PRESENTS

Volume 1: Building A Professional Home Studio

A no-skimping guide to turning your living room into an A-Room
B y M i k e Ta r s i a | E d i t e d b y A n d r e C a l i l h a n n a

Home project studio can mean a thousand things. It can be a 16-track digital board tucked in the corner of a guest room or a laptop loaded with Pro Tools and a tiled bathroom as an iso booth. Maybe its a semiconstructed main room with an adjoining control room. Most any home recording setup can be classified as a project studio. Conversely, a home studio can be a not-so-modest suite to rival many professional studios. With the proper construction, materials, dimensions, and gear, the sky is the limit. More correctly, the budget and the available space are the limits (along with variables like neighbors and traffic noise). This guide chronicles Philadelphias Grammy-winning producer/engineer Mike Tarsia as he set out to build a studio in his home after the sale of the legendary Sigma Sound, where he had recorded classics for the likes of David Bowie, Patti LaBelle, Vanessa Williams, The Average White Band, and Stephanie Mills, to name but a few.

Sigma Sound: The End of an Era

Sigma Sound, our family owned and operated recording studios and home to the Sound Of Philadelphia had issues. The client base for large, multi-room facilities in Philadelphia had been in decline for years. What can you do? In 1968, a $50,000 investment built a facility that could generate $130/hour in studio time, plus the additional 30% in tape, materials, and related sales. 30 years later, its $1.5 million replacement could only garner $125/hour (or less), with no high-dollar materials to sell with the session time. The answer for Sigma was painful but simple: sell. As I sat and pondered my situation, I was left with two viable options: rent a space and build a studio, or build a studio in my home that could accommodate mixing, mastering, vocals, and small overdubs. I could then rent out time in larger recording rooms for drum and live tracking on an as needed basis.

Rent A Room And Build

PROS
Can find space to suit specific needs No clients wandering through my home More professional looking Save space in my home Room for tracking full bands

Home Studio
PROS
24/7 access to gear No lease No partners No monthly rent No outlay of costs for rental improvement

CONS
Cost of rental Capital improvements to someone elses property At mercy of lessor No instant access to equipment Possibility of having to share space

CONS
Clients wandering inside and outside my home Loss of space in home Physical constraints of space in home Noise issues with neighbors No room for tracking live bands

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Great Expectations For My Home Studio

An important reason why I want my own room is that I was used to the A+ quality of the recording experience integral to Sigma Sound. Part of what made Sigma extraordinary was that the studio space was built to demanding specifications. At Sigma, we had a trolley line running right outside the recording studios that operated in the heart of a bustling city. In spite of this, we could open up a microphone on a whispering vocalist and not have rumble from heavy vehicles, jet airplane noise, air conditioning hum, forced air whoosh, or bleed from control room monitors leaking into the recording area. I had taken this too lightly when I started my independent career working in local studios, and the ramifications were immediately apparent. I found myself saying: Hey can we take that again? The studio monitors were too loud. Id like to do that again, I can hear a truck in the background. I didnt hear the hum because the air conditioner in the control room masked the noise. I had the monitors low to make sure they didnt bleed into your mike Then there was the issue of dealing with rooms that had you constantly guessing if your ears were messed up. Move my head here it sounds like this, turn a little or move an inch and it sounds totally different. I wasnt used to making excuses for poor room design. I knew that before a computer went in or a speaker was placed in my small project studio, I had to have a listening and recording structure that rivaled the high-quality facility that I took so much for granted during my 30-year tenure at Sigma. The bar had been set. It was time to take my vision and expectations and carve out a home studio that I could be proud to work in and bring clients to.

