Home Studio Layout Help Required

[andycraig]

Hi,

I'm looking for some help with the layout of my home studio and I'd really appreciate any input. Most of my time in the room will be spent mixing or recording vocals, acoustic guitar and MIDI parts on my keyboard. I have an SE reflection filter that I'm used to using with my voice and have never had a problem getting a nice acoustic guitar sound. So, I want the room to be set up as well as I can primarily for mixing.

The room is small and the dimensions are:

2.83m x 2.62m x 2.38m (height)

On one of the 2.62m walls there is a window looking into the garden and on the opposite wall is the door in a corner and a cupboard in the centre of the wall. The door into the room is set further back than the 2.83m so the wall with that on the corner is actually 3.11m.

It's roughly this shape:

---------
I..........I
I..........I_
I............/
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Three of the walls are exterior walls with the exception of the wall with the door and cupboard. The floor is laminate and there is 7cm curved plaster coving around the perimeter of the ceiling.

I'm about to decorate and start thinking about creating some acoustic panels. Part of my problem is that I've never set up my equipment in the room since moving house so I don't know how it currently sounds. What I'd like to know is will the best listening position in the room be facing the window, applying the 38% rule?

My plan is to create bass traps for the three corners that I can fix to permanently and create some 2" panels to place on the side walls and on the back wall. I'm contemplating making the corner traps floor to ceiling panels but I'm not sure if that's going to be practical (for a start, I'm not sure how I would fix them to the walls). Would it make a difference if I also built a portable trap that I can move to the corner with the door when mixing? Would I need to place a panel on the cupboard door if this is directly behind the listening position? I'd also like to hang a panel above the listening position (if my DIY skills are up to it) and place a rug underneath it (I can definitely manage that).

Do you think this is the right approach? Any advice/warnings would be great.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[Ethan Winer]

I'd face the window on the left side of your drawing to keep your listening setup symmetrical. Then add as many bass traps in corners as you can. Most rooms have 12 corners, not just four! The rest of your plan sounds good too.

--Ethan

[andycraig]

Thanks for replying Ethan. thumbsup

I understand what you mean about the number of corners - I suppose my bass traps will cover 3 of the 12 and a portable stand will go some way to sorting out another.

I won't be able to tackle the floor to wall corners and there isn't really enough space above the window and cupboard/entrance to put traps on those wall to ceiling corners. That leaves me with the wall to ceiling corners on the longer walls which I could try to tackle - would panels straddling these corners help even if they only covered, for example, half the length of the room? I'm concerned that as the ceiling is pretty low, it could be a problem to have a trap covering the full length of the room on the longest wall (due to the position of the door).

Do you think that only tackling half the corners in the room is going to be a significant problem?

Am I right to think that it'll be more important to use space in this room for traps rather than introducing additional acoustic components like diffusers too?

Apologies if some of this info is a bit basic - just trying to get my head around acoustics.

Thanks again.

Andy

[Ethan Winer]

Andy,

If there's not enough room to straddle a corner, you can put traps parallel to the ceiling (or bottom of the wall) where they're near the corner. If you can space them away a few inches, all the better.

--Ethan

[andycraig]

That's good to know. Thanks again.