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WHAT DO YOU NEED IN YOUR STUDIO?
🕑 Added 2023-04-26 08:51:55 +0000 UTCHey guys, presets for this week are still cookin for one more day. We're doing atmospheres/ambiences for this week and I have 6 presets so far that'll reaaalllllyyyyy fill out that last bit of space in your tracks. I just have 4 more to do, but I also finished my last little bit of packing for the new apartment here at 3am. Didn't wanna leave it for tomorrow.
As I told you guys before, it's gonna be a dud week until about May 3rd when my studio/internet is fully up and running. That said, as I'm building out my new studio I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about what I'm adding to make it the perfect room!
So here I'm going to link you to some things outside of the computer to help make your home studio a little more professional!
Sound Proofing:
The first thing I started looking into for my new space is sound proofing. I've been in a big basement without the ability or even need to really sound proof. I have a semi-small budget, so here are some things I'm doing to treat the new room.
Acoustic Foam: The easiest and most common way to treat a room is acoustic foam. One thing to note, just foam alone will not get the job done. A bit of it will help, but unless every square inch of your wall is covered in 2-3inch foam—you won't have a fully treated room. I opted to buy 48 square feet of 2" wedge foam for the side walls. 12 square feet of 1inch foam for around my other treatment on my back wall, and 8 corner blocks of 2 inch foam to cover 4 feet of the each corner. My total order was only $95 and it SHOULD cover the walls in my small room which is about 10x15 feet, from waist height to just below the ceiling.
The best place to order acoustic foam is Foam Factory. They are the company that makes the foam and sells it to other companies that slap their logo on it and upcharge you x3. It comes with no logo or print on it and they ship fast. They have other forms of acoustic foam that work a bit better and are more expensive if you're willing to pay.
Diffusers: This is something I did DIY, and is time consuming but fairly easy. There are many sorts of diffusers. Foam works to diffuse AND deaden sound, but it doesnt diffuse perfectly. A diffusers sole purpose is to break up soundwaves and send their remnants in multiple directions, causing a massive reduction in echos off of the selected surface. That said, the typical diffuser is made out of a hard wood or composite.
The easiest diffuser to make is a Skyline Diffuser. I used this DIY site to make my own and tweaked the measurments to fit America's freedom system (it was a joke sorry lol). I made 2 of them, and they are each about 1.5ft x 1.5ft. For materials, I bought 6 long 2x2inch square poles that were Pine Wood from Home Depot for about $130, and I have a decent amount leftover. I bought Wood Glue for about $7 and True Black Wood Stain for about $14. I cut and sanded the wood myself, but in the future I would like to order the wood beforehand from Home Depot and have it pre-cut, probably upping the price by $30-$50 but reducing the build time by about 5 hours.
Rug: I don't think a lot of people realize that it's extremely important to insulate the floor in your studio if you're not working on carpeting. Most people are working on wood or concrete floors in their studio, which actually does worse for your room sound than just blank walls.
It's really good to have a rug covering as much of your workspace as possible. But even further, it's good to have insulation underneath that rug, and to make sure that it's a good thickness to actually stop echoes.
I bought this rug off Amazon, the thickness is great, but my proofing doesn't stop there. Now I'm a cheap-ass, so I'm going to use one of the biggest hacks for insulating the floor in my studio, and I just so happen to be in the right situation for it. A really good hack, is to use cardboard boxes underneath your studio rug. Since I'm moving, I will have a ton of boxes to spare and will be stacking one full layer of cardboard underneath my studio rug. I will then put one thin rug over that cardboard, and finish it off with the larger actual rug that I want to be shown. This will make sure that no deflections are coming off of my floor.
If you want to take the more expensive route, they make insulation padding for under rugs and carpet. Foam Factory, the same site where I bought my wall foam, has this option for you.
Furniture/Decor: Believe it or not, having some random big shiiii in your studio really helps. Anything that is void of large, exposed flat surfaces pretty much helps. If you add a cheap fold out fouton to your studio, not only will you have a place for your homies to kick it after late night sessions, but you'll also be deadening and diffusing sound immensely. Couches, chairs, cabinets, counters, desks, tech, don't just have a completely empty space giving sound easy pathways through the room. Also, don't go overboard, there's a happy medium between aesthetic decoration and good sound insulation. Once I'm fully set up, you'll see some pics.
