Pro Engineer Reacts to CRAZY HOME STUDIO Setups! 

dude who cares. I tracked and mixed one of my albums on broken polk speakers on a desk made out of an old door, and one of the most respected mastering engineers in experimental music said it was one of the best sounding releases to come in. then the CD sold out and I got years of gigs based on the cred. don’t ever let some BS music bro online stop you from making music or feeling productive.

90 percent of the pictures that 'viewers' has 'sent' to you is literally the first hits coming up on a google search when you type 'home studio setup'.

I come from an engineer lineage - my dad as over 45 years of experience - and the very best tricks for cheap acoustic treatment is 100% curtains! Yes, curtains. Windows in the wrong place? Put a curtain on top. Can't afford bass traps/no space? Put a curtain in the corner, extended between both edges. That way, the sound waves will pass through it twice - once before, once after they hit the wall. I use cheap isolating curtains that double as isolation in the wintertime. Second tip : don't use the same microphones that they use in bigger studios. If you need to turn down a few fans you're never gonna get to it. I use a super-cardioid Beta 87 for all my vocals and, even tho it is a live mic, it makes a lot more sense than a large diaphragm in my space. Finally, locate the studio in a weird room, one where the walls aren't parallels (if you have one). Bonus point for attics with angled ceillings. Honestly that will get you 90% of a dedicated space. Serves nothing renting a fancy place downtown if you hear people walking in and out the industrial stairs all day!

Everyone knows you need to have cool blue lighting to make great sounding music.

Honestly, in the end nobody cares about the room a song was mixed in. Music is about creativity and passion, not about gear or perfect room treatment. If a song is good, its a good song. If you know how to mix you can get decent mixes even with cheap headphones. And if not learn how to mix or let someone else mix your music. But most importantly, dont let the lack of 'professional gear' stop you from making music. You have everything you need to let the music in your head become real so everyone can hear it ❤️

Sorry but what a load of bollocks. Does that mean then that every home in which music is played has to have your idea of an ideal acoustic? Who cares? You can route recordings through earphones anyway. There is no such thing as an ideal studio sound. They change from decade to decade. What matters is the quality of music produced there, not the infinitely boring subject of whether the speakers are placed in the right location or how many sound absorbers there are. Just get a decent pair of speakers and a reasonably decent system that doesn't hum or buzz and work away. Concentrate on whether the music you produce is any good (it usually isn't). That's far more important than how optimum your monitors are.

This should have been titled; "Streaky talks endlessly about monitors."

And here I am nodding in agreement but knowing full well my cheap little 2i2, MacBook, and headphone setup in the corner of a room is the complete opposite of his recommendations.

Funny , nobody ever plays the music they produce in their facilities ... chances are they guy with less panels and a small room might sound much better than the rest of them

Imagine a line between the voicecoils of the drivers and you need to be 90 degrees to line at the mid point to be properly time aligned between bass and treble ( so the voicecoils are the same distance to your ears ) , then sit in your listening position and imagine the walls and ceiling are mirrored, anywhere where you could see a reflection of the speaker is where you put panels , then put the sub where you sit and wander around the room till the bass i sounds right and that’s where you put the sub 👍🏻

Familiar good advice, but room acoustics often take a back seat to buying the most basic gear, like a good mic. Even though room acoustics can be easily fixed with a limited budget. I sympathize with a lot of home studio owners that are just stuck with a less than ideal room - a window in the wrong place - not enough space in a cramped bedroom - insufficient speaker suspension - these are the realities for most of us.

