Studio Challenge-What would you do with this space?

[James Roper-Kum]

Small budget (School) Rehearsal room and studio

Pair of Genelec 8030's already in house

Isolation (Floor and Walls) and ventilation

Possible relocation of office for use as studio.

Windows?

Storage space

Computers for teaching music technology

Thanks allot

[pkautzsch]

Either you could use the office as small control room (with lots of absorption and near-field monitoring only), having the large room as one big rehearsal/recording space.
Or you could make the office a booth, split the large room into a not soo big rehearsal/recording room and bigger control room. Still all rooms will be rather small and need a good amount of acoustic treatment.
Depends on what kind of music is to be rehearsed and recorded in there. I suppose it's bands? Neither solution will be first-class, as that would need more space. But I've done remote recording in smaller places, and it can work out fine.

[bass man]

Hey Peter

If i may give you one advice as a musician :

Both on this plan and on the plan you suggested to me in another tread you made the same mistake which is NO visual contact between musicians !!!
I understand that you think its important for the recording engineer to "see" the whole recording situation while recording but IMHO its most important that the musicians see each other while playing . So placing a CR between the live room and vocal /instr booths is not the smartest thing to do ....

[bass man]

Maybe something like this :

Rooms with red dots are live room and vocal / instrumental /small live rooms, the one with blue dot is control room and the places with green dots are places for bass traps .....Visual contact between Control room and first bigger live room you can make with cameras maybe ....

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by James Roper-Kum

Small budget (School) Rehearsal room and studio

I wouldn't divide up a room that small. Put the loudspeakers at the left side facing toward the right, and have the players on the right side where it's wider.

--Ethan

[pkautzsch]

Originally Posted by bass man

Hey Peter

If i may give you one advice as a musician :

Both on this plan and on the plan you suggested to me in another tread you made the same mistake which is NO visual contact between musicians !!!
I understand that you think its important for the recording engineer to "see" the whole recording situation while recording but IMHO its most important that the musicians see each other while playing . So placing a CR between the live room and vocal /instr booths is not the smartest thing to do ....

Doing mostly classical and jazz, I do know that visual contact between musicians playing toghether is essential, and that ideally all musicians are in the same room so they can hear themselves without headphones. My control "room" usually is some backstage closet with NO visual contact to anyone. I sit there to listen, not to look.
I would, however, NEVER record an ensemble like this in a project studio with small rooms and maybe low ceilings. That kind of music needs A LOT of space around it. And I'd much prefer to have the musicians all in one room (yes, they can balance themselves if they're good) than separating them by walls with windows and having to give each musician a can in which he hears himself as the engineer wants him to sound, but not as his instrument sounds in reality. That might be a personal preference thing, but still I'd rather cope with a certain amount of well-controlled bleed (which btw helps glue things together and make the band sound like a band). Using the right mic in the right place can do so much more than separating everyone from everyone else, and unfortunately the right mic isn't always a cheap chinese chardioid one (spelling error intended).
For the kind of music typically recorded in project studios, which I suppose is mainly some flavour of rock, pop, hip-hop, and so on, having all musicians play at the same time (unfortunately!!!) isn't the most normal way of recording nowadays. When a singer overdubs in a booth, with a click track and maybe with lots of sampled sounds in his cans, he doesn't need to look into a main room in which no band is playing. That's what iso booths are used for most of the time.

For the given situation "school rehearsal room and studio" it can even be good if the two rooms have no direct visual contact. If your isolation is good enough, you can do overdubs in the booth while another band is rehearsing in the main room, or while the main room is used for teaching audio computer stuff. I doubt 9th grade boys will listen to their teacher when the 10th grade chick is doing overdubs right next to them behind a window.

[pkautzsch]

Originally Posted by bass man

Maybe something like this :

Rooms with red dots are live room and vocal / instrumental /small live rooms, the one with blue dot is control room and the places with green dots are places for bass traps .....Visual contact between Control room and first bigger live room you can make with cameras maybe ....

You might have noticed I suggested the very same setup, just without that wall dividing the live room:

Originally Posted by pkautzsch

Either you could use the office as small control room (with lots of absorption and near-field monitoring only), having the large room as one big rehearsal/recording space.

I actually had thought about the division, but having two similarly smallish rooms isn't an advantage to me when I can have one room large enough for a larger band. Heck, I even thought about a removable wall and dropped that thought for budget reasons - I mean, it's a project studio.

Room acoustics would not be done with just a few bass traps in the corners, but lots of absorption and some diffusion will be required.
As I wrote in my other post, I don't think it's necessary that the engineer see the musicians. Engineer ought to listen. It's rather the other way round: musicians seem to like being able to see if we're still awake and listening.

[James Roper-Kum]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

I wouldn't divide up a room that small. Put the loudspeakers at the left side facing toward the right, and have the players on the right side where it's wider.

--Ethan

Thats interesting Ethan. I highly agree that the most space should be assigned to rehearsal space.

Plus the closet office room wouldn't be ideal for a control room.

Although I am slightly confused as to how you propose to monitor during recording with the speaker up one end and a band up the other.

Thanks

James

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by James Roper-Kum

I am slightly confused as to how you propose to monitor during recording with the speaker up one end and a band up the other.

You can wear headphones while they're recording. Yes, this is not ideal, but it's better than having two bad sounding rooms.

--Ethan