Meeting Topic: Building a Home Studio
Moderator Name: Rochelle Bergen
Speaker Name: Jay Phillips, CRAS Instructor
Meeting Location: Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences 1205 N Fiesta Blvd, Gilbert, AZ 85233
Tonight we had CRAS instructor, Jay Phillips, present on how he went about constructing his own studio within his home. First, he started with an example of "What not to do" when building and promoting your own home studio by presenting a video of a home studio advertisement that was, to put it nicely, not up to par. He emphasized that when you are working within a limited budget, you should always look to get whatever are the best materials that you can acquire for free or little money. He addressed issues with limited space, and how he went about the demolition of the room he was going to build his studio in. Jay then explained his entire build process, starting with basics of flooring the studio. He mentioned tips such as the fact that you always want to have even flooring, with insulation(or sand) in between any open spaces to keep the floor from resonating. He spoke on how different materials such as thick carpet, thin carpet, tile, and hardwood floor will effect the way sound waves move and reflect around the room Then, he moved onto the construction of the walls. Jay elaborated on the negative effects of 90 degree wall angles, which lead to bass reflection issues, and also on the benefits of making sure your walls are not parallel in order to avoid standing waves(he also recommended foam pieces and diffusers for this). In order to decide where were the best places on his walls for acoustic foam treatment. Jay held a mirror up to his wall and discovered that wherever he could see his monitor in the reflection would be the locations that standing waves would occur. He explained that his main trouble area for sound absorption was his doorway, so he raised his control room floor 6 inches to prevent sound from leaking through the bottom of the door. He discussed the building of his iso booth, which was only big enough for a Marshall stack to fit in, and how he designed it so that the guitarist would be able to play outside of the iso booth and still hear themselves play in while in the live room. On the topic of the iso booth, he went on to speak about how he layered his booth door with 2 x 4's, acoustic paneling, insulation, and drywall on the outside. Just as in the live room floor, Jay used sand and insulation inside of the iso booth to absorb the sound and make sure sound didn't leak out of the booth. He went into detail about how to create a portable iso booth by using fiberglass sheets covered in moving blankets, which he uses for his drums. Jay used a live sound snake for his live room mic panel, a 24 send, 4 return snake running from his live room to his control room that he said costed him much less than installing actual mic panels would have. Lastly, Jay discussed the different material, such as 703 and MDF, that would have to best acoustic property for obtaining the best sound from your studio after construction, and how to apply these materials properly to a room without issues.
Written By: CRAS AES Vice President - Marc Gaddis - 10-10-14pg
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