Dude that's what I'm missing, acoustically appropriate sand for my room

Seems to me that mixing in a properly-treated room requires great attention to detail and a serious commitment in time (if you’re going DIY), money (if you’re not), or likely both. Or, you buy a pair of high-end headphones, the kinds used by professional mixing engineers. They might cost you a grand, but then all room issues are negated and you can travel and mix anywhere. There are, of course, issues that can arise from mixing only on phones, but there are two possible solutions to this: 1) Use the Waves Nx plug-ins to play the signal into a fake virtual room. It won’t sound EXACTLY like CLA’s studio or Abbey Road, but it will reveal must problems your mix will have in the real world. It tends to reveal two things: the build-up of muddying low-mid frequencies, and the loss of stereo image when playing program material through stereo speakers in a real room. 2) Get your mix as solid as possible, then book time in a studio with a properly-treated room. The problems in your mix will be clearly evident, and for one afternoon’s booking fee for studio time you’ll have fixed any glaring problems. With all of the virtual instruments and sims available now, it seems to me that one should either spend several thousands of dollars on room analysis and treatment, or a thousand or so on good phones. Spending the same money going halfway on room treatment and mixing on budget speakers seems to be an overall worse way to go as an option. Of course, just mixing on phones also avoids the W.A.F. issue. You might love to have a living room, den, or spare bedroom that looks like a control room set from a science fiction movie, but your wife might balk at such decor, especially when it comes with a formidable price tag. The “Wife Acceptability Factor” struggle is real, my friends.

Gentlemen, never trust an engineer who fancies the aestethics of an emergency room on LSD. :p

The Beatles and a 4 track ... MIC DROP!

A pro can make good mixes anywhere. If you can’t, then you’re bedroom studio is as good as it can get. Keep doing the good work, bedroom producers!

A lot of guys always say bad things about foam and its not all true. Yes thinner foam can only absorb so much and the same for insulation. Sound panels can be 4, 6, 8 or even more inches thick and so can foam. What is a anechoic chamber made from. Foam? Wow how about that. Trust me I don't care what anyone says about foam. Just like insulation if you have the right foam it will do the Job. Aurelex makes 6 inch wall panels and they work just as good as insulation panels. I have tested both. I prefer the aurlex. Maybe there is some technology in their product but they are really good. I have tested them and the do the same exact thing as insulation. I have been countless recording pro studios since the 80's and recording booths that had thick foam in there and it was super quiet you have hear your heart beating. So understand if you have the right foam or even the right insulation panel they will do the same exact thing. In my studio I have the bigger insulation panels and for my corner traps I have super 12 inch thick foam traps that work great. In combination my room sounds really good. I just have to get a cloud above me at some point.

some of the best music has been made in the worst conditions and some of the worst music has been made in the best conditions.

Streaky , on that first one that dog was absorbing some of the acoustics.

im also in a corner. i cant move my setup anywhere else the way the room is layed out. its really not that bad. i think that studio in the corner you showed was very cozy. kinda more about vibe than “proper” speaker placement.

Without asking for it, meaning my room is cold and hot during the year. I have blankets on them. This helps greatly by nature astorb audio, along with stuff on the walls. I remember before these blankets were on the windows, things sounded like echo in here. It works, a poor mans studio

They're like that for perfect reason and no these speakers are punchy and some of the best commercially sold in they're size

No matter how nice a studio with decent speaker set up is, producers and musicians should still have a decent pear of headphones to use as a reference and dubble check. I can just plug a Jack into My home stereo which sound good, and start projects but mastering and mixing would be done in headphones then tested on multiple in ear, over ear, headphones, big stage speakers to phone speakers to make sure it sounds decent all all. Finally a second opinion is necessary from a reliable source.

Streaky, what do you think about heavy moving blankets for budget studios, and foam risers for monitor speakers on the desk? Obviously a stand would be better for the monitors, but I don't currently have the money for stands. The blankets seemed to have made a huge difference in sound when I'm recording vocals. The room sounds way less reflective, and tin can like.

Great critique !

My understanding was that you can’t have symmetry in your room shape for good acoustics. You need a reflection free zone and offsetting walls and following a golden ratio styled room design is key.

It's so refreshing to hear someone call that Auralex pyramid foam nonsense and cheap. Auralex as seriously created massive wealth from selling crap snake oil at Guitar Center stores everywhere.

Nice video streaky .. The desk reflection is a thing .. Remember all them consoles that some of these hits are mixed on, the speakers are on the desk ..for 22 years I have speakers on desk. Two tier desk of course 😋

The Lavery 122-96 + Quintessence gold behind you is a pure beauty !

