Welcome Riaan!

You're in luck, we talk about recording quite a lot in here ?

Check out some of our older threads for some solid advice and Alan's site too: www.alanratcliffe.com

Hey man,

good to have you here

Hi Riaan

Welcome and fire away!

You do know that we're not going to let you get away without telling us what gear you have, don't you?

Hmm... turning a garage into a studio. What exactly are you doing? Details! I demand details!

Hi guys
Thanks for the welcome. My gear at the moment: Yamaha FG325 acoustic (my very first guitar, bought in 1982), a Cort electro-acoustic, Ibanez RX series electric, and my two most prized ones ... a Regal resophonic dating from 1928, a bargain found in an antique shop in Bloemfontein, and a Godin Solidac which I recently bought on EBay from a guy in Tasmania. Oh yes, and a Yamaha APX5NA nylon string. Only one amp, a Roland BC30 BluesCube. I play the acoustics through a Roland UA30 soundcard/PC and an old Pioneer hi-fi amp. BTW - the Godin really sounds great with it's dual output using the soundcard for the piezo's and the Roland amp for the pickups. My only effects pedal at the moment is a Zoom 505II. I use Cakewalk for some very basic recording, no mikes or other hardware yet.
Alan, the garage "studio" is a rather DIY acoustics job on a tight budget. It measures 5 X 4 metres with a slanted ceiling on average 3.5 metres high. Double brick walls on all sides, and I've had them build the window and door opening to accommodate a double sliding door and double window frame. The ceiling will be 3 cm Isoboard with a thick layer of Isotherm on top of that, under asbestos plates. Not a professional soundproofing job but this will have to do for now. At the moment a tile floor and plastered walls but I'll have a few loose carpets on the floor. Don't know what the reverb will be like. These dimensions gives a ratio of 1 : 1.14 : 1.43, with a volume of exactly 70 cubic meters - as far as I understand this is just about the minimum usable volume in terms of acoustics? I don't know about the room modes though. I've used ModeCalc to draw a graph of the modes, but though I have a reasonable understanding the concept of modes, the practical application of it all is beyond me at the moment ... for now I'll just play the hell out of it and see what happens!
Cheers
Riaan

Hi Riaan

I know all about DIY acoustics - I've done it three times in the last 10 years. You've been doing your homework - your ratios are pretty good and the size is ideal for a one-room project studio. Very similar to what I'm using at the moment. Build some bass traps in your corners, put some absorption at the reflective points on your side walls, and some diffusion on the rear wall behind mix position and you'll be fine.

There's a lot of technobabble about room modes. It boils down to every room has them, but if you have a good room size ratio you minimise the effect of them as they end up spaced apart evenly, which makes for a smoother room response. If you could drop your length ratio to 1.39 (which would make it the Sepmeyer A ratio) it would be ideal, but 1.43 is a good ratio too. 70m3 is fine for your application, larger is more for live rooms, while you have a combination live/control room, which needs a bit tighter acoustic control and a lower RT60.

BTW, ModeCalc doesn't show the tangenital modes, so is next to useless, IMO.

If you can change it now, rather go for a plaster floor and fit some underfelt and carpet over it. Tile with rugs is great as long as you have an absorptive (or very high ceiling) - that's a common way of doing it as it works very well with drum overheads. But for the average small home studio it's much more cost effective to go for a carpet and leave the ceiling untreated.

Hi Alan
Thanks for the advice! As things progress I'll keep you posted... i.e. ask for more advice ;D! One thing is for sure though... I've now also learned about the 3:2:1 ratio of home renovations - it takes 3X as long as the builders promised, costs twice as much, and you only do it once in a lifetime. Can't wait to have my studio!
Cheers!

3:2:1 ratio of home renovations

Good one. Would be real funny if it wasn't so true.