How to cope with single room studio

Don't have enough time for detail right now... I've been working out of single room studios for over a decade.

Did a record at the Phish Barn which is basically a single room... last studio I co-owned was a single room cabin on a mountaintop. Current home-based space is getting the final touches to be a workable one room situation. Have recorded in a number of others... song I just posted in the C37 thread was done in a single room studio. 

Personally I love the communication. Its instant. No talkback mics... That whole vibe where the band or signer finishes a take and they see people on the other side of the glass having a conversation? But they aren't hearing any of it?  

Getting sounds, esp drums can take some time. Basically need to record a bit, listen back, make adjustments. Rinse & repeat. 

The real trick is getting the "control room" aspect right w/o screwing up the rest of the space... or more likely, the rest of the space screwing up your monitoring environment. 

Was gonna reply early but Jmoose covered most of it. I love one room studios. The line of sight, intimacy and direct communication with the artist/band is awesome. I also think its better to have one good sounding room than two mediocre to bad sounding rooms. Orientating your workstation/console/desk etc can be tricky and is obviously dependent on your room acoustics. I frequent this studio every so often (actually have three days booked there this month), check out their pics www.themaproomstudio.com It can be hard to see but their console is about 12' from the back wall, which is a several foot thick bass trap. And the sides are thick bass traps too. Sitting behind that desk gives you the same line of sight you'd have if you were doing live sound.

If you can, I'd wall off one of the corners and make a small amp room/vocal booth. A small iso room big enough for two guitar cabs, or a bass cab, or a singer etc. That will make things way easier for you.

Also, make sure to have plenty of gobos that can be moved or stacked to section off instruments. I used to record my loud metal band in a one room rehearsal studio, and with careful placement, and a few gobos there was very little bleed between bass/drums/guitar.

Thank you all for the inspiration and encouragement. One thing I’m thinking through is where to put the mixing desk and speakers. I hear common guidance is about a third from the wall, but that results in facing me away from the band. If I put the desk facing the other way so I’m looking at the band, it would result in me sitting pretty close to the back wall, is that going to be a problem?

I'm with jmoose on this: embrace the positives of the situation as much as possible. There is a wonderful immediacy to recording right there with the band (unless you don't like the band, which quickly becomes a more complex issue altogether). It's an intimate experience when done right, an experience where the artist can feel you rooting for them. It requires more from you on an emotional level, but the dividends can be huge. You can really build personal relationships with the clients, and if you're good at that part, you can build loyal clients that way. You'll be in the creative trenches with them, after all.

Design-wise, this is where a LEDE ("Live-End-Dead-End") approach can work well. Originally, LEDE design was intended for live rooms, but in this case, you make the dead end where your desk and monitoring is.

With a space that size, I personally think constructing a vocal booth is of marginal benefit, unless you're tracking a lot of VO/podcasts or something. If you record a lot of bands, though, it can be of benefit to build small closet-sized iso booths for amps. And I agree with Tbone81 about gobos. Gobos are your friends.

My first 3-4 years were in one room. I had amp iso boxes in another room but always drums and people with me. No way to hear anything until playback, unless you wanted to deafen with headphones. Kinda like doing monitors from beside a stage, really.

Actually, I did Avett Bros Third Gleam in one of their personal studio one room areas, I was sitting less than 10 feet from them with an imac and external drive. Similar deal on Four Thieves Gone, but that was ADAT’s. That also had a number of other people just sitting around.

I would consider building some gobos and arraigning them similar to an ASC Attack Wall. Then I’d heavily treat the back wall. 2-3ft of floor to ceiling insulation (like roxul safe n sound) would make a killer bass trap and really help your monitoring. Maybe cover it with wood slats to retain a more natural sound.

With your back about 12” from the back wall you’d still have quite a bit of space in the room for the band. And you’d be far enough away from the wall for a little diffusion if you need/want it.

Greetings.

First all, +1 on the preceding posts re: acoustic treatment and related things.

I've built two one-room studios and currently work out of the 2nd one.  One thing that is really key for me: a machine room.  I track classical solo and chamber-sized groups; all acoustic.  So there can't be any DAW noise (fans mostly).  Both studios have small storage closets.  I've repurposed those as machine rooms; in other words, I have a large rack with all the gear including the DAW.  I run snakes out into the live room and have long USB extension cables and VGA cables (both with repeaters; works great) that also run out to the live room.  That way I have a computer video monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.   Mics connect with snakes.  The headphone amps are in the closet and one of the snakes feeds headphones.  I don't do any mixing here; it's all just tracking so I don't have a board nor big monitors.

I have a solid-core door on the "machine room."  And lots of weather sealing around it.  It's a nice tight fit and keeps everything quiet.

This setup works perfectly for me.  And no extraneous DAW noise!

Just a thought if you're doing quiet live mic'ing.  Good luck with your build and please post some pics in the Studio Build subforum!

Regards,
-09

How big are your closet machine rooms, 09? Any air circulation there? How hot does it get inside the closet?

Hi, Mark....
Both are walk-in size.  The current one is maybe 10' square.  No air circulation, but it doesn't get hot in there.  Warmer than the live room, yes; but never hot.  If there was no air circulation/ventilation and it did get hot, I could open the door during breaks, but that's never been an issue.

Regards,
-09

For me :

5' wide X 6' deep X 10' height

No circulation naturally.  And it gets unbelievably hot.  I put a dedicated mini-split system in there, over spec'd, and it can barely keep up in the summer.  (External wall, South / West facing). But worth every penny, and all the effort.

Even in the winter with snow on the ground, the AC is on.

The only gear in there is stuff with fans.  (1) Power Mac tower w/ 4 internal SSD HD's, 4-6 external drives, 8 16 channel AVID interfaces (all of em loud, all of em hot), and a Grace m905 monitor controller box.  (Located there for wiring convenience, not because it's loud or gets hot). Even in the winter with the ambient room temp in the upper 50's in the AM, that room will hit 90 and stuff (mostly the computer) will start acting sketchy by mid-afternoon with outside temps in the 30-40's if the mini-split is not on and set to 64 degrees.  It easily hits 90 to mid 90's without AC.  Even with studio being a comfortable 60-ish.

It's mandatory for me.

Nearly everything I've ever done has been in one room. You'll get the hang of it. Bleed between instruments seems to be the big deal, and using gobos and similar things to keep some separation.

If you get a super loud guitar based band that can be somewhat of a problem. I was reading some techniques I'd like to try. You can line the guitar players up in a line beside the drummer, and have the figure 8 mics on the drum kit, the null pointing at the guitar/bass amps. Something I never got to try but would like to. Obviously gobos will help, and maybe at least some amount of respect you can establish to get people to be reasonable with their amplifier volume. I know there are some prima donnas out there though, hard to record.

You can also consider something like direct amp head outputs to DI / Load boxes, to keep the amps out of the room, no speaker sound. If people are happy enough to play in headphones.

But a reasonable group, with reasonable separation, will sound brilliant when recorded together this way. It's a beautiful sound, like some classic records. Of course, the build-a-song overdub method will work just as well.

Just do your homework with drum mics, etc, so you can be reasonably sure of your capture.

And you'll want to record with exclusively solid state drives. A Hard Disk Drive (spinner) will have data dropuouts from loud enough volumes and ruin your session. This happened to me once, and basically I lost the opportunity to record the band, that never came again.

Plenty of rooms get overwhelmed with volume, and everything becomes bleed. That seems to define possibilities more than anything else.