[CaliaMoko]

Any recommendations for best flooring choices for a home studio? I have carpet at the moment but prefer not to have carpet, unless it's really, really, really by far the best. It holds in allergens. You can't sweep it. You can't mop it. Carpet is just annoying.

[Boydie]

@CaliaMoko

Hi Vicki

You are in luck - the consensus is that a hard, reflective, floor is a good thing (ideally coupled with treated walls)

This will give you a good compromise of the room sounding “live” (for both recording and mixing) but still controllable with treated walls

So with the floor if it is solid concrete you could consider just leaving it exposed and brighten it up with some paint/rugs

Alternatively any hard covering would be good such as wood, laminate or vinyl

Then, depending on the dimensions of the room, you should consider some acoustic treatment on walls - ranging from hanging some heavy curtains to proper acoustic panels and bass traps

I think it is best to get everything set up first and “live with the room” for a while so that you settle upon a comfortable setup - eg where will you record vocals, where will you sit when mixing etc. - try out different areas of the room as moving just a small amount could drastically affect the sound

Once settled you can look in to options for the wall (and possibly ceiling)

[cowparsleyman]

@CaliaMoko - Glad you're getting settled in. How big is the room? Do you have a vocal enclosure? Will you mix with Cans or Monitors?

To be honest I would go a wooden floor, it's so much easier to maintain, easier to move about on a wheelie chair, and can be made less reflective (with a lovely rug on the floor) where a carpeted floor is rather dead, is a pain to make it live and soaks up dust, that will play havoc with your Axes, and audio equipment.

You might hate the reflections if it's too live, I agree with @Boydie - Make it neutral, but don't lose any sleep over it, It's easy enough to get most ambient/Live room sounds from decent verb plugins these days, and it's so hard to completely remove room verb from a stem completely without affecting it in someway.

Put some of your favourite paintings up, that's always nice, sometimes inspires me when I'm songwriting.

Hope this helps V

Rich

[Jamie]

@CaliaMoko

Hi Vicki, my studio is wooden floored with painted walls, all my instruments/drums, and a couple of rugs and sofas.I don't have a vocal booth but use an sE RF-X baffle which is attached to my mic stand. The room is 8m x 6m.I use Adams A7x monitors and I think I get reasonable results, at least no-one has ever raised it as an issue with any of my efforts. Hope this helps.
Cheers


Jamie

[CaliaMoko]

Thank you @Boydie @cowparsleyman @Jamie

My son-in-law is convinced carpet is the best choice for a recording environment, so I wanted to get some input from people with experience. I am thinking of cork, but that probably isn't hard enough, so maybe bamboo? Oak and maple are very hard if bamboo isn't hard enough.

I plan to make a floor plan of the room today. There will be four filing cabinets in there and a large bookshelf, in addition to the desk with the equipment. I plan to purge material from the filing cabinets and maybe get it down to two. I save far too much stuff. I'll be back when the floor plan is done.

Vicki

[CaliaMoko]

The floor plan is complete. Not perfect but close to scale. See it at http://vickifaye.com/music-room/. I would love suggestions for arrangement. Everything still has to come back out of the room so I can rip out the carpet and put in the new flooring. Once I have the new flooring. The exercise room gets flooring before my music room so Roger can continue his therapy at home. And maybe I can get back into better condition myself.

[Boydie]

so maybe bamboo

@CaliaMoko
I have bamboo in a bedroom and I love it - super hard wearing and looks great!

[CaliaMoko]

Well, @Boydie ... bamboo it is then! I think I'll go with cork in the bedroom, though. It's warmer on bare feet! I learned that from my sister, who put bamboo in the main areas of her house and cork in her bedrooms.

Thanks for all the comments and ideas. Someday, when it's done, I'll put up a picture of the finished studio. It'll be a while. Moving takes a LOT of time.