dorm room recording studio

[jmorales]

ok so basically I will live in the crappiest of crappy sound rooms in the world and need to know all of your magical tricks you guys would use. I know its going to have a ridiculous amount of noise, but I am going to try. Please, any help you can give me is very helpful and much appreciated. thanks guys

[timmcallister]

Originally Posted by jmorales

ok so basically I will live in the crappiest of crappy sound rooms in the world and need to know all of your magical tricks you guys would use. I know its going to have a ridiculous amount of noise, but I am going to try. Please, any help you can give me is very helpful and much appreciated. thanks guys

You statement begs the question: Are you trying to sound proof (reduce noise) or sound treat (make the room sound "better" acoustically) ?

They require different strategies.

Sound proofing a dorm room would be effectively impossible. Sure you could reduce some higher frequency sound transmission, but you you won't make much of a dent in regards to bass and "footsteps from above".

That requires construction:
- very thick walls or multiple airtight walls
- suspended ceilings, floating floors, etc
something you can't do in a dorm.

Sound treatment is possible, but bass traps take considerable space, and you probably have little of that to spare.

Just read the forum for the usual stuff. Get some 4" thick panels, straddle the front corners (if you have any room at all), hit the first reflection points. Thats probably all you can do.

good luck

[jmorales]

ok that could be possible. any other ideas guys. thanks

[jmorales]

any other ideas? thanks guys

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by timmcallister

You statement begs the question: Are you trying to sound proof (reduce noise) or sound treat (make the room sound "better" acoustically) ?

They require different strategies.

Sound proofing a dorm room would be effectively impossible. Sure you could reduce some higher frequency sound transmission, but you you won't make much of a dent in regards to bass and "footsteps from above".

That requires construction:
- very thick walls or multiple airtight walls
- suspended ceilings, floating floors, etc
something you can't do in a dorm.

Sound treatment is possible, but bass traps take considerable space, and you probably have little of that to spare.

Just read the forum for the usual stuff. Get some 4" thick panels, straddle the front corners (if you have any room at all), hit the first reflection points. Thats probably all you can do.

good luck

100% correct on all counts. Go here for some more information: http://www.gikacoustics.com/education.html

Frank

[NorseHorse]

OK, let's get more practical guys... I doubt he's going to be able to make a ton of changes. There's ResLife to deal with, FireCode, RAs, and the simple fact of not being there that long.

Somes suggestions...

1. Find the things that make noise in your room. Do you have a fridge? AC? Dehumidifier? Loud lamp? Roommate? Rattling nuts and bolts? Identify the problems and then make sure they're turned off and/or unplugged when you need to record. If you get noise from outside, try hanging your blanket over the window or ventilation when you need to record.

2. Find the quietest spot in the room. If you can't treat a room much, try and FIND a "magical spot" instead of MAKING one.

3. Find the quietest time. If people are running around your hall every night from 9PM - 1AM, that would leek into your recording.

I recently made a recording in an untreated room. I unplugged the fridge and turned off the AC. No one was around, so I didn't have people noise to deal with. I was nearing the end of the recording, and I realized I had left my watch on my wrist! It seeped into the guitar recording. Oh well.

[dannygold]

Mic with very tight pickup pattern will be helpful.

[jefferson]

Are you trying to play drums in a dorm room? When I lived in a dorm a few years back, me and 2 other guys on the same floor started a band. We got away with it for about a week, then they told us we had to get rid of the drums. So we didn't play for a week, then we put 2 t-shirts on the snare, one on each tom, and put a piece of corrugated cardboard over the kick head. We put another t-shirt over the bottom hi-hat with the rod going through the hole for your neck, so the t shirt dampened the hats when they were closed. We put a rubber tipped clamp on the ride and put masking tape all over it. No crash. And we only used hot rods. The kit sounded like shit, but we could almost get away with practicing (which we did almost daily. We got better so fast it was scary). It was definitely quieter. We would get yelled at at least once a week, it basically worked out so that if someone complained we had to stop. Its a good way to make a lot of people hate you. Was it worth it? **** yeah.

[jefferson]

Also if you want to record guitar amps just get an iso cab now. The grendel dead room is supposed to be the best one out there right now. If you want decent sounding drums you're going to have to sample. Theres no way around it in that environment. For vocals get some nice dynamics like an sm7b and/or an re20.

More about my dorm escapades:
We lived on an all guys floor, there was an all girls floor below us. The guys didn't really care too much, most of them thought it was cool to have a band on the floor, especially after we stopped sucking (the original band name was "jeff sux", me being jeff). There was this one guy though that played DDR and listened to techno all the time that absolutely hated us. The girls were a different story. The ones we weren't already friends with absolutely hated us. The band stayed together for 2 years after leaving the dorms, we broke up a month ago after 3 of us graduated and moved to different cities. One of the girls who had lived on the floor under us and REALLY hated us was at our last show. This girl probably complained to the RA's about us 20 times or so. She came up to me afterwards and said we were awesome, and THANKED us for playing. I don't think she realized it was the same guys who annoyed the shit out of her for a year.

[NorseHorse]

More practical advice:

- If you're recording acoustic or bass, run it direct so the room doesn't even factor in.

- Keep a condenser AND a dynamic mic handy. I tried to record a guitar amp at low levels in a house this winter. After testing three mics, the guitarist and I picked a $5 dynamics mic (NADY SP-5 wahoo!!) over the $600 condenser (AT4050). Simply put, the AT4050 picked up WAY too much house noise, air, appliances, footsteps, breathing. The Nady was smooth and focused.

- Don't record drums. In a dorm room, it's just obnoxious. Sample a kit and go from there.

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by dannygold

Mic with very tight pickup pattern will be helpful.

Exactly. Get a Beyer ribbon like M160 or an old (grey) M260. Doesn't pick up a lot from a distance. Needs a feasible pre though.