Postcards from Paradise
A home studio should, I believe, serve 3 purposes.
To reduce your commute time to about five seconds.
To deliver sound quality nigh on indistinguishable from a dedicated recording studio.
To make you happy to be there.
I just finished a day recording in my home studio, which now looks (and feels) like this:
This is the studio in full recording mode. Everything live and running. Admittedly with one spurious addition - see which one? Answers below!
It really does feel like one of those moments where you think, “Yes, this is it. This is what I really wanted.” So, having finished my first full day of audiobook recording with Penguin Random House Audio in the studio’s new form, let’s do a quick assessment…
Have we addressed my three main aims of what I think a home studio should be?
1 . To reduce your commute time to about five seconds.
In terms of sheer distance, being in the house definitely helps. I even slept in this room in the past very happily - a certain peace arises in this space. But a commute also can set one up for the day. What’s the overall setup time of my studio?
Off camera, foam blocks are raised to cover the window before recording. Acoustic foam and mattresses always cover all the walls to absorb reverb (reflected sound), but the wardrobe doors should be opened to allow the clothes to do the same. Plug in the laptop using the cables that extend to exactly the right place (this took some planning), switch on the audio interface to arm the main mic for recording. This does not move position, minimising setup time. And the lights are so efficient to run, they can be on all day. [More on that below.] For the camera’s benefit, I turned the extra monitor on which I only actually need when editing.
Overall, if you asked me at any time, day or night, to record something in an instant, it would probably take longer for me to finish what I was doing than begin recording. A matter of minutes, if not seconds.
2 . To deliver sound quality nigh on indistinguishable from a dedicated recording studio.
I visited Abbey Road in London this summer. And what really surprised me was the lack of anechoic chamber - a specially treated room which would cut out all reverb, just leaving the pure, single voice to be recorded. Instead, it and other studio spaces often give up on the idea of “no reverb”, instead going for “nice reverb”. Which is to say, no unpleasant pockets of bass or treble causing imbalances, enough absorption but also enough space for the reflections to not totally disturb the clarity of the signal. Great microphones with top quality equipment backing them up, and the audio engineers with decades of know-how to get the best from it.
Surely I can’t compete with that?
Agree to disagree.
With admirable sunscreen application, I walk the famous zebra crossing in front of the legendary Abbey Road Studios. The traffic there seemingly was all too used to tourists taking their time to get the perfect shot. I tried not to hold them up too much….
My second Rode NT1 (5th Gen). Really they could sponsor me here and I’m totally missing a trick by not pursuing it.
The Rode NT1 (5th Gen) has the best signal-to-noise ratio of pretty much any mic out there, as does the MOTU M4 audio interface. My array of foam and mattresses and clothes so absorbant, that it’s pretty much the most “dry” audio environment [dry = no reverb] I’ve ever been in. If you clap your hands, you hear no reverb tail as the reverbeartions decay away. Together, this setup gives a sound so clean that I’m still seeking a task that gets near its limits.
I used to make do with below-par equipment all through my own training and student days. I quickly learned to upskill fast and maximise my tech’s potential, to deliver results that beat the heavily stocked pros around me. I remember this process in the fields of photography, audio and others.
Indistinguishable from dedicated studios? While I can’t house a full orchestra, for audiobooks I reckon it’s better.
3 . To make you happy to be there.
This sometimes seems most important sometimes. As an audiobook narrator especially, where recording is often a marathon, not a sprint, you have to be comfortable where you are, or those irritations may well decrese your longevity, or more acutely, affect the performance.
Aside from its inherent practicality, a number of things make me happy there.
Plants - breathing is great!
Consistency in mic recording position - no repeat dilly-dallying or setup.
Little soft characters - like the bear, hedgehog and the sheep, which are not only unerringly cheery but also excellent reverb dampeners!
My favourite books - we’ve got Tolkien, Rowling, Pratchett, Dahl, Hawking, Harari, Bryson… all the things I grew up with. They probably don’t make individual narration lines better, and perhaps keeping them all here semi-decoratively doesn’t make objective sense… but not everything needs to. I like them here. I probably know them half by heart, anyway.
The lights - the salt lamp requires a tiny amount of power: 1.1 watts. Meaning it can be kept on 24/7, every week of the year, for about £2.40, or about $3 according to my calculations. Instant ambience, any time, no need to hold it back. Fantastic!
Dark mode in the studio. This actually is closer to how it was as I recorded today. Very quiet and focused.
It works for me. I’m so glad. When it all works this well, it really is a kind of paradise.
If you want to shape your space into a studio, do get in touch. I’d love to help you along the way, so you can turn your creative visions into reality.