AudioBanter.com - View Single Post - Recording Studio in basement

(Brian Huether) wrote in message . com...
I decided I am sick of having kick-ass guitar amps and not being able
to crank them So
my questions are

1. Is it best to have carpeted floors?
If it currently has concrete, the cheap answer is yes. Expensive
answer is to float a wooden floor - seperate floats for the two floors
for control room and live room.

2. Which room should be for monitoring, and which for my speaker cab?
The bigger room for the cab, right?
Yep. Depends what sizes we're talking but in general if I had a bigger
room and a smaller one the bigger one gets the loud instruments.

3. Regarding the adjoining wall between rooms, how difficult would it
be to rip a whole in it and install a panel of soundproof glass? Can I
indeed do that, or would I need to tear down the whole wall and start
from scratch? I suppose it would depend on what lays within the wall,
huh?
Dicey area - lets say you figure out getting the hole in the wall -
you have to have two panels of glass set at non-perpendicular angles
and sealed airtight to have any effective results, and this is damn
expensive and time consuming to get right in my experience. I chicken
out and use a closed circut TV system instead.

And regarding sound proofing, etc. I am not very handy and so can not
do DIY accoustical treatment, unless it is very basic (i.e. attaching
foam to walls, etc). How much would it cost for me to bring in a
consultant and have some sufficient (i.e. not hard core, obsessive)
accoustical treatment done (I will need someone in the Boston area).
The most important thing to me is

a) being able to crank a 120W tube amp and not have the sound leaking
into my monitoring room and interfering with the monitored sound. Ok,
so perhaps I won't be cranking the amps, but I definately want to make
my amps work hard!
Again, seperate floors will help. Soundproofing that wall to stop that
kind of level will not be as hard as you think, you basically build
anaother wall a little further out from the current wall with a
specified air gap and rockwool and stuff. But that window could be a
killer

b) having a good monitoring environment such that the other quality
components are not compromised (mics, pres, etc).
Now your talking bank loans. And a life dedicated to building and
maintaining a studio - thats a hell of a committment to "crank your
amps" - I live it everyday and it can be a battle

c) having convenient cabling and communication between the two rooms
Sort this out before you start building new walls and stuff -
OVERCOMPENSATE! When I made my multicore I was sure 16 sends and 4
stereo returns would be HEAPS, but I am now running cables under the
door.

Also, if anybody could help me with this project, that would be most
appreciated. We move in on Sept 6 (Billerica, MA) and I want to hit
the ground running. I really need someone to guide me through this. It
seems so overwheling to me right now! Of course I will pay a fair
price (hopefully less than what a pro consultant would charge!).
I'm a studio hack in Australia. Seek out Ethan Winer. Best of luck my
friend!
Adam B
SNJ Studio
http://snjstudio.cjb.net