Acoustic Design for the Home Studio

With the advances in digital technology, musicians can now produce their own music at home. Over the years the gear has gotten much better, and musicians have learned a great deal about recording. So why do so many musicians and engineers have difficulty getting truly professional-sounding results? One reason? Acoustics. If the room you're working in has poor acoustics, it will be extremely difficult -- if not impossible -- to produce excellent results. You can't capture a true sound if the microphones don't hear the instruments and vocals correctly. You have to be able to hear what's truly going on with your tracks to make the proper decisions about editing, equalizing, processing, and mixing them. Acoustics can be a complex, math-laden science, but treating a room to make it sound great and function optimally as a recording studio needn't be difficult nor require hours in front of a calculator or computer screen. Improving a studio's acoustics can be simple and inexpensive -- all you need is some guidance. Acoustic Design for the Home Studio focuses on creating a greatsounding home or project studio in an existing room. It teaches the basic principles of acoustics that affect you in your home or project studio and how to solve any acoustical problems you may have without laying out much (or any) money. Whether you're converting a bedroom, a garage, a basement, or a corner of the living room, this book will help you improve the sound of the environment in which you're making music. The principles are easy to understand and the materials used for treating a room are readily available. Diagrams and photos of actual rooms created with the designs are included to illustrate concepts. Whether you want to pursue a no-cost solution, use "off -the-shelf" acoustic materials, or even splurge with an unlimited budget, you'll learn how to put your room together easily and effectively.

CONTENIDO

Introduction

Part I. Acoustics and Sound Control
1. Acoustics Defined
- Acoustics versus Sound Isolation
- Basics of Sound

2. Reflection control
- Sound in a Room
- First Reflections
- Flutter Echo
- Reverberant Decay
- Controlling Reflections and Reverberation

3. The Low-Down
- Room modes and Standing Waves
- Three Types of Modes

4. The Good, the bad, and the Ugly
- Room Dimensions
- Room Shapes
- It's not the end of the world

5. Acoustic Treatments
- Why not just use EQ?
- High-Frequency Absorbers
- Diffusion
- Studio treatment in a box

6. Acoustic Myths
- Egg Cartons
- Carpet on the Walls
- Any Foam will work
- Furniture solves acoustic problems
- Bass trapping takes a lot of space
- EQ can solve all acoustic problems

Part II. Treating your studio
7. Choosing the best room for your studio
- Isolationism
- Bedrooms
- Attics
- Basements
- Garages
- Finding a corner

8. Getting Started
- Doing the walk-around
- Sweeping up
- Analyzing your room
- DIY Analysis
- Let someone else do it

9. Studio layout and treatment
- Getting oriented
- Speaker placement and listening position
- Symmetry
- The ultimate answer
- Treatment placement
- Creating a reflection-free zone
- The end result
- What if?

10. No-Budget home studio plan
- Common Household items
- A brand-new plan

11. Fantasy home studio plan
- Hiring a Designer
- The Designer's notes
- Why you should care

12. Noise control
- Equipment noise
- HVAC

13. Sound Isolation
- Keep it down in there
- So what can you do without building?
- Reality Sets In

Part III. Studio Gallery
14. Studio Gallery: Home Office
- Low frequencies

15. Studio Gallery: Basement
- Where to go?
- Low frequencies
- Reflections

16. Studio Gallery: Bedroom
- Primacoustic
- RealTraps
- Auralex Acoustics
- Walters-Storyk Design Group
- Russ Berger Design Group
- Yet Another Take

17. Visual Representations of Studio Gallery: Bonus Room
- The Pro Design
- Treatments
- The Real World

18. Studio Gallery: Recording Booth
- Treatment
- Don't stop now
- Results

19. Studio Gallery: Machine Room
- Treatment

Afterword

Appendix
- Resources
- Studio Designers
- Web resources

Glossary
Index