I find setting up a home-based music room is a highly personal thing that everyone’s going to do differently, since we may start out with one idea in mind, but then change it as we use the rooms for various projects.
It can be interesting, though, to see how other people do things, and get ideas that way. So here's how I did mine with some pics that might spark an idea or two.
I’ve got this room set up for recording, since that’s how I put food on the table, but on occasion I’ve had small ensembles join me for a project and I’ve fit them in. That winds up being a lot like a jam. A room like this could probably serve a dual-purpose.
I set instruments, amps, vocalists and mics up in this rear part of the room. The room itself is a long rectangle about 33’ x 17’, so it’s large enough that low frequencies don’t overwhelm the audio with room modes. There are also bass traps along the walls to reduce room modes and help with reflections. Although it's in a basement, the ceilings are standard 8' ceilings except for the soffits in a couple of areas that are about a 6" drop from the ceiling.
I stuffed fiberglass sound absorbing material on top of the heavy acoustical ceiling tiles to further reduce noise transmission, and cut down structure borne vibration. It helps a little. I could have done a better job, but it gets pretty expensive and this is OK.
The front part of the room is my workstation area with recording/mixing gear and keyboards. It also has acoustical treatment. I often record acoustic instruments in this area because the manufactured wood floor insert gives them a bit more sparkle than the heavily carpeted rear area, which tends to absorb high frequencies.
I wanted it to feel sort of like a den/study space where I could relax my mind, i.e., not think too much, and get creative. So it really doesn't look like a studio. My brother and I built the keyboard stand, desk, and table in the far front of the room in 1994; it's held up well, but it should since we used quality materials, mitered the corners like cabinetry, etc etc.
It was fun to build and finish the wooden stuff and weld the steel legs. I was a lot younger then, I couldn't begin to do it now, nor could my brother (he did the most work, I was merely the lovely assistant). We're just too damn old. It's constructed with black-painted oak veneer birch ply, with solid maple trim, and formica tops. the legs are welded steel. Nothing fancy. Took a couple of weeks to build the three pieces.
I can make the room bright like in these pics, or dim it, which is my usual MO for getting creative work done.
Like most composers today, most of my recording gear is now "in the box", that is, the computer that's loaded with software instruments, effects processing plugins, sample libraries for orchestral work, etc. My previous studio had racks of gear and a 64 input mixing console, plus analog and digital tape. I kind of miss that, but this is very efficient and the work sounds good enough that clients like it.
Some of the commercial and scoring work I've done can be found via the link below, if you'd like to know how things work out in a studio like this. The commercial reel also includes the opening video scored and sound-designed for a Carrie Underwood tour done several years ago, and then goes into the usual panoply of ads. There are also pages for electronic and orchestral work on the website if you feel like poking around:
Artifact Detroit's television commercial samples.
leslieschefman.com