Assessing the Space Sound Leakage

I knew from the beginning that sound leakage would be a major issue. I didnt want to spend an arm and a leg to float the whole studio space, but I wanted to be able to work nights and weekends. The first thing I needed to do was to see how much leaked through the common and back walls. I went to Radio Shack and bought a cheap SPL (Sound Pressure Level) meter and set up a simple experiment. We brought a sound system into the unfinished space. I had already eliminated the idea of hanging speakers because the room was too small. Anything wed use would essentially be a near field monitor, so we set the speakers on chairs close to where I figured they would be when the room became operational. I cranked up the bass on a graphic EQ and put on a low frequency heavy recording. Then I knocked on my neighbors door and told him I like to play my music loud and didnt want to annoy them. I asked if I could go into their bedroom and listen as my friend played music. Getting my neighbors involved and showing concern for their happiness would be a benefit later down the line, I figured, and I did need to hear how much sound passed through their walls. I went upstairs and called my friend. I told him to start playing the music at a level of 85 dB the level of most accurate human hearing response and hence the best level for mixing. I then listened as he brought up the music in 5 dB increments. Not too bad, at 110 dB in the shell of the future studio, the leakage in my neighbors bedroom reminded me of a neighbor in my old apartment complex playing his TV too loud late in the evening, when there are no masking sounds. This wouldnt be good past 10 pm, but nominally acceptable during the daytime. As I wanted to be able to work 24/7 I knew I had some fixing to do. I thanked my neighbor and went back to ponder my next step.

Where to build?
A small row home in a large city is not the ideal location for a studio, but that is my challenge. The homes unfinished basement has a 7-foot ceiling and narrow 26-inch wide steps leading down to it. It was out of the question. I was already in the process of gutting the upstairs, so I chose a location in the back of the 2nd floor as ground zero. Luckily there are many angles present in that room, but it is rather small, having a 14 X 11.5 main footprint. One wall is shared with a neighbor, another is a back wall facing my yard. The third wall is against steps, and the interior wall abuts my bedroom. The ideal room in which to build a home studio is the one thats the most isolated, needs the least treatment, and works in relative harmony with the rest of the house. This space was at the top of my steps, next to the bathroom, and shared only one common wall with neighbors. When I say least treatment, that means try to avoid square rooms, low ceilings, areas with high ambient noise, space that abuts others property, and areas that constrict traffic to the rest of the house. Good space for setting up a home studio is one with rectangular or angled walls, good ceiling height, separate or restricted access to the rest of the home, isolation from neighbors, and buffers from noise such as street traffic.

Design and Soundproofing

I know the golden rule of any studio design, having been involved in a few major builds, and that is get the structure right first. A recording studio is only as good as the space its in, and changing a space after gear is in is a nightmare and waste of resources. I needed a game plan for construction and wanted the space to be the best it could be. So I called on Nick Colleran at Acoustics First (www.acousticsfist.com). Nick owned a large studio, played in bands, and produced records, so he knows exactly what a person is looking for when they come to him with audio concerns. I gave Nick the lowdown on the purpose of the room, its dimensions, the leakage I was experiencing, and my goal of having it look and sound like the professional rooms I was used to working in. I knew this wasnt going to be an easy job, but Nick immediately put my mind to rest. The design Nick came up with is a classic Live End/Dead End setup. I was relieved by the fact that space issues I thought would be detrimental, such as the French doors, were now turned into beneficial tools for bass management.

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Designing With Acoustics In Mind

