Gang-

Well, we're mostly all moved into our new, bigger home. The house is "up & running" so I can now focus on some side projects like the garage and my home recording studio.

As I look for ideas, plans, etc. I see a wide variety of flooring options being used. I've seen everything from hard wood, tile to carpeting.

The room dimensions are going to wind up being very close to 20" by 10".

Within reason, cost isn't a primary concern for this.

Any suggestions, experiences, etc. would, as always, be welcome...

Thanks in advance-

Bill in Dayton

Bill....Congrats, on being in your new home,
I hope you get that studio finished soon...
good luck....
Tony Rome

Congrats Bill on the new home. The best option, acustically, would be hardwood flooring covered with carpet. This provides the best resonance, plus the sound absorption of padded carpeting.

Good luck,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

Depends. How "pro" do you want to go? What's the rest of the room (walls, windows, doors, ceiling)like? If money is not a huge problem, you may want to consider a raised floor. Besides the acoustical advantages (if properly done), there is also the ease and flexibility of pre-wiring. Whatever finish surface you choose, there will be additional acoustical treatments that you will need to do to accomplish pro-level mixing and mastering. For tracking, anything is probably ok since for synths, no problem (direct in), and for live drums and vocals you would need some sort of isolation booth, room, space, etc. I would say, unless you plan to use the space commercially, go with what is most aestheticly(sp) pleasing to you and then acoustically treat (ie. bass traps, etc.) the resulting room. Or.....to be more succinct, I have no recommendations .

chas

As is said above, it depends what sort of room sound you are after.

For flexibility you could have a wood floor with carpet tiles? Then if you need a more "ambient" response you could lift the tiles. On the other hand you could carpet the floor and have solid walls with curtains or such like to control the ambience.

Guys-

Currently the flooring is an old, worn wood vinyl tile. The walls are a standard wood paneling.

The studio will basically only serve myself in terms of recording. So, my Tyros/PSR3k, etc. will go direct via a Behringer pmh2000 power mixer, Vocals get recorded live through the same...all into a Sony RCD-w500C CD Recorder.

It's possible I'll record other projects besides mine in this studio, depending on their needs. A singer looking for backing tracks to record a demo, instrumentals for sing-along type uses, etc. are other potential examples. I don't ever see myself recording a full band or anything.

I'm leaning toward having a nice hardwood floor installed then find a nice area rug to place over it. I'm undecided about what to do with the walls...I don't care for the wood paneling currently in place, I don't think it would be that hard to rip it down and put drywall up, then paint it the color of my choice.

I'll be replacing the current flourescent lighting with track lighting for a warmer feel about the room.

Our electrical box is also located in a corner of this space and we have plenty of room to add additional circuits. I'd like to have dedicated power outlets for my equipment needs.

Shelving will also be added to keep the area as user friendly as possible. I'd love to have things set up in such a way that wires and cables are otu of the way as possible.

Bill in Dayton

If you are recording electronic music and digital recording...It makes absolutely no difference where you record..
Record through your mixer, including vocal mics....
You can have the best studio prepared walls and floors and it will not show on your recordings..
The "Room" is for acoustic instruments like sax, wind , ect...Even then ...they will record fine through the mixer without ambience..

Congrats on your new home!

Most studios have floating floors with hard surface (no carpeting) because once you lay down carpet in the room you have no control over acoustic treatment. The best idea is to have hardwood/ laminted floor with acoustic treatment on the ceiling right abovee the mix position. After that, you can treat other parts of the room floor with area rugs.

You will also need some treatments for the walls. Start off with Bass Traps in the corners of your room and then add some broadband absorbtion behind your monitors and on the wall right behind your mix position. Again, the room treatment really depends on the dimensions of your room, your mix position and so on.

I disagree with the comment about not needing acoustic treatment if you are recording electronic instruments. The acoustic treatment is needed to listen to your mix as clearly as possible. If your listening environment is not good then your mixes will not be good. There is really a reason why professional studios spend thousands of dollars on acoustical treatment and it shows in their recordings.

You should check out recording studio forum here for a lot of information about studio builing and acoustic treatment:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

Hope it helps!

Shaz

Fran is absolute right--it does not make a bit of difference.

Good Luck,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

As a newbie, I guess I haven't earned the right to contradict anyone, particularly long-established members.....but ouch, sounds like an awful lot of people are wasting an awful lot of money. Of course, it helps to clarify whether you're talking about tracking or mixing/mastering, but even with tracking, digital or analog, I believe that room reflections from an untreated room would be picked up if the source was a microphone.

Respectfully,
Charles

Just a quick note to add: a couple of years ago we have installed plastic laminate flooring on the main floor of our house. It works fine looks and durability wize, but the acoustics is terrible, even though we used high quality underlayment. There is a lot of sound reflection, making everything more muffled: the TV has to be turned way louder than before just to be heard 12 feet in front, and yet in the rest of the house the TV sound is way to loud. The same with the music.

I would suggest that any smooth surface floors should be covered for better acoustics. It won't matter if all you are doing is recording yourself play directly from the keyboard, but if you are using any sort of a microphone, either for vocals, or acoustic instruments, the acoustics will make at least some difference.

Regards,
Alex

High quality, super-cardiod and hyper-cardiod mics have a very short range. And, as such, they usually cannot pick up any sounds more than a few inches from the mic head, and those sounds must be fired directly into the face of the mid. Sound such as echoes from within the room would not be picked up, mainly because they would be primarily coming from the sides of the mic. The face of the mic is blocked by the singer's head.

The test is very simple. Place a high quality mic on a mic stand, point the mic directly at your mouth, sing directly into the mic's face, then using the same vocal volume, sing into the side of the mic--what a diffence. The fall-off is astronomical with a top-quality mic. If you're using an inexpensive mic, the fall-off is not nearly as significant.

Good luck on whatever decission you make,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

Naturally, listening to music in a room is going to be reflected by the acoustics..The question had to do with recording Bill's Tyros/3000...
Sure mixing is at it's best in a controlled enviroment.. Mix should also conform to the media it is intended...car radio, home stereo etc...I don't think $4000 monitors and a $10,000 prepared[sound ] studio is necessary for this media...

Why do Studios spend big bucks on the room...because they want to charge the customer big bucks to use the facility.

If you are going to record vocals you need to start with as dead a room as possible. Extra reverb on a vocal that is embedded in the source material is practically impossible to process out and can be very noticable. You can get this even with the most directional microphone.