Outmoded Electronics: New Home Recording Space

I will finally get to have most of my gear in one place as I move into a new house. I will have some room to set up my amps and drums for quick home recording. The basement’s 7ft ceilings aren’t ideal for acoustic recording, but I’ll try to use some of my hypercardioid mics to minimize the room’s influence.

Empty basement for my recording space.

I may re-use my 24"x48"x4" OC703 panels as bass traps in the corners. I plan on buying a bag of 16” wide Rockwool Safe N Sound insulation to build four smaller 16”x72”x6” panels to tame early reflections. I’ll probably move the same panels around between tracking and mixing.

A major goal is to have my gear readily available so I can lay down an idea quickly. That may be electric guitar through a hardware modeler, MIDI performance on a controller/pads, drawing in notes on a piano roll, or mic’d drums/guitar. All of my MIDI controllers will be plugged in and ready to play. I will be using my existing audio equipment for the immediate future.

I am using an inexpensive L-shaped desk from Best Buy: the Walker-Edison Command Center Gaming Station desk on sale for $158. This desk provides me the most desktop real estate for the least amount of money. It’s not the best desk for this studio application, since there are no shelves for rack equipment. I do have old IKEA Rast nightstands that I will use as rack enclosures. As I progress with the move in, I would like to get some of my outboard rack equipment and Tascam M30 mixer set up on the desk. I am still in the planning stages for any cable management that will need to be installed to minimize clutter.