By Nick Coller an (of Acoustic s First )
When were asked to help design a studio, our team interviews the client, qualifies their needs, and presents solutions to correct and enhance the sound characteristics of their space. I knew Michael wanted a room that would have acoustic properties as close as possible to Sigma Sound, but I needed to get a few things straight before I could present solutions, including: 1. Expectations 2. Dimensions showing walls, doors, windows etc. 3. Materials the space and coupled areas are constructed of 4. Ballpark budget expectations For common walls, noise barriers and vibration isolation should be considered. Mass blocks transmission, when combined with internal wall absorption, to eliminate the drum effect (tap one head and the other vibrates). Well use mass-loaded vinyl, applied as a layer under the fabric wall covering. This is a good solution for noisy neighbors, with or without a studio. Since Michael would not be dealing with too much heavyimpact, structure-borne sound and since he wasnt worried about sound leaking downstairs we saw no need to float the floor, though that is a relatively low-cost process in new construction. Michaels room will have a layer of one-pound-per-square-foot mass-loaded vinyl (BlockAid) on the common wall, installed under the Sound Channels acoustical fabric wall covering. Other considerations for materials were building codes, ease of use, and long term wear. The entire wall will be treated with an acoustical wall covering that takes the edge off of the drywall and allows for less critical placement of furniture. It installs like heavy wallpaper and only needs to be cut straight and hung in a consistent direction to look good. Panels and traps are hung like pictures over the wall covering, eliminating the need for precise fabric and panel cuts. Anyone who can measure accurately should be able to install these materials. These materials wear well and are Class A fire rated. Acoustical polyurethane foams, while effective acoustically, do not wear well and produce toxic smoke when burning. The same is true for carpet installed on a wall. It may have some acoustical value, but does not pass vertical and corner burn tests. Egg cartons, while having some absorptive qualities, have been proven to have holes at certain frequency ranges and are also a fire hazard. The ceiling cloud over the mixer provides an enhanced listening space by eliminating the reflection between the desk surface and the ceiling. It also allows for indirect lighting, and if used with a dimmer, provides the room with a subtle glow. If the room looks good, it always sounds better!

Fix the acoustics first!

For accurate monitoring, it is necessary to eliminate the first reflections that might combine with the direct sound before getting to the mixers ears, coloring the sound and affecting the stereo image. We also needed to make the back wall acoustically ambiguous, diffusing the sound field to make the room feel acoustically larger and eliminating a defined single reflection that says there is a wall behind the listener. We also need to give the bass some room to develop. This is partially accomplished by broadband (bass) traps and extended by the features already present in Michaels space. Contrary to popular belief, bass does not accumulate in corners, it just appears that way when the reflected out-ofphase energy meets the incoming wave and cancels in the middle of the room. Bass trap is a counterintuitive term. Trapping the bass does not destroy the sound wave, it prevents it from re flecting back and causing a cancellation. Also, bass trap is often misapplied to broadband corner absorbers that also go after higher frequencies. If bass is the only problem, the corner absorbers will make the room too lifeless. In Michaels home studio, the room to the mixers right provides the extra space for the bass to roam and a thick, pleated curtain will cover the double doors to take care of the high-end, first reflections. A window to the left provides a similar function. However, just venting the bass is not enough. Without the absorbers and diffusers to eliminate cancellation, the neighbors will hear the bass while you do not.

Nick Colleran founded Acoustics First Corporation in 1997. They offer a full range of acoustical materials, including sound absorbers, barriers, diffusers, and specialty product. Find them online at www.acousticsfirst.com.

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The Isolation Booth A Room Within a Room

An iso booth is a room within a room. The outside of the structure is of typical design, while the inner structure is meant to float separate from the outer structure (and the entire building) by means of insulators. Nick told me about a way to float the walls, ceiling, and floor using Vib-X, a vibration-isolating pad made of DuPont Neoprene. Vib-X pads have a ribbed design, can be cut easily, dont degrade over time, and are especially good at rejecting low frequency transmissions. Along with the pads, I got some Vib-X washers to isolate the bolts securing the wall footers. The room needs to float and be isolated, but air must flow through it. In addition, cables and wiring for lights and electrical outlets must be strung through, and a door has to be installed. All of these holes in the structure can ruin the rooms isolation qualities if not treated properly.

Green rock, Block Aid, sheetrock. The airflow issue wasnt as bad as I expected due to the fact that a soffit was already put in next to where the booth is being built. The soffit will be my exhaust duct, and will be boxed in hard fiberglass insulation. The inside of the box will have two 90-degree fiberglass barriers so that any extraneous sound will be minimized as it tries to pass around the corners. A low noise fan will be placed on the far end to evacuate air outside the studio properly and a vent will be situated on the near end where the duct will connect to the booth. On the intake side, air being pulled into the booth will come in around two feet from the floor on the outer wall, run down the stud wall to a T, then pass down the adjacent stud wall and exit a few inches above the inner wall floor. As in the soffited area, by going through 90-degree bends, the sound from these holes in the system will be greatly reduced. The floor of the booth must also float off the rooms original flooring. Wood blocks with Vibe-X feet and twoinch plywood with high-compression vinyl sandwiched in make the floating floor. Insulation will be packed in between the floating floor and the original flooring, and the edges of this floating floor will also be isolated from the inner walls of the booth.

