John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Yeah, exactly!

I updated that link in the previous post with a song we recorded yesterday: http://www.lord.net.au/slsstudios/test1.html (Track 6 in the player).

As a test, we re-did the drums and guitars for an old song I wrote called "Against The Wind" from my previous band, Dungeon (kept the vocals since the room wasn't ready for that yet). This time I spent a bit of time tuning the sounds, EQ, gates, etc. - quick job compared to a "real" mix but even for a quickie, this came up great and is really promising!

Today we're off to get supplies to make movable baffles for the vocal area so we're able to make a dead vocal room in the middle of the studio if we like but not screw with the otherwise great sound we're getting for the drums already. Expect all kinds of war stories and disasters soon! HAHA!

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Tim - track six is 'the nuts' (quick mix or not!). You're clearly a player my friend, and, podxt? I knew it, which is why I said line six first! Sorry for the 'ears' not picking up the amplitude as opposed to NI gtr rig but at least I was on the right lines!

Good luck with the live room movable gizmos dude!

Warm regards,

Lou.

Hey, all - I've been a busy guy lately building absorbers and baffles and other wonderful acoustic type things, which is why I haven't been posting much of late...

But expect some more pics soon - we're nearing the home stretch now, which is awesome! I should be able to do some vocal testing soon too once I get the clouds installed, so expect some more test recordings too to see how I go.

I tell you what, I'm looking forward to NOT spending any more money on this damn studio... I'd like to have an actual income from it fairly soon! *sigh*

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Alrighty, more testing and more making of stuff!

The vocals, as I found before, were absolutely unusable. The room that sounded so good with drums sounded like complete buttocks with vocals. I was getting so much early reflections from the ceiling and wall, there was no way to mix the vocals to get rid of it, in fact with any processing it even made it worse.

So the next thing on the agenda was to build a portable vocal screen. Basically, the idea was to hang 3 sheets of rockwool up in a kind of open-backed vocal booth arrangement so it would deaden the sound immediately around the mic and vocalist. The rockwool was wrapped in acoustic cloth and then hung from a frame we made from PVC plumbers pipes and joints that we got from Bunnings! HAHA! Studio construction the pov' way!

The next vocal test revealed that I was still getting reflections from the ceiling. The one thing that's been missing from the live room (and control room too) has been ceiling clouds that stop the reflections between the floor and the ceiling. I thought that would cause a big issue with drums in the live room, but clearly not - they sound great. Vocals, however...

So we made us some clouds, which were half sheets of rockwool, wrapped in chicken wire (HAHA - more pov' studio tricks) so it stays rigid, and then wrapped in acoustic cloth. I'll be attaching those by hangers to the ceiling when I get the chance, but to test it out, I balanced it on the top of 2 mic stands while I did the next vocal test.

Success! Vocals sound great!

Here's some pics!

This is how we made the ceiling clouds:

Rockwool wrapped up with chicken wire:



Then covered with acoustic cloth and stitched up:



Before and after shot:



And here they are with the budget removable vocal booth, balancing on the tips of a couple of mic stands (until they're properly attached to the ceiling):





So how does it all sound?

http://www.lord.net.au/slsstudios/test2.html

There's 4 tracks on there:

1: Vocals with no absorbers in there. You can really hear the room in the sound (assuming you have good headphones or speakers)

2: Vocals with the side absorbers around the mic. Sounding a lot better but still a little echoey.

3: Vocals with the absorbers and cloud. Really good - very dead sounding so it's easy to manipulate later.

4: Well, it's no secret that I'm a big Queensryche fan, and of their 1986 "Rage For Order" album in particular. One of our fans on our forum dared me to record the song "The Whisper" so I thought "Well, this would make a good vocal test", so me and TY smashed through it surprisingly quickly and track 4 in the player is what we came up with! A little rough around the edges and intentionally a little "effected" to tie it in with the original, but as a studio test for both vocals and drums, it passed with flying colours!

So next up is pissy miscellaneous stuff. I need a network switch, KVM switch, 2 racks that are coming soon (and some rack rails to mount in the racks - gotta chase those up soon), 2 small mic stands, 1 mic and a music stand and we're good to go!

More updates soon!

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Lordtim -

I think that the last sample with the cloud, you can still hear some clear slapback reflections. You may want to drape some packing blankets over the frame to close up the holes. My vocal both (before my build) was doubled packing blankets hung from the joists with a piece of wood attached at the bottom to provide some weight. I rolled them up and used some velcro straps to keep them rolled up against the ceiling. With three baffles (blankets) in place, there were zero - none - reflections. It sounded dead as a voice over booth.

Just a thought.

P.S. - that cover was amazing, great job!

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- Brad

www.theSecretSystemBand.com

"...over the years, 'the-blues' has raised many children..."

Cheers!

Once the vocals are in the mix, you can't hear it at all (to stay faithful to the Queensryche song, we added chorus, slapback, reverb and delay to it, so if you're hearing anything in there, that's it rather than the room).

If you mean the 3rd vocal sample, yeah, I can hear a tinnnnyyyyy bit of slapback in there too. I have heavily compressed those 3 vocal samples, though, to see what it would be like in a real-world mix, so that's bringing the room up a little.

