How To Set Up A Room For Recording Success

The room you record in matters. A lot. If your small room is full of hard surfaces, the voice in your recording will sound like it’s emanating from a cave. If your large room is full of hard surfaces, the voice in your recording will echo, like it’s in a canyon. And in either case, your recording will contain other unwanted sounds created by room reverb and bounce backs.

Sound waves bounce off everything they touch. You may remember learning about the speed of sound in high school physics class, finding out that sound travels at about 760 miles per hour or 1,100 feet per second. Now imagine your voice bouncing off every hard surface in your room and then traveling back into your microphone. This isn’t the place to delve into the physics of sound waves, but just know that you’ll need to make adjustments to almost any room before you start recording.

Start with this test: Clap your hands or send a short vocal “ha” into the room. How much echo do you hear? Now, look around the room and make a mental list of all the hard surfaces. If your list is long, you might want to move your recording project to another room. But if that’s not an option, here are a few tricks to create a better environment for recording audio:

• Add an area rug to wood, tile, or laminate floors.

• Close curtains or blinds.

• Drape blankets over wood furniture or countertops.

• Hang blankets, curtains, or craft-store foam on walls.

• Set up a music stand and cover it with a thick bath towel before placing your script or notes on it, and then position your microphone so you’ll be speaking directly into the towel-covered stand.

You can also:

• Record in a clothes closet.

• Build a portable recording booth, approximately 3’ x 3’ x 6’ (high), using a frame constructed from PVC pipe draped with blankets.

• Buy one or more freestanding acoustic panels to enclose part of your recording space.

DYI acoustic panels

Build your own acoustic panels using a thick “egg carton” foam or another material, such as Echo Absorber. You’ll find lots of DYI videos for constructing acoustic panels on YouTube.

Your goal with any of these tricks is to create a dead zone, a space where sound waves won’t bounce in and out of your microphone. Starting with good acoustics will make your audio adventures much less frustrating.

One last step:

When your equipment is in place stand in the middle of the room, close your eyes, and listen. If you hear an appliance humming, traffic, or other intrusive sounds, do whatever you can to eliminate or minimize them. Now you’re ready to record.

Good luck, and have fun!