Inner framing with Vib-X washer.

Building the Booth

First the outer wall was constructed. At the same time, consideration for anything that had to be fed through the walls was mapped out and fabricated. This meant that all wiring had to be extended long enough to get through the two walls, and a provision for a run above the booth had to be put in to ensure ease of adding anything to the room at a later date. Once the outer walls were finished, the Vib-X was installed on the footers and headers of the inner wall. The inner wall itself is situated so it doesnt touch the outer wall of the booth. I found a 28-inch door and metal frame for an entrance. A glass window will give the room a view to the studio to make it less claustrophobic. The inner walls, the ones you see as you stand in the finished room, consist of a layer of 1/2 sheetrock, Block Aid vinyl barrier, and 5/8 green rock.

Layers, from bottom to top: Vib-X, 2x2 block, plywood, vinyl, plywood.

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Patience in the construction process is immensely important. It cant be stressed enough that the weakest link lowers the isolation properties of the entire booth.

panels together before we put the Sound Channel fabric over it. Once all the fabric was installed in the booth, we put quarter-round up in the corners and top and bottom to further reinforce and hold the curve line. Our next issue was getting wires from the workstation to the booth. I had decided early on to run plastic pipe up the wall, behind the console, and across the ceiling into the soffit that was being used as a conduit for a room-to-room vertical fan. After the pipe was painted and hung, we used a string that was set inside to pull six 22-gauge communications cables into the booth. Once inside the booth, we used Wiremold piping and Wiremold boxes to surface mount two boxes: one for microphone connections and one for headphones. We pulled three lines in each box. Two lines were connected to off-the-shelf switch plates with XLR connectors surface-mounted to them. The other line in each box was tucked in and is available for a future application. We made the same terminations on the other end of the wire and then connected them to my Digidesign 192 converter.

Wall Treatments
After all the walls were sanded and primed, acoustic fabric was applied to all vertical surfaces. Sound Channels looks like carpet but is lightweight and easy to apply. It adheres to the wall with Chapco 305, an adhesive made for interior wall carpet installation. This stuff is so good that we could skip the installation suggestion of putting temporary staples at the top of the fabric strips to hold them while the adhesive dries. Once the fabric was installed and cured, we hung the bass traps and absorbers, per Nicks recommendations. On the front wall there are two half-round cylindrical broadband absorbers by Geometrix. These are made with 1-inch thick curved acoustical glass fiber with wooden supports. Between the bass traps are two rectangular Sonora absorbers. On the ceiling over the engineering console theres a Sonora panel made specifically to hang horizontally.

Sound Channels acoustic fabric covers the walls of the booth.

After the lines were checked, we mounted a room-to-room variable-speed fan to suck air out of the booth. This was Floors and mounted over the steps in the stairwell Finishing the Booth by attaching it to the soffits outside The next step was laying a floor for wall. Inside the soffit, we made two verthe studio. Half-inch plywood had tical half-inch-thick plywood plates and already been glued and screwed into Half-round Geometrix mounted them to segment the soffit the floor. The next step was to lay floorsound absorber. into three equal zones. A large hole was ing. I choose 3/4 Bruce hardwood oak. cut in each. Now air being pulled out of the box had to run through Its durable, looks great, and fits nicely with the warm vibe I was three 90-degree bends, significantly lowering any noise that could looking for in the space. The oak was laid both in the control room seep through the opening. and isolation booth. I had to commit to cutting holes for airflow and wiring in the booth, and close the outer (visible) ceiling. I decided we should put a twoinch cant in the ceiling so it and the floor were not parallel. Just like the control room, the booth shouldnt be dead, just controlled and pleasant. On the one large wall in the room, we took two pieces of leftover 1 1/4 round and mounted it vertically at the centerline of the wall. Then we took a piece of masonite (pegboard without holes) that was a little wider than the width of the wall. Once we found the right size to make a nice curve, centered at the now half-round keel, we cut and then screwed the masonite to the walls in two horizontal sections. Before the second section was in, we stuffed fiberglass in to hinder any sympathetic vibrations that sound waves might induce in the arched panel. We did the same thing for the top panel and then used duct tape to hold the two Early on in the construction of the booth, we anticipated the need to have air flowing in, but acoustically, you dont want a straight hole through the walls. So we made eight-inch cuts in the outside wall, between two studs, and framed it with 2x4s. The same thing was done on the inside wall, offset from the other hole, so air and any sound it carried had to pass through three 90-degree bends before it entered the room.

