing some bass-heavy synths and our new digital Mellotron. This unit comes with eight of PreSonus’ killer XMAX preamps, which sound awesome. Flat out – awesome. Highs were crisp with plenty of clean headroom, and dialing up the gain introduced zero clipping, distortion or digital noise. The whole experience was…transparent, I guess is the best word. There was no obvious coloration of the sound, which is great, especially for capturing ultra-hi-res audio for mixing and post-processing.
For this money, it’s stupid how good interfaces have become. No joke, we’d use this as the centerpiece of a pro studio any day of the week, the results are that good. And since it’s Thunderbolt, latency is basically non-existent. Like seriously, it’s a thing of the past.
We like that there’s so much front-facing I/O – sometimes it’s a bummer to install outboard gear and interfaces for testing, where everything is on the back. It makes plugging in and recording a pain – but not here. And of course if you need more, you can use an ADAT solution like the DigiMax we reviewed a while back. It’s all seamless. We even inserted used a master bus compressor with ease.
The fact that all this clocks in under $600 is ridiculous. Eight excellent (and fast) mic pre’s, full sized MIDI ins and outs (5-pin DIN!), an insane amount of rear-panel I/O and a small rackmount form factor that’ll get you 24-bit//192kHz audio into an INCLUDED DAW? That’s nuts. I don’t know how the folks down in Louisiana can do it for such a small price tag, but our guess is these will be flying off the shelves.
Benjamin Ricci PROS
super-fast, easy to install, excellent mic preamps, low cost
CONS
none.
STREET PRICE
$599
ASM
Hydrasynth 49-Key Polyphonic Synthesizer
When the Hydrasynth was first announced, we were excited to get our hands on it. It looks like nothing else on the market, and has a unique sound to make it stand out from the Korgs, Rolands and Moogs of the world (or the Behringers of the world, who are busy cloning the Korgs, Rolands and Moogs of the world…)
Anyway, the Hydrasynth doesn’t operate like your standard analog subtractive synthesizer. Sure, there’s a filter and some waves to fiddle about with. But the folks at ASM have taken the idea of a synth to the next level. In their world, each voice (you get 8-voice polyphony here) features a few different WaveScan oscillators, with about 200 different wave types to pick from. That’s a lot of choice (A LOT OF CHOICE!), way more intimidating than your run-of-the-mill Minimoog knock-off, where you can basically select a sawtooth wave, adjust the filter and that’s about it. But it’s actually easy to find your way around and start diving deep into the world of harmonically-complex sound design.
Whereas a non-traditional setup like this might seem intimidating at first, the real strength in the Hydrasynth is the menu-navigation. Now, typically we’re big haters when it comes to menudiving and controlling synth parameters with tiny knobs and LCD screens. But here, the whole signal path is re-imagined and when you choose a module to tweak, the entire synth changes itself to that specific task. And the front panel layout is so intuitive that even if you’ve never learned synthesis before, you can see how the modules flow into each other and affect the overall patch you’re working on.
So if you go into shape the envelope or something, the entire beast’s controls transforms to match, to enable you to do that task quickly and easily, making parameter adjustments FAR more intuitive than any other menu-based system we’ve used in a while. Big kudos for making such a complex synth actually simple to navigate, even for dummies like us.
Build quality is spot-on, and the sounds you can coax from this thing are amazing. We got lost in a lush-pad dreamscape for a few hours, but biting leads and sharp bass lines are all a knob-turn away. The arpeggiator offers up some neat options, too, including 8 different modes, ratchet and chance options and so much more. We could write a book on all the wave-shaping options available here, the multitude of sounds and envelopes to work with, the on-bard CV/Gate inputs/outputs for your analog gear…just about everything you could ever want from a “forever synth” has been included.
That goes for the 4-octave keybed as well, with PolyTouch response, and the super-awesome ribbon controller. We’ve never played a genuine CS-80 before, but now we known why the ribbon is such a talked about feature. The dynamic expression that’s possible on the Hydrasynth is second to none. And call us superficial, but the orange/black color scheme and light-up pitch/ mods wheels just complete the package.
It looks amazing, sounds epic, is insanely complex-yet-inviting, and might just be the last synth you’ll ever need to buy (OK, who are we kidding, you never have enough synths, but you get our point…)
Benjamin Ricci
PROS
tons of sounds, great layout, good build quality
CONS
learning curve might take some time to get used to
STREET PRICE
$1299
ULTIMATE SUPPORT
MDS-100 Modular Desktop Stand and MDS-X Expander
Ergonomics are key for a focused workflow. One issue that arises, is the line of sight a user may (or may not) have to work a piece of gear. A flat piece of gear on a desktop is great, if you’re standing right over it. Sitting down at a console or desk, you may find yourself having to angle a device or constantly stand up to get a good view of the controls being tweaked. Ultimate came up with a new way to easily see and access those ever-present desktop devices, like synth modules and the like.
Yes, it looks like an angled pedalboard, but looks are deceiving. On the underside of the MDS-100 is a knob that controls a pair of rubber padded walls that slide across the top surface to grip devices. Place a desktop unit that might be tough to see in between the walls and tighten up the knob to secure the unit in place. Done! There’s even a small lip at the bottom to make sure it doesn’t slide off.
On the back side is a pop out center divider that can easily be placed in the middle to make contact for devices of a smaller width. With the adjustable knob, there’s no need to commit to a permanent placement (or semi-permanent like on your guitarist’s ever-changing pedalboard) and no need for any particular fastening like Velcro or dual lock. OK, so it looks good, but what devices and items go here? Pretty much any unit that might reside on a flat desktop: pedals, pads, drum machine, effects devices, desktop synth modules, interfaces and sequencers. Even as a way to place an iPad or tablet in front of your creative station might make for a great application. The overall concept is being able to let the user easily see and access the device at a better angle, and it does that perfectly and cheaply!
