I'm about to move home and have a spare room to convert into a home studio space dedicated to music. The room is fairly small at about 3m x 2.5m (maybe slightly more/slightly less, can't get into property to measure for a few weeks). However, in the room, I intend to build in a custom desk to fit the space, as well as hopefully fit in a customer build DJ booth for my decks.

Anyone got any tips on building a home studio in a small space? Is any particular orientation better, e.g. have desk along the shorter or the longer wall? Anyone got any good/clever tips on optimising space etc?

 

Desk always on shorter wall for sound waves to travel longer from the speakers, especially with low frequecies

 

Hopefully the room has a nice solid concrete floor and not floor boards above the ground.

Plan everything around the position of the speakers. Pay attention to the ideal listening distance for your speakers too. Because your monitor must be viewable yet not blocking the sound. I'm planning to mount a 42" on the wall between the speakers eventually. For now I have a small monitor on the desk right in front of me which seems far from ideal.

I did this recently. But mine isn't dedicated. There is some other PC's and things in the room that aren't studio related. To be honest it doesn't sound very good acoustically.

 

It does have a solid concrete floor as well as solid stone walls.

I have a 34" ultrawide and plan to mount it on the wall, and my speaker are on speaker stands to either side of the desk. This is to isolate the speakers, but doing this with the monitor and speakers will also give me more desk space for my keyboard, mouse, and MIDI devices.

I plan to (hoping it works) use the Behringer ECM8000 microphone I have along with something like IK's ARC to create a room profile once everything is set up, which will hopefully help things, whilst also accepting it'll never be ideal.

 

I'd primarily decide on symmetry (on stereo monitoring),
if there's window or doors, those will be more deciding factors than which walls are longer,
everything else is a minor problem you gotta live with

 

Windows can be handled with thick curtains, though it kills the natural reverb of the room. But I rather would mix in dead room than weirdly resonating and phasing room. Of course those calibration softwares have come a long way and are actually useful

 

I would use that 2,5 x 3 meter room for your bed and the bedroom as your audio space. I blocked it out in my living room and that's awfully cramped in both size and node.

 

find the right listening and speaker positions, that's going to give you a good starting point even before you start putting in any kind of acoustic treatment if you're planning on adding any. If you do, add a few acoustic pannels on first reflection points, and make good use of the corners and ceiling (since those are probably going to be the only spaces available to put stuff on). Also get some thick carpet for the floor.

Or you know, use headphones.

 

Treat it like a boat. A place for everything and everything in its place. A space that small can get messy and crowded fast.
clutter and distraction will not help with creativity or the ability to do things in a structured and ordered manner.

 

My room is only a tad bigger (3.7m x 3m I think). Using a vector drawing program like Inkscape helped me a lot with the design decisions. Make simple drawings of your stuff and move them around. It's much easier doing it virtually than with the real stuff! Couldn't be happier with what I've done. It is cramped, but at least cramped optimally.

The most important things are speakers, desk and your chair. Start with that. When I sit down, everything is within reach. 3 keyboards, drum controller, mixer, rack with fx, 3 computers, cats, beer and wine, stash of funny fags... One man's creative paradise.

And when my mates visit we can play Playstation games comfortably, too. Gotta optimise and utilise, bro!

 

Last edited: May 1, 2024

I'm not so sure the wife will be too impressed with this though!

 

This is kinda what I've been doing, but using SketchUp as also trying to design a custom fit desk/DJ booth setup in the space to make best use of it. I've got 2 different sizes for the room off the estate agent, so trialling a fit in both, and this is the smaller of the 2 (claiming it's only 2.62m x 1.55m, but I am CERTAIN it was bigger than that when I viewed the property, so sure it's the bigger size they've given me). This was one attempt, having a desk with rack space and a pulled out keyboard shelf big enough for an 88 key piano, and also building a DIY DJ booth that can house them square canvas storage cubes to hide things likes cables and guitar pedals etc:



The monitor on the wall and speakers on stands frees up the desk space for my Push 2, Atom SQ, MiniLab 3 (once it arrives), and to pull out my desktop synths or drum machines onto. I have also fit in two racks into the legs, which will be 10U each, so space to rack mount audio interface, patch bay, and my rack mounted synth (Model D, K2, Pro-1 etc). Not too happy with this though as it's far from ideal location to use the synths, hence why the above image is still in the virtual testing and moving things around

I have 2 sets of 8" speakers, being the Behringer B2031A (Genelec clones) and the KRK Rokit 8. I prefer them, even in smaller rooms, as I can get more bass at lower volumes. I normally use the B2031A for production and the KRKs hooked up to my DJ gear for the bassier vibe. Not sure I'll have room for both now though, so may need to make a decision and use the same set for both production and DJing.

 

Moving home sounded to me as if Bunford was "moving back home" with his parents. Moving home I guess could also mean moving from one home to another, switching out I guess, packing it up and plopping it all down in another space. Also, it sounds as if "now" he has the opportunity to have a separate space for his music thing whereas before he didn't

Is there a Mrs. Bunford, Bunford?

Edit...I see moving back in with Ma and Pa isn't what's happening unless you call one of them Estate Agent, but that is a very long longshot.

 

I currently live in one house. Me and the better half have just bough another house, and are about to move in the next month to 6 weeks or so. The new house has lots of extra space and rooms for us, but being in the UK, homes don't generally have big rooms (like in the US!). Therefore, the room I have been "allowed" by the better half is what I'm trying to plan for, as it's in a basement level, so no windows, concrete floor, solid walls, and is perfect for a home studio, with the exception of the small footprint.

 

My studio is that size. Unfortunately I was forced to use the long side of the wall so my monitors are too close to the wall. Setting it up on the shorter wall as in your picture is a lot better.

I treated my room with bass traps in the corners and absorbers everywhere else (the place behind the monitors/desk is most important). I also put the monitors on absorbers so they don't vibrate the stands they're on. That way the sound is pretty ok, but it's definitely not perfect. I've corrected these imperfections with Sonarworks SoundID with calibrated mike and that stuff does wonders. I have to sit in the center position from where I did the measurements, but in that sweet spot the sound is pretty... spot on.

Good luck!

PS: To give you an idea, this is the frequency response of my room áfter acoustic treatment... that's still pretty messed up (+9dB at 120 Hz, makes for a muddy sound). Correction software is more or less mandatory if you want to be able to mix correctly (without headphones).

 

Last edited: May 1, 2024

Learn to mix with headphones.

 

One of these will give you flexibility as well as freeing up valuable desk real estate.

 

8 inch monitors at such small space, you sure it's worth it? headphones aren't that bad afterall

 

I need the speakers when DJing anyway, so have to have something in the room.

 

You DJ in your small room?