Workstation
At Sigma, we had a Pro Tools rig set up in an Argosy workstation (www.argosyconsole.com), so I knew of the company and the quality of their materials. I ordered the VR 70 Argosy workstation with flat top rack sections for near field monitors. The console came neatly packed in about 13 boxes. It takes at least two people to

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SHots of the finished studio.

Photos by: Natalie Grygo | www.nataliegrygo.com | [email protected]

assemble these babies, as some pieces are large and unwieldy. It took us three and a half hours to put the console together. The instructions were clear and the fit and finish of the workstation were impeccable.

to my main sewer pipe in the basement. The air conditioner is very quiet and puts out about 16,000 BTUs, more than enough for my studio needs.

Hot Spot
As I listened to my Mackie 624s in the room, I noticed a null followed by a hot spot due to bass build up. I didnt follow Nicks layout to the letter and the room needed a little help. I put a bass trap in the center of the room in front of the console between the other two traps. This was the original configuration in the design drawing, and it did a nice job of smoothing out some of the boominess. Nick sent me a two-by-four foot, four-inch thick piece of Cutting Wedge acoustic foam. The foam absorbs frequencies from 500 Hz and above and takes the ring out of spaces. I mounted this in the ISO booth across from the curved wall. Immediately the sound was tighter and more pleasing in the booth.

Up And Running But Still Need a Few Tweaks

The studio is up and running and it looks great. Im getting used to the sound of the speakers in the room and the sound of the iso booth. The more I work in the room, the more secure I feel in knowing what changes I need and want. I have made a list of things to be addressed by priority.

Sound Leakage
My neighbors in the back could hear music late at night because of the window in the studio. It is of utmost importance that I keep them happy while still being able to work. My father built a window cover using rigid fiberglass and 1/2 plywood. The unit was pressfit into the window opening and covered in the same acoustical fabric as the rest of the room. I went outside as my father cranked up the audio in the control room. Not a sound escaped. The unit he built did the job perfectly! I can now listen at 120dB with no complaints from neighbors at any time of day.

Curtain Call
The exit from the studio to my bedroom is by way of French doors. These are constructed from wood and glass. I wanted to reduce any mid-to-high frequency reflections off of this surface, as well as obscure the view to my bedroom, so I decided to hang some curtains. I called Moskows, a drapery store near my home, and asked about fabric. The owner told me he had the original theater curtains that were left over when we remodeled Sigma Sounds Studio 1 over 25 years ago! Instead of using a standard pull cord setup, I put up a rod and used heavy-duty shower type hangers to mount the drapes. There would be no binding and I could just grab the drapes and pull them open or closed.

Air Conditioning
The next priority was the air conditioning. My first thought was to pop a window unit in the adjoining bedroom, but the thought of hearing the compressor howling while I was working was not inviting. Mitsubishi makes a split AC unit, where the compressor is on the outside of the home and couples with the inside unit by a three-inch pipe. The system is whisper quiet and really effective. In my application, the compressor was mounted on the roof. The only place to put the indoor unit was above my control room door. 220-volt lines were run from the basement to both the unit on the roof and in the control room. The condensation line was run down

Iso door
I was getting more leakage than I wanted out of my iso booth door, so I called in a professional. Albert Kleinschmidt is a musician as well as a door man, so I had him over to try to lessen the amount of leakage between rooms. The first thing he did was to explain a

