Too small for studio?

[Rick Jones]

Originally Posted by Rudy4

SNorse / Rick,

Good solution, even if not ideal. I like cozy and well-organized spaces, and you win the Marie Kondo award!

Thank you! When I tried to make it a dedicated 'studio' it was a poor studio and a rubbish room to spend time in. Now it's a little, uncluttered but personal space for being creative or studying in.

I don't know if the OP is looking for the former or the latter, but for me, having 'a studio' meant I was wasting the rare bit of spare room I had allocated just for me.

[Chipotle]

Those angles from being in the loft area definitely work to your advantage sound-wise. You then have to treat to get the right balance of deadening reflections while still leaving a little liveness.

I don't thing something that small and square would work nearly as well.

[Jegero]

Thanks so much for everyone's replies, there are clearly a lot of people here with way more knowledge on the subject than me!

So the wife is currently in the spare room in the house... We have two mental boys who really need their own rooms so she is being shipped outside to the workshop. She needs a large space because she has two industrial leather machines and a bunch of other sewing machines she also has an 8x4 cutting table and rolls and rolls of fabric and hides.... We're not talking doilies here!

I am not dividing my half in half again but into two section because I still need a workshop... I could maybe steal a little more off the wife... And go for a slightly smaller workshop.

Is there a minimum size required for recording or is it more about ratios... I'm not planning to produce any albums or anything just trying to do the best I can with what I've got.

Thanks again for all the comments, It's really interesting for me to hear.

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Jegero

Is there a minimum size required for recording or is it more about ratios... I'm not planning to produce any albums or anything just trying to do the best I can with what I've got.

There are no perfect dimensions so far as I know, but there are a few generalizations that can help guide a person towards a better setup.

1. A bigger space is almost always better than a tiny space. The longer a reflection has to travel before it comes back to your microphone, the less problematic the reflection will be because the volume will dissipate over distance.

2. Parallel walls are our enemy (a square room is the worst). For most of us, they're unavoidable so we either take steps to reduce the problem or we live with the results. The easiest thing to do is acoustic treatment. It's not sexy like a new microphone or a new preamp, but given the choice between great gear in a bad room or mediocre gear in a great room, I'll take the latter every time. Also, if you're handy, it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg to treat a room.

This video is helpful for understanding the materials useful for room treatment and how to build acoustic panels. It also gets into room layout and other issues.


3. In a rectangular room, you want to set up your listening station along a short wall to give reflections a longer distance to travel. Preferably, you'll want your monitors a couple of feet from the wall. The distance from the wall helps mitigate an overemphasis of bass when listening. If a space is so small that no real distance can be put between the monitors and the wall, the monitors with front facing bass ports will be less problematic.