Home Recording Studio: Build It Like the Pros [Paperback]

Rod Gervais (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2011 | ISBN-10: 143545717X | ISBN-13: 978-1435457171 | Edition: 2

With the advances in digital technology, musicians can now produce their own music. But the gear is only part of the equation when it comes to recording and mixing. The next part is finding a soundproof room that you can produce it in. Unfortunately, any old room in your house will not suffice for a quality recording. Without a decent room, you'll never be able to record a studio-quality recording you'll be proud of and excited to have other people hear. So how do you go about creating a space in your home that has similar acoustics to that of a world-class studio? How do you soundproof this room to keep your sound in and outside noise out? How do you construct or modify the room so that its size and shape best complement its function? Home Recording Studio teaches you how to do all these things, from building a professional home studio to saving thousands of dollars in the process. This book shows you how to design and understand your room---how to treat it, wire it, and condition it---while using widely available materials. Each step features visual aids to illustrate underlying concepts, as well as professional tips and examples from actual studios. Everything is covered, from room design to electrical considerations, from room treatments to codes, permits, special needs, and more.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

With more than 34 years of construction experience, Rod Gervais gives you a comprehensive and cost-effective plan for building that home studio that will have you building and recording in no time. A complete glossary of terms is also included, and a collection of handy tools to aid you in your design is available on the companion Web site.

Product Details

• Paperback: 4 pages
• Publisher: COURSE TECH PTR; 2 edition (March 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 143545717X
• ISBN-13: 978-1435457171
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 1 x 10.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #315,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Congratulations Rod October 28, 2010

By Dennis Cham

Format:Paperback

I'm a bit biased as our Studio H was featured in the first chapter of this book. In fact that studio being built was the result of me purchasing the first edition on Amazon a few years back. At the time we really wanted to build a serious studio and I purchased every book on the subject that I could find on Amazon. Rod's book was what impressed me the most and ended up with me flying to Connecticut to meet the guy and discuss the building of our "dream studio". The studio took me a year to build and Rod held our hand every step of the way. Back then we had already built 6 recording studios in our building and the 7th being Studio H was the first time to use a professional desinger. We learned so much from Rod and I feel while any competent designer can put together a nice looking room, only a handful can actually design one that sounds really good. For the first time we were cutting vocals without any gobos and vocalist love singing in the space because of the diffused sound field they get coming back at them. Ditto with drums and guitars. String players were blown away of how good they sound in our space. In fact many times we think we have drum mics open and it turns out we are just getting leakage from a single vocal mic. This shows how good Rod's design was. In the past 2-3 years, we've had a whole bunch of "golden eared" engineers from the US, Australia and Germany come though the studio and all of them cannot believe they are in the Philippines.

I know I am sounding like a walking advert for this book. I am glad I bought the first edition and meeting the author to help us make our dream studio a reality. Definitely a fan.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Before you do anything, read this book. January 13, 2011

By Fuzzle

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Don't spend a dime before you read this book! Plenty of people have wasted tons of money to find out they messed up by not reading this book first. Essential.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential For Your Recording Studio Building Library October 18, 2010

By Glenn Stanton

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Once again, Rod Gervais as created one of the essential tools for designing and building your home recording studio. This book contains the critically important details needed to be successful with your recording studio project. Rod provides the background information and links to more detail and so focuses on the design and construction in a pragmatic way. The information on design, site selection, framing, HVAC, electrical, acoustic treatment, and more provides the details needed to do it yourself, or have or contractor do it, correctly to obtain the best possible isolation, acoustics, and safety (often overlooked in many other books on this topic).
In this edition, Rod introduces us to new (but tried-and-true) options for drastically increasing isolation using floating walls, floors, and ceilings to enable studios to be built in very challenging spaces where isolation is crucial and success for the studio requires staying in budget and building it in a timely fashion.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book for builders August 3, 2012

By Martin

Format:Paperback

Purchased this book after being disappointed by many other books. This book is the only one I've read which supplied in-depth explanations and reasons WHY things need to be done certain ways. I've tried using acoustic foam, mattresses, carpet, etc... for soundproofing, and have continually had ZERO success. Bought this book hoping to find some relevant information towards my endeavor and was pleasantly surprised. GREAT book! Just finished my room-within-a-room project, followed the guidelines in this book, and I've had 100% successful results. I can FINALLY crank my amp and beat on my drums at ANY HOUR of the night. If you're looking for a guide on how to genuinely "keep the peace" by soundproofing a room, THIS IS YOUR BOOK! A million thanks Rod! A MILLION!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed! April 22, 2012

By Kenneth Candelas

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I went to this book to help me construct parts of my home studio. It gave a great amount of detail and had me reading a bunch of parts. It's accurate and tells you many do's and don't's as well as opinions and different layout options. A great book for those looking to get serious about setting up a project studio worthy of being called professional!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't have built my studio without it January 10, 2012

By Mark

Format:Paperback

For $25 this book is worth more than it's weight in gold. I saved so much time and money just by reading and applying the knowledge Rod has shared. Highly recommended.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a must have! March 30, 2011

By Esco

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am a newb with building recording studios and began construction this spring. This book has been a tremendous help and is a must have for anyone who is serious about doing things the correct way.

Read it slowly and take notes. This is not a quick read then your done. Rod has years of knowledge and experience that is packed into this book so take your time!

This book works well with a recording studio community forum to help verify that you are doing things correctly. If Rod put every single detail in the book it would resemble one of those huge Old king James Bibles that every family seems to have. Never just guess when building a recording/isolation studio. There are many communities out there that have experts to help give advice (John Sayers, gearstulz). If I were you I'd get this book immediately and read it a few times just so you can understand things.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read, even for someone not constructing a studio. December 16, 2012

By Alexander R

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I enjoyed many things about this book. First and foremost, the tone behind the words was great. You can somewhat tell Rod isn't a language major, but you can certainly tell he is an expert on the matter. Provided advantages and disadvantages for most situations. Everything is described in great detail, and the diagrams throughout the book are exceptionally helpful.

The book seems to focus a bit on isolation (it is a pretty heavy topic) and actual construction. I was hoping for a bit more information than was included specifically for acoustic treatment, though I suppose considering the great amount that has been written about room acoustics in contrast to isolation, it makes more sense to take less of a focused approach in that regard. The information contained about treatment is still helpful, just not as in-depth as I'd like.

Overall a great read - I recommend it to everyone I know in the audio world interested in how everything around you contributes to your recordings.