Finished 20'x30' basement recording

[jhbrandt]

Z,

It's going to be some work for you. Are you prepared to build some walls?

Please post a simple PLAN drawing of the area with dimensions. Also tell us the room height and the height of any obstructions.

If you are serious about it, and I think you are - getting sleepless about it, planning is everything. Find out how much isolation you need, find out the best doable dimensions for the finished space (ratios), and determine your approach to acoustic treatment.

Some helpful articles are available on my publications page. In particular; my new article "How to find out how much Isolation you need.pdf" could be of some help.

Cheers,
John

[Zslayton]

John
You are awesome. Thank you for understanding my obsession. So I think I'll draw up a scale drawing of my space complete with dimensions and upload it. Just started getting exact measurements at midnight lol. I'll also upload pictures of the space.
Thanks again.
Z

[Swurveman]

I just put a studio in my finished basement, but did not need to make it soundproof. If that's your aim there are studio-build books that explain how to construct a soundproof studio, or you can hire a consultant/designer. There's no easy way to go about it. A lot of it depends on your budget. So, I'd start there. If you can afford it, you'll obtain your objective much faster having a consultant help you plan and implement your studio. If you can't afford it, be prepared to do a lot of reading and understanding so that you can do it right. When you do your budget, you must also consider your costs to treat the room after you've soundproofed it. They are two different endeavors.

[Zslayton]

I'm not trying to sound proof it I just want the best possible space for recording and I don't even know where to start. I don know where to record in the room, where to set up my desk. All I know is the stuff I've recorded thus far sounds really hollow and bright.

[Swurveman]

I'm not trying to sound proof it I just want the best possible space for recording and I don't even know where to start. I don know where to record in the room, where to set up my desk. All I know is the stuff I've recorded thus far sounds really hollow and bright.

First of all, I'd start here. There's tons of information.

As to your concerns in your post:


There's no one place to set up your desk. However, you can start by making sure that it is in the middle between the two side walls and 38% from the front wall. Here's two sources of reading.

How to set up a room

Start there and then test your room with Room EQ Wizard. You many find that moving the speakers closer to the front wall gives you a better (more even) frequency response. So, take some readings at different distances from the front wall. You'll probably get deep peaks and nulls in your Room EQ Wizard (REW) graphs from 20-300 Hz. That's normal, but you may get less at different parts of your room relative to whether your desk is closer or farther from the front . So, experiment.

Once you take your measurments you are probably going to see that your room usually has an uneven bass response (those peaks and nulls) and long decay times. So, you can either buy or DIY absorptive panels for the corners, first reflection points from your speakers and side walls, and back wall. This will help you get bass under control and tame the reflectivity of your room so that what you hear coming out of the speakers isn't influenced by the room. There's no cookie cutter forula. Test the room without treatment. Add treatment, Test. Etc. Etc.

Here's some information on placing absorptive panels:


Placing Real Traps

After you've done this, and measured your low end response, decay times and first reflections, you may like how your room sounds.

If you still don't, there are ways even in a not perfect environment to record and tame the room.

Here's two helpful videos:

Taming excessive reverb

Recording Strategies

Hope that helps you get started.