Begging for Layout assistance! (Sketches attached)

[Wilk]

Hey Fellow Sluts,


Ok, I really need you guys to chime in on this. I'm in the process of building a home studio in the basment of my house. The area, in whole, is 40ft long, 14ft wide, and 7'1 in height (i know, i know, the height sucks, but's it what I got). Half of the room is carpeted and the other half is straight concrete. The area that is already carpeted is where I plan to do all of my work. Once complete the entire basment will be carpeted. My 3 main concerns are: (see attachment before reading concerns. Sketches are not the best, but...art isn't my cup of tea. lol!)

1. What would be the best location for my workstation taking into consideration the dimensions surrounding it and sound treating the area (plan on using OC corning for all treatment. No Foam)?
2. Should I create a wall where the two rooms (carpeted & concrete area) meet? (I'm thinking that will give me a better sound if the work area is actually in-closed.)
3. How do you feel about the vocal booth option on #2? ( I know how eveybody on here preaches how you do not need a vocal booth and then they attach the real traps PVB link, but i figure i have the room and I do kind of want that isolation option for the vocalist.

Your input is HIGHLY appriciated guys. So what ya think?

P.S. How the hell do I go about creating a bass trap for that corner wear the door & window is located?

[Ethan Winer]

Option 3 is the best choice of those presented, though even better would be to wall in that part of the room. Otherwise you'll need a lot of bass traps to treat the entire space. See this article / software for dimension advice:

Graphical Mode Calculator

And see this article for layout advice:

How to set up a room

A vocal booth would be okay, but it has to be large to be viable. Small booths usually sound pretty bad. More here:

Do I really need a vocal booth?

Corners with a door can have a trap right on the door:



And don't forget that rectangle rooms have 12 corners, not just four where walls meet.

--Ethan

________________
The Acoustic Treatment Experts

[Wilk]

I was hoping you would be the one to chime in on this Ethan! So options 3 looks the best, huh? I think I may have to agree. That's actually the latest layout I came up with. However, I thought the rule of thumb was to make your longest wall your "back wall" to the mixing area?? Also, how do you feel about the dimensions of the vocal booth (if I do in fact decide to go that direction)? Is that 7' height going to affect the sound quality of the vocals? My plan was to put a cloud made of OC703 over the position of the mic, but if I do that and include a gap....that's going to drop it down pretty close (2 inches OC703 in the cloud & a 2 inch gap). You can't just make the ceiling of booth out of straight OC703 (with no gap)? The walls of the vocal booth will be 4" (top half)/ 2" (bottom half).

[Ethan Winer]

I wouldn't make a booth that's only 6 by 4 feet. If you make the room shorter than 40 feet front to back, put a large booth in the rear of the room behind you. Can you go at least 8 by 10 feet?

--Ethan

[Wilk]

Ok, well there's two kickers with putting the booth in the back of the room (if referring to Sketch #3). One, is that I have dual hot water heater pipes that drop down about 4 inches from the ceiling and they go straight across the length basement (Half of them are being hidden in the laundry room.). I'm going to have to make a 4 inch drop bridge across the ceiling to hide those construction-wise. The second kicker is that WINDOW. An ideal place for the booth would definitley be that area, but and A/C will be going in that window and I can't have the booth up against the A/C. With that being said...Having the vocal booth across the back (created) wall will be tough to get a full 8x10 due to the Pipes that drop down and the window being where it is.

P.S. That drop is going to be ticky to treat. At first i was just going to just bass trap the "Depth" part with small mini bass traps or possibly acoustic foam. But that's when i was considering sketch #1 & #2. But, how would you suggest me treating that drop in regards to option #3 being as though the "depth" part of the drop will be running parrell with the sound oppose to going against it like it would be in options #1 & #2.

(Did I loose you with that description of the drop due to the hot water pipes? LOL).

[Ethan Winer]

Yes, you lost me. Photos would help. Regardless, whatever you do, keep the front part of the room open and symmetrical.

--Ethan