I might change the orientation of the booth to see how it goes - we have a big velvet curtain that cuts the room in half, so depending on where the reflections are coming from most, that should take care of a few. But if all else fails, then yeah - some packing blankets around the holes should do the trick.

I'll be doing a lot more testing over the next week or so with much drier songs and using heaps too much compression to see if the room will actually be a problem with the booth as it is now. As I said before, I'm not really hearing it in the cover song, but hey, it could be massive problem in a stripped back acoustic song.

Guess we'll find out soon!

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Tim:

I will echo Brad's comments on the nice job on the Queensryche song (I used to be a fan of theirs in the early 80's sometime if I remember correctly).

I love the way you have improvised when needed, but I do have to say (as a brother-in-arms and as a colleague)... You spent all this money to design and build a first-class studio, and then went cheap on the vocal booth, which most folks say is the most important part of most songs.

As long as it works, I guess you are fine, but it is certainly not up to the AMAZING standards of the rest of your studio appearance-wise! Maybe this is just a temporary stop-gap solution until you get some more funds and/or time, I am not sure, but man with that beautiful studio, I just hate to see you go "ghetto" with the vocal booth.

Anyway, I hope you don't take any offense to my comments, it is just me thinking out loud.

Best of luck to you, it sounds to me like you are well on your way to a successful career.

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James

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"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
Napoleon Bonaparte

We'll be doing a little bit more work on the baffles to make them a little less crappy! HAHA!

I've recorded in a few big studios where they used these kind of baffles (not as cheaply made, though) and it's worked well, so I don't mind so much using them.

But yeah, I think a vocal booth will be on the agenda when we start making some damn money down the track. I passed the $50,000 mark a while back and I'm quite a few months past when I told the main lender I'd start paying him back, so the heat is on to start to pay him back or move to Mexico and start a new life as a Chili farmer to save my knees from being broken!

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OUCH! I understand!!!

Like I said, the bottom line is the sound.

Good luck man...

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James

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"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
Napoleon Bonaparte

HAHA! Thanks!

The more I think about it, the more I think I can do with a much smaller bathroom area and put a booth in half of that space without too much fuss.

Time to earn some damn money!

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Hey, everyone!

Well, I've been doing exactly as I said I would do - earning some damn money, which is why I haven't been around here for a while. It's amazing, the studio still isn't even officially open and I've done a a movie soundtrack that'll be internationally released here, and 3 albums which will be out worldwide by the end of the year, and bands coming from all over the country to record here! It's insane! I'd hate to think what's gonna happen when I actually start advertising! HAHA!

Good to see everyone's builds are going well! Nothing really new to report here, and lots of little things that STILL haven't had a chance to be finished because I've been so busy using it rather than finishing it (sigh!), but plans are well underway for the new vocal booth, and I'll be putting in tie-lines from the control room to the live room for amp in / speaker out stuff in the next day or so. It's amazing the motivation you get to do those little jobs when the client is paying you good money to have it available, hey? HAHAHA!

Anyway, nice to see you all! I'll try to pop back in more regularly if I can!

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Hey Tim, I just came across this thread when I did a search for "Aeropac" and wow i'm glad I did. I think you're studio looks fantastic and was blown away with the quality of the drum recordings you have here: http://www.lord.net.au/slsstudios/test1.html

Can I ask what sort of mics you are using for the overheads / close mics?

Also how is the Aeropac working? I'm thinking of getting one of these for my project

Cheers!

Mark

Hey Mark,

The Aeropac units are awesome! I have them on their lowest setting here and they're pretty much silent, and also are well isolated from noise entering or leaving the studio. I definitely recommend them!

Believe it or not, I use Shure PG series mics here. It's not something I tend to tell people before they hear the results because of the stigma attached to such budget mics. And sure, they absolutely have their shortcomings and don't "just work" like a lot of their more expensive counterparts, but if you understand their limitations and know how to process them later, you can get some fantastic results!

Those particular mics are PG-81 small diaphragm condensers for the overheads, and PG-56 for the tom and snare mics. Kick is all triggered, so that could be a $15 second hand Dick Smith karaoke mic for all I care! HAHA!

If you're interested (and sound quality aside), there's more current recordings using the studio and those mics here: http://www.myspace.com/lordaus and and here: http://www.myspace.com/lordtimmusic

You can actually see the studio in action here in our recording diaries: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... A9DF626BD8

Our new album will be out internationally later in the year (thus the lack of my presence here on the forum of late - been fairly busy working on it) which will really show off what the studio is capable of.

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Awesome Tim! go for it!

Hey Tim,

I wasn't expecting to hear back from you so quick considering this is an old thread. Many thanks for your reply.

With the Aeropak, are you sucking in air from outside or from an adjacent room? Did you need to use any special piping for isolation or just the standard piping that comes with it? Do you find it does enough air changes per hour? My room is about 4m x 4m so not sure if it would suit my room.....

I'm also considering something like this http://www.ultrafonic.com.au/Drawings/Ventilation.pdf which is a home made ventilation system with an exhaust fan outlet and a passive inlet.

Thanks for the links to your vids and audio. Haven't had the chance to sit down and go through them slowly which I will in the next few days, but have enjoyed what i've seen.

Cheers

Mark