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few basics: fill voids in frame and door hardware, and isolate hard surfaces from hard surfaces. I had already filled the door frames with expandable foam and used two acoustic panels of varying thickness on the iso booths window. Albert started isolating the hinges from the door frame using standard gasket material available at any hardware store. Then he cleaned the frame with isopropyl alcohol and installed perimeter gasketing. Albert put two strips along each side of the frame, as my door was definitely a little undercut. After everything was installed, the door was closed and I ran a flashlight up and around the frame to see if any light got through. This is a very easy initial way to physically test how well the area is sealed. After it was determined that everything looked good, Albert installed an automatic door bottom. This device drops a rubber bar down to seal the door bottom when the striker on the side hits the doorframe. Finally we put on some music and closed the door. After listening with our ears pressed against different areas on and around the door, it was decided that we should caulk around the window frames and put some gasket material inside the door handle. When all was said and done, the door closed really well and there was a marked drop in higher frequency bleed. The amount of leakage was absolutely tolerable and I was extremely happy with the results.

Homemade Speaker Stands

When mixing, its good to have more than one pair of speakers as a reference. I decided to pull out my trusty Tannoy PBM 6.5s and place them next to the Mackie 624s on top of my Argosy desk. This would complete my midsize near field speaker requirements, but I needed more space for the larger speakers. I looked around for speaker stands and almost died. Hundreds of dollars for a pair of stands. No way! Then my dad emailed me a link to a site that had an inexpensive speaker stand design that he thought we could expand on. For each stand, youll need: 3 schedule 40 PVC pipe, cut two inches shorter than the actual height you want the stands (youll have to cut the pipe even shorter if youre placing feet on the stand) 1 thick piece of solid wood board 3 1x4s cut to the total height of the stands (minus the feet, if applicable) a 50 lb bag of fine sand (thats enough for two speaker stands) a threaded 3/8 rod cut 1 3/4 longer than the length of your pipe 2 washers and bolts Cut two pieces of board to your preferred size (either 10, 12, 14, or 16-inch square): one for your base, the other your top. A 7/8 hole is counter sunk on the top of the top piece and the bottom of the base, each about half way through the wood right at the center of the square. Then a 7/16 hole is drilled all the way through. Rub silicon glue along the bottom of the PVC pipe and affix it to the bottom piece of wood. Slide the threaded rod through the base and attach a washer and bolt on the underneath. Make sure that your PVC pipe is centered. When the glue has dried sufficiently, get a funnel and fill the PVC tube with sand. Tamp down to help the sand settle then pop the top on, and affix with the washer and bolt in the counter-sunk top piece. Now get the three 14 boards and screw these into the sides and back of the stands top and bottom solid wood. I used six 2 1/2 wood screws for each board (three top/three bottom). Depending on the weight of your speakers, place heavy objects such as decorative paving stones around the base. You can stain or paint the wood, paint the pipe, or cover it in fabric. A carpet square can be attached to the top or you can use a foam pad for the speakers to sit on. You can put felt, rubber, or metal pin feet on the bottom, just remember to factor in their height when determining the cut on your PVC tube. These stands are very sturdy, cost less than $25 each, and they can be the exact height you need rather than an off-the-shelf approximation.

Organizing
Every studio, no matter what the size, needs to have certain accessories. First, make a list of things you need to operate your studio efficiently tape, CD-Rs, envelopes, packing material, office supplies, etc. Then buy, build, or salvage storage for all these items. Set up an area for each so that if you need to mail something everything is next to one another. If you need a cable, theyre all in one dedicated area.

Its Never Done

I tackled everything I wanted to get to in the construction phase of the studio build. I am sure there will be modifications and changes down the line. There always are. My mind is already working on adding a small carpet in the studio, adding carpet to the iso booth, hanging a curtain on the main entrance door... Michael Tarsia is a two time Grammy recognized Engineer, with over two dozen gold and Platinum album credits. He is also a Director and Instructor for the Sigma Soundz Recording Arts Program. Learn more at miketarsia.com, email sigmasoundz@ gmail.com, or call 215-837-1002.

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