Alright, so I'm preparing to take the leap into serious home recording. I messed around with it before, some basic DAW stuff, but nothing of this level. I've been wanting to do this for a while, but always kind of discourged myself because it's going to take a lot (years) of work to get to the point where I'm putting out what I would consider to be great recordings. I'm realizing that I'll never get good if I don't get started now, and I really want to do this. I'm interested in recording my band, myself, as well as other musicians for pay, so I'm looking for as close to a "professional" sound as I can get.

I plan to get nice stuff, as much as I can afford. I certainly don't have a ton of money to throw around, but I can see myself dropping (as funds and time permit) $3k-$4k on a few mics, $3k-$4k on a couple nice preamps, $1k on monitors, etc, etc, just trying to give you an idea of what I'm going for as far as equipment quality.

I've been reading a lot on room treatment, and I think I've decided on the Real Traps Standard Room Kit for my control/mix room. Good choice? How important is equal/similar room treatment for a tracking room? Because, I plan (depending on what you guys say) to have two separate rooms, a control/mix room measuring approx 22 1/2'x8'x10' , and a tracking room measuring approx 10'x9 1/2'x13 1/2'.

Take a look at the attached drawing. I have roughly half the garage that I can build a tracking room in (the dimensions I have to build in are ever-so-slightly larger than the dimsensions I have you for the room). I plan to track all instruments at separate times. I also have another room inside the house that I plan to use as a mix room. I think that I have pretty good dimensions to work with, the 8' ceiling in the mix room is kind of a bummer, but other than that, not bad. Thoughts?

I was thinking about placing the monitors against one of the short walls, so my back is against the longest part of the room, and placing the traps as needed for bass nodes and early reflection points.

How should I construct the tracking room? I get the feeling, reading a couple threads here and other places, that I should not need a floating floor (the garage is a concrete slab right against the ground, and the house has about a 3-4' crawlspace under it. Budget for the tracking room is flexible, I would prefer to keep under $1000, but...

My main concern with the tracking room is keeping sound inside, but I am a little concerned about outside noise getting in, I live on a 30 mph residential road, about 20-30' off the road. Facing the house, I have an elementary school to my left, about 20' away, and to my right, neighbors about 25' away. Behind the house I have an apartment complex about 100' away, the side of the building faces me. That's pretty much it, as far a the closest buildings. My neighbors have never given me any trouble, they seem cool. I will be pretty loud, loud distorted guitar tones, I play modern hard rock, Dark New Day, Alter Bridge, Nickleback, etc.

I keep reading about room ratios, What does that mean, and would it apply to the tracking room?

I am a little worried about the mix room being to loud at night, the house was built in 1950, and I doubt it has much insulation. From what I'm reading, I can caulk everything I can find, and add heavy doors, but that's about it as far as soundproofing an existing room. I have a lot of windows in that room, and as much as it might help to brick those up, it's not going to fly with the wife unit, I had enough trouble explaining why I need to mount 12 or so large white pads to the ceiling and walls! So, any major construction in the mix room is a no-no. The tracking room is really where I have leeway as far as how it's built.

I'm really basing my while plan here off what I've read on the net, and looking at the studio my friend has set up. He has a similar setup to what I'm taking about, room in his house for a mix room, and he built a room in his garage for tracking, and I'm quite impressed with the stuff he does: myspace.com/dreammakers
He only has about a 7' ceiling in the tracking room, and it's a little smaller, so mine will be an inprovement over his in that regard, but his mix room is a little more broken up than mine, so that's probably better than mwhat I'm working with. Anyway, the point of bringing him up is to say that if, in 4-5 years, I could get something that compares to his quality, I would crap my pants.

Well, I hope that's enough info to get you started, I have ordered some books (Sound Studio Construction on a Budget, Sound Advice: The Musicians Guide to the Recording Studio), so I'm somewhat covered in that regard.

I would appreciate any help you guys could give me.

-Bruce-


I downloaded Stetchup 7, but it won't work, keeps giving me error messages.

Here's my MS paint of my whole house, may be more than you need. I just put breaks where there are pertinent doors.





Here's where the tracking room will be.




But that's really messy, so here's the other side of the garage, just to show you what the walls and such look like.


And here's the room I intend to mix in. The door visible is the door leading out into the back yard. As you can see, there's a few windows, there are equally numbered (and placed) windows on the opposing wall.