Acoustics / Studio Design

Paul White indulges in a spot of woodwork therapy, and comes away with two very cost-effective speaker stands.

Paul White enters Blue Peter mode and puts together a fully working drum pad and pedal trigger system for less than the cost of a pint of lager. If you own an Alesis D4, drumKAT, Akai ME35T or any other drum machine or percussion controller that accepts external pads, you can't afford to miss this.

Paul White explores the outer limits of physical modelling on a budget that wouldn't even buy you a decent pair of shoestrings!

Nothing dampens creativity more than a studio full of 'spaghetti' cabling. This month, Paul White explains the virtues of installing a patchbay to banish cable clutter once and for all.

Not everyone can justify building an acoustically treated, soundproof studio, but with a little effort and ingenuity, you can often make significant improvements to the room you already have at very little cost. Paul White presents a few ideas.

Paul White looks at the multitrack recording console and its role in your multitrack recording system.

The syncing of MIDI sequencers with multitracks is an important part of modern recording and can help you to make the most of a limited equipment budget. In the third part of this series, Paul White looks at the various ways of running multitrack tape and MIDI equipment simultaneously.

When Paul Johnson decided he'd like to teach a Music Technology course at the college where he works, there was one small problem: he had to build the studio himself during the summer holidays, on a shoestring budget with help from just two students. Impossible? Let's find out...

You might think that the layout of your studio is determined purely by where your monitors go and where you sit, but as Paul White explains, there are few areas where you have to exercise a bit of care. • Part 1 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5

Want to set up a home studio but don't know where to start? In the first part of a new series, Paul White guides you through the creation and setting up of a basic home recording system.

Paul White reveals a few of his Blue Peter-style secrets, the general aim being to construct something useful in the studio without spending more than a pound!

Love it or loathe it, the analogue cassette looks set to be the primary medium for the distribution of recorded music for the foreseeable future, and we have to make the best of it. Paul White shows you how...

Having addressed your studio mains wiring, you can now turn your attention to the connections between your equipment. Paul White explains the undoubted benefits of a patchbay system.

This month, Derek Johnson investigates the GT Pro MIDI studio workstation stand from Cambridge Innovation Systems.

Budget speaker simulators make it easy to get a good guitar sound directly from your guitar amplifier to tape, but you'll need a dummy speaker load if you want to work with your speaker cab disconnected. Paul White shows you how to build one with the absolute minimum of time and expense.

When setting up a studio, the temptation is to make do with the existing wiring — but this can lead to problems with hum and interference, as Paul White explains.

Few of us are in a position to fit our houses with false walls, suspended ceilings and floating floors — so how can we create a reliable monitoring environment? Paul White explains that it's not as daunting as it seems.

Learning to solder is easy, inexpensive and can save both money and frustration. Paul White makes it as painless as possible — just as long as you pick up the soldering iron by the right end!

Modern tape recorders, both cassette and open-reel, are capable of giving years of service — but they can also deteriorate very quickly if not cared for. Paul White explains the essentials of cleaning and demagnetising.

In this final instalment, we present a practical overview of the 'room‑within‑a‑room' principle which is used in the construction of virtually all major studios.

Having dealt with walls and floors, we move on to the floors and ceilings of the studio, with a view to reducing sound leakage even further.