Acoustics / Studio Design

The owner of an unusually bijou studio setup provides the chocolate biscuits this month, as the SOS team get busy helping to improve the performance of his gear and the sound of his recordings.

Acoustic problems and mains hum were making Aniff's studio difficult to use, so the SOS team stepped in to help.

The SOS crew head to the 14th floor of a London tower block to help a pair of readers improve their drum sound.

We help television composer Dave Lowe transform a cavernous-sounding spare bedroom into a usable home studio.

Setting up your studio in a cube-shaped room isn't a very good idea, as Pete Keen and Nick Smith found out to their cost. So the Studio SOS team set off to Kidderminster to help find some solutions to the inevitable acoustic problems.

The SOS team help Peter May to brush up his drum sounds and put more life into his mixes.

During the October 2003 AES Convention in New York, the SOS team managed to make it to Amityville to help reader (and SOS Forum regular) Glenn Bucci with his recorded guitar and bass sounds.

There's little use spending money on fancy mics, processors and plug-ins if your speakers are badly placed and your room's frequency response has more peaks than the Himalayas! So here we'll be looking at practical ways to improve your recording and listening environments.

The SOS team visit reader Dave Stevens' home studio to sort out a chesty vocal sound, investigate a mystery digital buzz, and hand out some mastering tips.

Dave Wraight had been having trouble with his mixes, despite twice upgrading his speaker system, so the SOS team set about diagnosing and treating his monitoring problems.

Recording in a converted attic, Tom Fox was having serious problems with his acoustics while recording drums, so the SOS team drove over to Yorkshire to sort things out.

The SOS team rushes to the rescue of a reader in Somerset suffering from boxy vocals, a weedy mix, and a dodgy tweeter.

Most SOS readers seem either to be setting up a studio or refining their existing setup, and could save money and hassle by doing much of the wiring and installation themselves. We explain how.

Another reader's studio gets the benefit of expert SOS staff attention. This month, it's the turn of Tim Way, whose mixes sound fine in his own studio, but don't travel well.

Most SOS readers spend a lot of time considering what equipment to buy, and learning how it works. But it's also important to consider the ergonomics of your studio if you're to avoid the possibility of painful, and surprisingly common, strain injuries.

In the fifth and final part of our series on acoustic design, Paul White sums up the key stages of designing a project studio and touches on the subject of air-conditioning.

Continuing his quest for the perfect listening environment, Paul White looks at ways to treat a control room without having to bring in the builders.

Paul White looks at how you can calculate how much studio acoustic treatment you really need.

In his second article on acoustic treatment, Paul White tackles the absorbing subject of acoustic traps.

Getting your studio organised doesn't necessarily mean investing in expensive studio furniture or being a DIY whizz. Derek Johnson & Debbie Poyser explain how they made the most of their space, and pass on some hints and tips for a tidier life.

Paul White examines the basic principles of acoustic treatment in order to help you improve your recording and monitoring environment.