Organization
Being organized in the studio is ultra important for your workflow and creativity. I've talked about this a lot so I wont egg on, but you have to be set up for success every day. Here are some things I'll have in my studio for that:
Cabinet space for every piece of little unused tech, like a microphone, interface, headphones, etc.
Hooks on the wall for unused cables
Phone controlled lights for easy changes of scenery, ready for content creation
A SIDE TABLE FOR ANYTHING DRINK OR FOOD RELATED. Please, dear god, don't make the same mistakes I did last year lol. If you know you know.
A BIG MOTHERF*CKING WHITEBOARD I have a small one in my studio right now and I can't wait to get this one. I can't express enough how much having this helps me organize my thoughts. The small one I have consists of my schedule for the day and my to-do list. WHAT I WILL HAVE is this larger one where I could also keep notes on all of my running WIPS and other projects atm. It will really help you finish work, or blow off steam if you wanna doodle.
Cable Management
I am very guilty of having horrible cable management in my current studio. I set it up piece by piece, and was too lazy to remove everything and put it back together clean. There's a reason ya'll never see under my desk in my videos lmao. Cable management is extremely important. It's important for content creation in your studio, it's important for organization, for keeping clarity at your desk, for easy in/out of tech. It's just so fkn nice when your desk is nice. Of all of the things I need to do to my new apartment and studio, cable management is at the absolute top of my list. Here are some things that I'm buying/doing/using to make sure I'm good with this.
A hefty amount of power strips, you should literally always have 2 extra ones with at least 4 outlets in the studio
Good double sided adhesive. NOT JUST TAPE. Adhesive. I have used that 30lb stuff that is meant to stick garden hose holders to the side of your brick house. Once something is stuck, it's really hard to remove. But that's the thing, you ultimately want to be sticking power strips to your desk and you don't want them to fall off.
Cable management gadgets, like hooks, velcro wraps, and sleeves. I bought this package which was well worth it, and has everything I need to stick my loose cables in places they won't show
The idea is to stick a good power strip to your desk in a place it isn't very noticeable. You then run the cable down the leg closest to the outlet to plug in. Everything that needs power on your desk gets plugged into that power strip, using sleeves and hooks from that package to hide the loose parts. It's easiest to stick things to the bottom and back of your desk where they won't show. Use the velcro wraps near your monitor or your USB hub to make sure that all your cables are held together, and then use the sleeve to wrap around a large grouping of cables to make them seem like one.
My goal is to have LITERALLY only the power strip cable showing at the bottom of my desk. I can't wait to not ever look at another fkn cable while I'm producing ever again. I promise this does WONDERS for your headspace when you finally experience it.
BONUS! DON'T HAVE A STERILE ROOM
Just because it's a music studio doesn't mean it has to be completely dry and void of personality. It feels like the common trope for studios is just black on white, all black furniture and padding with white walls, and no decor whatsoever. I think it's ultra important to add character to your studio, give it life and make it a room you're happy to sit in for many hours a day. Here are some things I'm doing for that.
Plants: I want some greenery in the studio. It realllly helps bring a room to life and actually helps sound if you get a decent sized plant. I'm undecided on whether or not those plants will be real, but the view definitely helps.
Lil nick nacks: Anything to add character. Here are some fun things I ordered on Amazon
Memorabilia: Idk why more people don't do this, but if you have booked shows that you are proud of, you should be using Canva to turn the flyers into prints and hang on your wall. I will be doing that with my tour dates from 2022 <3.
I was also an avid collector of Baseball cards in the 2000's, and bought a few of these to hang on the walls in the studio.
And finally, my Jimi, Zepp, and Pink Floyd posters will all be coming with me to the new spot for that final bit of character.
I hope some of this info helps inspire you to deck out your studio, and hold you over till presets hit later in the day lol. Love you <3
Comments
Barclay Iversen
Damn, this is a good post. Thanks