Hi are still doing these types of videos? How do I submit a pic?

You guys are getting ahead of ur selves. Recording and Mixing/Mastering are two severely diff things. Any room slightly treated or dare I say looks right can be recorded in because your DAWs settings are the control. Streaky is speaking from a MIX AND MASTER stand point. To hear the proper signals you NEED these treatments. All you guys talking bout someone recorded this here and someone made that there, have no idea who did the work after! Did they sent it out for mix and master? Was their technician trained? What equipment was where? What settings was used? Effects? Processing? Yall shouldn't be so quicc to discount advice. What you SHOULD DO is evaluate what your trynna achieve and build that way.

My Hybrid Mixing Setup... I record into the DAW (Studio One Pro 5) essentially using the DAW as my multitrack recorder(I can apply whatever preamps/compressors/EQ on the way in). I apply whatever plug-in effects I want in the DAW and mix... I then make 16 stereo Bus channels in the DAW and route the DAW tracks to them and send the busses out (via Antelope Goliath 32HD interface outputs) to 32 input channels of my Soundcraft Ghost Mixing Console (All of the Ghost channels are set at unity gain and the channel faders are at zero...since the mix levels come from the DAW busses, the console never changes making recall a breeze). On the Ghost, I route the 32 channels coming into the console to the console's 8 group busses as stereo pairs (Drums/Perc - Guitars/Bass - Instruments - Vocals) Each console group has an insert, so I can apply any outboard gear to each bus as I choose... the group busses on the console then feed the console Master Bus (which also has an insert). I route the Master Bus output from the console to my mastering chain (SSL Fusion with Neve MBP on the insert of the Fusion and then send the Fusion Output to a pair of Warm Audio EQP-WA's... After everything is adjusted to my liking I print the output of the mastering chain by sending it all back into the DAW and recording a stereo print track in the DAW. A little complicated but I get all the convenience of the DAW and all the analog goodness of the console and mastering chain without having to worry about recalling hundreds of console settings. This is what works for me,,, Any thoughts and comments would be appreciated!

This myth about big speakers and panels all over the place ...I ruled it all out the moment I removed everything from my walls one day and tried to mix a real quick mix with nothing for room acoustics. The results were a way better , clear and well balanced eq wise mix. I went back to put some of them back just for the astetic of the room but no longer looking for that "perfect room" anymore. Thats all bs.

My home studio room is a joke, a phone box has more space, but I use Slate VFX for mixes and the most recent track which I took to Metropolis for mastering did not need any adjustment; had I used the room it would have been all over the place. Nice to see some other setups on here.

1:10 so it’s ok to put your desk and speakers right in front of the wall? I thought u had to be at a couple feet away from the wall?

7:36. Funny. I know this photo. It's actually a stock image of a music studio from Shutterstock. Unless this is the real owner of the studio, I expect someone just purchased the photo to have a more impressive looking room. Great video mate! Love the room optimization tips.

Gotta admit for a pro engineer you failed to mention on various studio setups people had acoustic instruments such as ukulele and guitars which can produce unwanted resonances and noise.

Wow 7:00 cool studio ❤️

1 inch neoprene rubber. Best bass de-coupler there is. It is basically what they make wet suits from but super thick. There is a foam mart in Burbank that sells 1 foot for about 30 bucks. Granted the 1 foot length is almost 6 feet wide. So plenty. Foam doesn't cut it. You won't even need to fill your speaker stands. Shelves on the console, takes it away. Even use under a sub woofer.

Foam doesnt decouple a speaker from a stand. It just cayses phase issues by the speaker moving tilting while the cone moves. Might as well use no foam or spikes

I closed my professional recording studio, which I have had for 25 years because the "pandemic generated home studio crazes" moved all my clients to a home studio set up and you can't make a living from no clients. How do you compete with free, you can't. The cost of equipment, utilities, rent, income tax, and the hundreds of professional home studio setups are killing the professional recording studio. I have sold most of my equipment and am getting out of the music industry. I got a job at Walmart and I work part-time at a small coffee shop for extra cash. As much as I loved working with bands and producing great artists and songs, there is no real money to be made, it is a disaster. I wish anyone that tries to start a Recording studio Good Luck, you are going to need it.

