(00:05) building a home studio is building a home for your ideas your home studio therefore is more than just a collection of gear the room itself is just as important it should inspire your creativity with great sound welcome back to the neumann home studio academy in our previous episodes on recording basics we showed you how to build and how to use your home studio in this episode we're going to show you how to get better sound simply by improving your room perhaps the biggest difference between a home studio and a professional studio
(00:46) is in room acoustics in a professional recording studio there are two areas a control room with a mixing desk and a recording space for the musicians the so-called live room while the control room is acoustically dead more or less to ensure an uncolored sound image for mixing purposes the live room is designed to add some room ambience and character to the instruments recorded there in a home studio everything happens in one room that's right so let's see if we can meet both requirements in one single room to have a dry and
(01:28) uncolored sound for editing and for mixing and to have a little bit of acoustic support for recording our instruments a practical solution to this dilemma is the so-called life and dead end approach the life and death end concept was developed for control rooms but works very well for home studios too one end of the room is treated for a dry sound this will be your mixing area the other end of the room will have reflective surfaces to create a bit of ambience this will be your recording area yeah so let's see if we can realize the
(02:12) concept in this room okay the first step is to designate an area for mixing and for editing and since we already set up our computer and our speakers on that side that is going to be our dead end and before we're going to treat that zone acoustically let's have a look at the speaker setup for best results the distance between the rear of the loudspeakers and the wall should be no more than 80 centimeters that's 32 inches make sure your setup is symmetrical the left speaker should be as far away from the left wall
(02:53) as the right speaker is from the right wall this will improve stereo imaging ideally the speakers and your listening position should form an equilateral triangle yeah and you can use a cable to measure the distance between your speakers and then determine where your listening position ought to be so that's right here more or less something like that and if your room is small you may have to reduce the distance between yourself and your speakers but in any case try to avoid sitting right in the middle of a room because that's where the sound usually
(03:42) is worst for best sound and imaging the acoustical axis of the speakers must point to your listening position the acoustical axis is where your speakers sound best it is an imaginary line that extends from a point just below the tweeter also avoid surfaces below the speakers that's why we mounted the speakers on stands instead of placing them directly on the desk so much for your speaker setup let's get back to the acoustical treatment of your dead end how can you get a drier sound in your mixing area first thing you could do is put a carpet
(04:28) on the floor a carpet can help to reduce sound reflections from the floor but it will only be effective in the treble frequencies bass frequencies will not be reduced as their wavelengths are too long yeah if you want to dampen lower frequencies you need a much thicker material and if you don't mind spending a little bit of money you can get these professional absorber panels like these and in this case the upper part is designed to dampen the high and the mid frequencies and the lower part is designed to dampen
(05:05) the lower frequencies if commercially available solutions are beyond your budget you can build your own absorber panels do not use egg cartons mineral wool and dedicated acoustic foam materials are much more effective you'll find a link below this video and about the positioning of these absorber panels you want to put them right right on the wall behind your speakers and start with two panels put them right behind each speaker and that should improve your monitoring dramatically if your monitoring area still doesn't sound dry enough you
(05:50) can add one or two broadband absorbers between the speakers if your room sounds boomy try placing absorbers in the corners of your room by the way a couch can be a broadband absorber too so if you have a couch in your home studio try putting it in a room corner okay so much for your mixing area let's now try to focus on your recording area the live end of your room should have hard surfaces that reflect sound waves at all frequencies but avoid parallel surfaces and large even surfaces as these will produce ugly metallic sounding reflections
(06:36) so-called flutter echoes yeah and unfortunately most rooms have parallel and even surfaces and there's not a lot we can do about the room's geometry but what we could do is try to make your walls less even of course it would be nice if we could just replace them with nice old stone walls like these that would be a little bit hard but what we could do is put elements on your wall to create a more random reflection pattern for instance instead of putting your guitars on stands you could put them on the wall another way to create an uneven surface
(07:18) is to use a bookshelf instead of arranging your books properly arrange them in a disordered manner so their backs form a jagged surface this will turn your bookshelf into an acoustic diffuser right so now we have a mixing area with absorbing materials for a dry sound and we have a recording area with uneven reflective surfaces to create a little bit of room ambience which is super for acoustic instruments for instance but what about vocals for vocal recording most engineers prefer a dry sound to make the voice sound
(08:05) upfront in the mix in professional studios vocals are often recorded in a vocal booth outfitted with sound absorbing materials now if you're looking for a dry sound in your home studio you could record your vocals on your mixing area your dead end but depending on which computer you use there may be audible fan noise which your vocal microphone would then pick up but don't worry there is a very easy way to create a vocal booth and you don't have to spend any money at all your wardrobe can be used as a large absorber open its
(08:44) doors and mount the vocal microphone in front of it so the open wardrobe is in the back of the vocalist yeah this way actually works better than the other way around you see the cardioid picker pattern of the microphone would reject sound coming from the rear of the microphone anyway in this case audible fan noise where the clothes in the wardrobe would suppress any sound reflections coming from the singer side where the picker pattern is most sensitive would you like to sing in this microphone with me okay i'll leave the singing to somebody
(09:23) else but this is all we need we have a vocal recording set up we have an area to record acoustic instruments in we have a mixing zone with proper monitoring and that's all you need to write and to record and to mix your own songs and we didn't even have to spend too much money all right so i hope you liked our show have fun recording and we'll see you soon at the neumann home studio academy i remember how you dance baby i wanna dance baby with you i remember how you kissed baby i wanna kiss baby from you i remember those still blue eyes
(10:17) moving down my body head-to-toe i remember how you kissed baby i wanna kiss baby right now you

It divides a room into a drier area for mixing and a more reflective area for recording.

Behind the loudspeakers, starting with one absorber behind each speaker.

Yes. A bookshelf with books arranged at different depths can function as an acoustic diffuser.