Have more devices and need more space? Well the MDS-X Expander lets you add a second tier. This is great for units that might be wired or linked somehow together, like Roland’s boutique synths, drum machines or MIDI controllers, that might need to reside near each other.
One down side -- if you’re thinking this would be great for placing guitar pedals on there, make sure you consider the connections for power and signal connections. The movable walls are pretty tall and might require 90-degree ends on cables, if the connections are on right- and lefthand sides. Now you may not need to tighten up the walls, even just placing them on the shelf still provides stability.
So, for easy access to desktop synths, drum machines or effects, this is pretty much a no brainer, as a better line of sight to all of the knobs, controls, switches and displays on a variety of equipment.
Chris Devine PROS
flexible positioning of external devices
CONS
none.
STREET PRICE
MDS-100 @ $59 // MDS Expander @ $19
With their Neo Creamback, Celestion brings great tone with a lighter weight.
Let’s talk magnets - it’s a big part of the speaker, and usually the heaviest. One relatively recent development is using Neodymium rareearth magnets, which are much lighter than traditional magnets. For comparison, Celestion’s Creamback with their usual magnet comes in at 7.9 pounds. Their Neo Creamback weighs in at 4.2 pounds.
Our test amp was a 2008 Fender Blues Jr with the stock speaker. It’s a great sounding,
CELESTION
G12 Neo Creamback Speaker
small format tube amp, so the lighter speaker makes sense for a “grab and go” amp. Rated at 65 watts and 8 Ohms, it’s also a great pairing for its power range. Our test amp weighed in at 31.2 pounds stock and dropped to 28 pounds with the Celestion. That’s a 10% weight savings.
Sound wise, it reacted very nicely with the Blues Jr. It didn’t change what we liked about the amp, it just seemed to bring out more out of it. One complaint about these amps is a “boxy-ness” -- previously we’ve found some workarounds with the EQ settings, but the Neo really opened things up, allowing much more movement on the EQ overall.
It took the noticeable dry and sometimes brittle top end out of the cleans and smoothed them right out, while maintaining articulation. The midrange also sat much better in the mix, with a smoother response, and less need to dial in the EQ. Overdriven tones sounded amazing with plenty of richness. We dialed in a great crunch tone, at a reasonable volume, with plenty of dynamics. Pushing things into a more saturated lead tone, the mids maintained balance and the lower end maintained a tightness that didn’t compress or drop out. On its own, it made the amp, just...better in every way.
A lot of players have retired their favorite tube combos and large cabs due to weight issues. Fitting them with these speakers would make it easier during load in/out, while maintaining the great tone Celestion is known for. If you have an amp you LIKE, but don’t LOVE, consider changing the speaker(s) to one of these. You’ll fall back in love with it.
Chris Devine
PROS
classic Celestion tone, lightweight, easy way to upgrade any amp/cab
CONS
none.
STREET PRICE
$169
WASHBURN
Michael Sweet J40 Acoustic Guitar
Signature guitars are kind of tricky; while they might be awesome in their own right, its association to a certain player might not attract players to a particular instrument. Michael Sweet’s best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the band Stryper, and while he may not be known as a signature guitar shredder, the Washburn acoustic that bears his name, stands out from the pack.
Let’s start with the materials; with bear claw spruce on the top and quilted maple on the back and sides finished in translucent black, this jumbo body style looks amazing. The bracing underneath is quarter sawn spruce, for rigidity, and scalloped enough to let the top wood resonate. The neck is made from some very unusual materials; the fingerboard is laurel and is found in Asia and the neck core wood is okoume, which is a hardwood found in Africa’s equatorial regions. We haven’t had previous experience with either material, but the neck and board’s figuring looked very nice, and felt normal to us. The nut and saddle were cut from bone, and the abalone binding, along with the abalone/ red/abalone sound hole rosette detailing was done perfectly. The fingerboard inlays are acrylic, but still look very nice as well on the 25.5” scale neck that sports 21 medium jumboish frets.
Electronics wise, Barcus Berry’s LX-4 system covers volume, presence, a 3-band EQ and a tuner with display.
Picking it up, the neck shape felt very comfortable, it’s that soft and comfortable profile that feels familiar in first position, and as you go up the neck just continues to feel right. Jumbo sized guitars have a jumbo-sized projection, and there was no surprise here, but the overall vibrancy was a pleasant surprise. Some biggerbodied guitars tend to get bassy or woofy, but this one rang with a defined brilliance up and down the fingerboard. The tonal balance and response was perfect, with no issues at all.
Plugging it in the Barcus Berry preamp worked very nicely, as well. Doing a track in the studio with a simple condenser and this system brought a great balanced sound. In many cases the mic brings in additional thump and room, while the piezo delivers the sparkle, but we got great results pushing the mic for the definition, while carving out some low end through the pickup.
Now there are a couple of things that might not appeal to all players, and it’s something that comes with any “signature” guitar. The headstock inlay is very ornate, and with a very subtle “Michael Sweet” designation on it, this is pretty bespoke, and fits in nicely. On the 11th through the 13th frets, however, there is a wreath inlay with the “MS” branding. Some players might prefer a more subtle styling of sorts, but the work is done very well, and signatures aside, this guitar really delivers.
Overall, it’s a great big and rich sounding, easy playing acoustic, with looks to boot. Maybe you’re not a super yuge fan of Michael Sweet, or his music, but if you’re a fan of great sounding acoustics that feel perfect in the hands, this is worth a look.
Chris Devine
PROS
big sound, comfortable neck, solid electronics
