Setting Up A Basement "Studio"

[volt9stormrider]

So I just got home from college a few weeks ago, and now my mom is making me move my drum set and equipment down to the basement. The acoustics in my basement are not nearly as good as the room which they were in, but I've gotta work with it.

Anyways, I've got an unfinished basement, which is fairly large (I have no idea of the dimensions). I want to make it sound as "good" as possible without having to put up walls and "build a studio.

I've been given tips like hanging blankets, carpets, or foam insulation to keep down the reverb and absorb sound, but I wanted to know if anyone had some other tips and/or advice on making the best of the space that I have.

 

[Tom_RCJ]

Bookshelves with lots of books or magazines in it work really good too. Heavy curtains. Hell even a few boxes filled with old baby clothes or photo albums would be worth a try. Try to cover all your bases; avoid having 90º angles in bad spots. Rolled up carpets or old winter jackets at the bottom of walls. Putting putting boxes or other basement junk in corners to tangle with any bass traps. With enough junk pilled up around I could believe getting some surprisingly "dead" room sounds. Especially if you manage to effectively build a room out of uneven, full boxes with rough wood joists for a ceiling.

 

[Nick Kay]

You've got to look at acoustic treatment as a three part process. First, control the bass. Next, broadband absorption. Then, flutter and "liveliness."

For the bottom end, the easiest way is stuffing Invalid Link Removed in the wall-wall corners, with more on wall-floor and wall-ceiling corners in problem areas. There's more complex bass traps, like gapped panels and Heimholtz resonators, but start with the Superchunks, IMO. I've had really great results with 45kg/m3​ rockwool, and rumour has it that you can use lower densities without losing much.

Broadband panels are usually a little more involved. I slap mine together with 4" thick 45kg/m3​ or 3" thick 60kg/m3​ rockwool in a really simple wood frame, then cover it up with black or neutral tone fabrics. First reflection points are the priority in a mix space, but you basically just want even coverage in a live room. Don't treat every single surface, though. Start with about 20% of your vertical surfaces (ie: walls), and make more panels if you feel like the room still sounds kinda trashy. Consider hanging some from the ceiling if you have the height to manage it.

After that, you can control excessive liveliness with throw rugs, packing blankets and the like. If you have extra rockwool after building your broadband panels, build a few more with feet attached to the frame for use as gobos. Incredibly useful for setting up an improvised isolation booth, or tracking multiple instruments at once.

 

[Tom_RCJ]

If you need baffling for off-the floor recordings you can also nail a single sheet of sonopan on a sheet of ply-wood. We have 3 of these in our studio that we covered with black fabric, much like Nick Kay was just talking about. Aside from having dog hair stuck in the fabric they work great even if just leaning against the wall. Those corner traps look mighty cool too Nick Kay. I'll have to keep those in mind.