Form my experience asymeteical rooms sounds the best even if not treated. But you can make One room asym with some tricks like a campus italian producer did *dardust*. Also realty messy rooms full of objcts for diffusion with the right wals that l'et pass the bass works. But Is a mater of ears and personal calibration

isnt symetry the bad thing from acoustinc point of view? from what i know the closer to 90 degrees the more sound bounces and resonates

The studio at 9:00 is of Jordan Critz I believe. Andrew Masters did a tour of this recently and it's ridiculous.

second pic is the guy from "musician on a mission" isn't it?

the wall behind my studio monitors has a window on the left and the studio monitor in front of the window is louder than the one in front of the wall

Love your videos on mastering & mixing. Always cool infos and neat tricks from Streaky. But really comparing pears to apples here! It always depends what the aim is. But I can not see anyone composing, songwriting or writing lyrics etc. on a small desk like yours. Spaces are often limited in Home Studio situations and budget often goes into having good sounding instruments and/or mics. And when I hear mixes by Tchad Blake and see him sitting in a room with brickwalls!? Just asking myself, If knowing your gear and room is much more the key? Although I have myself build 160 mm porous absorbers and a cloud.

Hey Streaky, since you mentioned here at one point... what is your opinion on having side panels, or even front and back, as a standing panels few feet away from the wall and closer to mixing position, opposed to having them mounted on a wall?

That one looks like the cockpit of a space ship something straight out of star wars or star trek wish I had that studio it's freaking awesome 👌

My speakers are the size of the large sound absorber pads and even on five percent volume the house shakes but it can she changed its a quad mounted speaker and sub combo set which works well and it's a 62 double band legaliser and so are most of all these speakers which half these at the least are built to not rumble the surface below

Nice video about acoustics, I was expecting a video about equipment hook ups and his opinion on some technical setups, not about room sound treatments. Nice video tho, learned some things.

All this advice is pointless when you look at yesteryear studios. The best songs ever made by the Beatles, Zeppelin, Stones were in big open space studios with floating partitions and absolutely zero symmetry whatsoever. Boston's More than a Feeling was produced in a closet. The environment don't make the music, only the artists do !

In the exampe @7-8min the speakers' level looks suspiciously close to being exactly halfway floor to ceiling... just my 1cent.

One thing that you see in alot of home studios is monitors laying down compared to standing up. If theyre not supposed to lay down theb dont lay them down you will get phaae cancellation

streaky academy? a division of the ponds institute ;)

Why can't the speakers sit on the desk if they are at the right height?

You would of had a freaking coronary if you saw my recording setup in the late eighties with me playing along with two tape recorders to multitrack.

Nice video bro

Yo bro do more videos like this, really helpful.

@streaky hey man, what’s the ideal filling for panels? You say foam is useless, so what would be inside panels? Something like rockwool?

HELP my mic keep making weird noise i dont think its feed back and every thing i try dont work. im going crazy plzzzzzzz HELP

I'm keen to understand the difference between recording and mixing for room treatment. I record vocals in my home studio and then mix them with backing music produced using loops. I'm gathering the room treatment needs to be different when recording vocals (ie absorption behind the mic and to the sides?). Anyone got any thoughts?

Strange that there is no mention about all the resonant guitars in the rooms. Bass traps and panels aren't gonna help those guitars resonating with the music.

That's what i was wondering for years. All these studios with their big SSL consoles, don't they run into a reflection hell? I mean, the surface of the consoles will reflect sound like hell, right?

I have one monitor dead center (and a cheaper stereo setup to check mixes). But yeah. Mostly I mix in mono and would recommend people give it a shot.

interesting, wouldnt want to hear what you say about mine!

the seocnd guy should get 2 speakers that are the same too

I understand your visual judgment, but, nothing is gained without a TEF analyzer.

some of the cooleststuff ive heard is from crap setups. i have a crap room but i use alot of isolation so the room doesnt matter. and yes you can mix in headphones.

