Tips on Building a Home Recording Studio
Introduction
There is no better time to get into music recording than now because of the available technologies that make sound recording easy enough for regular consumers to get started on their own music recording career or hobby. Whether you are a professional musician or just someone who likes to create and record music for fun, building your own home recording studio is an efficient way of supporting your music recording tasks. Having a recording studio right in your home gives you the chance to work on your music at any time, giving you the freedom and the room for your creativity to grow whenever you feel like it. Here are a few tips to help you if you want to build a home recording studio.
Soundproofing the Room
Even if you get the best and most expensive kind of recording equipment, it will not be enough to produce great sounding music if you do not properly soundproof your home recording studio. Your first task is to apply foam panels and paddings on your studio walls to isolate the sound. Sound isolation means none of the sounds you create in the studio will not escape outside the room and ruin the day of your family or your neighbors. Sound isolation also means no sounds from the outside will enter the recording studio. This will prevent unwanted sounds getting in the way of your recording process.
Soundproofing also involves sound absorption and sound diffusion. Absorption means echo and reverberation will be controlled and reduces, improving the quality of the sounds you are recording even in a small recording studio. Diffusion makes sure that sound is evenly distributed in the recording studio, which means you will have a clear recorded sound, therefore giving you an easier and more efficient experience in mixing your recordings. You can purchase and install materials other than foam panels to apply sound isolation, absorption and diffusion. These materials include echo absorbers, vibration isolation feet, impact barriers and quiet doors.
The walls are not the only part of the room that needs soundproofing. You also need to work on the floor, the ceiling and the windows if there are any. Again, sound diffusion, absorption and isolation should be taken into consideration when preparing these parts of the room in the actual process of building a home recording studio.
Ventilation of the Room
To build a home recording studio, sound control is the most important thing you need to think about. However, ventilation is also a very important consideration. Controlling sounds may lead you to pad every inch of the room, preventing air from circulating. This can cause the room to be stuffy and hot, especially with the equipment producing heat. This is why you should make sure that there is proper ventilation in the room to keep fresh air circulating and the temperature at a comfortable level. Once you have soundproofing and ventilation down pat, your room is now ready for audio studio equipment to be set up and for great music to be recorded.
References:
Sound Proof Foam, https://www.soundprooffoam.com/Quick_Guide_to_Building_a_Home_Recording_or_Practice_Studio.html
Humbucker Music, https://www.humbuckermusic.com/jul5th20buil.html
Ultimate Song Writing, https://www.ultimatesongwriting.com/how-to-build-a-home-recording-studio.html
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; Creative Commons Attribution / Supplied by Ty-Nishka Sung