This is only for non fully !music naturally skilled people as right musical men can record and sound great without half this equip!ent just got a electric guitar pick up over the sound hole where a neck and middle pickup would be aswell as the an internal bridge piece pickup and a few drum pad and that all you need without editing and am these proles setups work great he has the further away one for monitoring and the one closest to the screen is a background speaker

...when you order Dunning-Kruger from Sweetwater...

Streaky on a streak. Thanks dude

Is a bookshelf good for isolation?

That intro music is from Danucd

I would like to see an example studio set up to record live acoustics drums.

You didn't tell us anything we don't already know. Listen, those who can afford the perfect setup don't need your help since they can obviously afford a professional acoustic design company to handle everything. Those who need your tips are budget studios who need cheap solutions.

alot of pro dont care about room treatment just look at those who make hiphop music most of them dont have no treatment they just have shelfing filled with records

I will send you my home atudio setup 🙂

The number one important thing to mixing is developing your ear I know guys I went to school with that know their shit but can't get it to sound good because they don't have the ear your ear is the most important thing all this technical bs is bs get what you can afford and learn what sounds good make your mix sound as close to professional music as possible trust me u don't need $10k speakers to get a pro sound I've seen it done on 400 dollar speakers 300 dollar mic just keep working all the little shit in sound frequency just remember 90 percent of people can't hear the imperfections an audio engineer can hear don't beat your self

You need a de-esser on this video😅

2:30 I was gonna ask why there's an n64 controller just there, then i looked down and saw my xbox controller next to my keyboard... oops lol

forms fine for treating mid to high freq your talking bs i have had it on the ceiling befor now it works well

It's never enough.

“V of the Speakers” is called the apex, fyi

Funny thing bro. Just a pic is not enough to make a decision. We need to hear material from the spaces to see how the room is affecting the music being produce.

Oh you're left handed? 10:47 how can I be sure any of this applies to us normals?

Meanwhile madlibs using an iPad to make everything

well...time to change the room🤣🤣

My studio is visually a mess but very tidy sonically. My ears don't see too good so I'm happy. 😀

Okay, 6:55 is a joke BTW. A troll if you will.

Todays video?? As opposed to tomorrows or yesterdays viddeo? LEt me guess, I've got ot comment down below, at the end of the day and comment, like, subscribe and click a bell? Sounds like a chore.

hey streaky i'd recommend not starting the video with "IN TODAY'S VIDEO!"

What's the best material for bass traps? I got some Rock Wool (the fluffy kind!) and going to build the panels. Someone recommended to get RW45 semi rigid stuff so it holds in the panel better. any thoughts?

Tell it like it is dude !!!

wow. I learned a lot

I would be interested, if a customer - and I mean an average customer from the target group - would be able to hear the difference between a treated and non-treated room, if he's listening to your production. I have never heard about some customers criticism like: "Maaaaan, that sounds so crappy. I guess the producer was sitting in an untreated room." Even if you have some resonances or other happy little accidents - the customer gives a s***t on it. He's not able to hear the difference. He never judges a track for sound accidents. He doesn't know how it "should" sound. The customer takes it, as it is. All that exaggeration in trying to squeeze out ourself as producers to get the best sound ever is nonsense. We do that for ourself, because we tend to compare to others. Do we really need all that high-end stuff? All that little details to tweak the sound just a tiny bit better? Will the customer then buy your track????? Or is it more the mood, the composition, the unsusual, the "New", what makes a track interesting for the customer? If I hear productions in the sync and stock music market with some really bad produced tracks and see then, that these tracks are best sellers..... Customers do not care so much for the sound and over-well produced tracks.

I wish i submitted mine!!

I use headphones....so I don't need a room....

Ha ha ha...ha ha...! I`m deaf in my right ear so the perfect room ain`t ever going to work for me. But I soldier on just hoping that what I`m doing is going to make sense to someone. High frequencies are gradually damaged with age, but it`s across the board for me. Right ear dead as a soundproofed door knob...

What kind of sound panels would you suggest? Is there a DIY version? Thanks