How to Turn a Crappy Closet Into a Home Recording Studio on a Budget

Thank you so much for making this video!

Meanwhile all the music we love and listen to most is covered with tape hiss and significant backing track bleed through the vocal tracks. Some of the Soundgarden isolated vocals you can hear people moving around the room, the headphones bleeding right into the recording, yet once in the mix it all gets lost.

Thank you for helping me feel more confident to use my clothes to better the sound. Will the metal hangers have an effect? Also wondering if I put insulation behind a deep canvas (that I can also paint), would that serve as an acoustic panel?
Thanks again!

uff.. sounds a bit boxy. There is a way to deal with that but i imagen the hassle with EQ later.
Ive been in many German studios now and even a budget one from a friend to record for company's.
Most of them don't use ripple padding. Just flat THICK foam panels with a wood frame and stuffing inside plus some base killers.
Alsooo! i would really, really, really think about putting the laptop somewhere else, because of the Fan, Disturbing frequencies, electric static and because of the paddern your mic has. If you have an Ipad or cheap Tablet, USE IT!! ^^.
Cool that you have a preamp or mixer BUT, you should not use the filters and/OR edit the sound when doing voice over professionally. Keep it natural and just do basic grade later IF the director wants you to.

Holy banana, no! dont get a Yeti. Get An audio technica or a Rode if you wanna go USB.

Normally id switch to my voice over account, because with this childhood account, nobody takes me seriously, but i am a voice actor and i do also do my own home recordings. (i put a bunch of cheap thin but long baby mattresses on the wall if i dont have my space available)

Edit: Best wishes! ^^
PS - Nice gains dude. You LOOK RIPPED.

You literally can hear the sound difference when the camera moves closer to show the room from the echoey house to practically no echo even without going into the room

if i am using this for vocals can i just get the usb interface with a mic preamp built-in together?

This actually makes a lot of sense. Thank you very much.

I am in a strict Japanese apartment. There is a walkincloset but hubby/landlord will not let me put panels/blankets with glue or tacks all over the wall. Maybe pvc frame with moving blankets over the table with mic?

In Japan there is big danbocchi cardboard box but people say it wil sound to cardboardy. Cant I add the blankets and boards inside that?

Woodglut is a solid company with the best woodworking plans.

Another newbie Q: what did you use to hook up the dbs to the scarlett? And what is the black cord coming out the front of the scarlett?

Newbie Question: My closet studio only has a single two outlet plug. I need a surge protector. What kind would you suggest?

What do you do for oxygen when the closet door is closed to avoid affixation? lol

Oh man but now hearing from police and firefighters shouldn’t do making home studios in apartment saying get a huge fine and cause fire hazards. I really don’t get it

Thanks for sharing this so graciously. You inspired me to share my whacky DYI. I asked the refrigerator delivery guys if I could have the shipping box. I bought about 60 acoustic pads foam online - double sided mounting tape . The flaps on one end of box were already cut off and I taped the flaps of the other end up so it would be about 7 feet tall (cover that with 2 Nath sheets and 3.5 by 3.5 feet. with a narrow folding panel/door. I bought an accent rug for under the box . There's room for a mic stand which has a iPad holder attached. and a small table for a small led lamp and a water bottle - I plan to perform my project standing -- for that kind of energy. I'm going to start testing it out this week and see how long I can handle breathing and talking in there. Just outside the box is my audio interface/mixer/recorder - the xlr cable slides under the box where the cardboard was already split. It's been standing for a couple weeks the foam pads have not fallen. I'll start recording this week if the results are decent I will make a YT video on it. If it is too small for me to work- or the cardboard starts to buckle - I'll cut up the box into panels and try my closet -- but it's sadly not much bigger.

2 years in after posting, have you made any changes to your setup? If so, what was the most necessary Improvement?

Wanted to drop a comment to say how much I appreciate this video! I've already made a lot the same decisions based on information found elsewhere, but I wish that when I had started this process I had found a video like yours that made all of this information so accessible and easy to digest. Hope the new studio is working great for you!

Best video Ive seen on recording vocals, and believe me I have seen MANY! Learnt a lot. Cheers.

Thanks for sharing your cool video! One issue you might discover with your setup is that your computer fan will get really noisy and the mic will pick it up (speaking from personal experience :) I ended up leaving my computer, studio monitors, and DAW on the opposite side of the door and ran the Headphone & Mic XLR cables underneath into the booth. Next, I set the song on a loop cycle and bring my blue tooth enabled "Apple Magic Keyboard" into the booth with me, press record and sing five or six takes in a row. Lastly, I comp down all my vocal takes into one take that I like. I only just discovered this process today and it seems to work like a charm.

Great information. Very helpful. Thank you!

Crappy Closet, lol. Here in LA that would be 950 a month.

great video sir! I learned a lot. You had a lot of great ideas.

Thank you so much for explaining this where I could easily understand. And thank you for the links!!

Awesome video!! Thanks for the information!!

Your video microphone definitely picked up the difference sound your absorption sounds great

Great job

Thanks for sharing. Was very informative and didn't realize all the aspects and considerations of recording.

Thanks a lot!! I am trying to make my own booth for remote interpretation. I am not sure how to deal with all of the external noise, is there a way to do it without buying all of that equipment? Any suggestion?

What about perforating the desk with 1-inch holes to reduce reflections. And adding insulation beneath it.

Interesting! Thanks for the video! I am planning to do this to a walk in closet, exclusively to mimic a soundproof phone booth for making private calls. No recording at all. I will be using padded moving blankets around the walls. Is it also necessary to get some of those foam tiles for the ceiling as well? Thank you!
BTW-Do you have any ventilation in yours? Not too stuffy? Just curious. Cheers!

Thanks, I think I'm going to try to start doing professional voice-over work soon, so I'll probably need to rig up a quiet recording area like that.

awesome work!

Omg... Thanks a lot, mate! THIS is the clearest ever explanation I’ve ever heard and the most helpful video I’ve seen. It has given me more than just tips- but easily understandable explanation on what I need to do to turn my own closet into a studio but more importantly WHY I need to do it! Thank you :D

I always thought my recordings were too quiet and tried to turn up the volume until eventually it started peaking and getting distorted

Mark, great video. I got all of these components recently. I have a question. Once you've adjusted your pre-amp levels (I got the same pre-amp as yours, the dbx model) to your liking and the signal then goes to your usb audio interface, there's a gain on the Interface. What do you set the gain on the audio interface to? Is there a neutral position? I have the Rode AI-1 and there are two dials, one on the right for the headphone volume, and the one on the left, which I assume is some kind of gain. Any info would be appreciated! Thank you!

Good tour. Would be awesome to include an example of the VO it produces!

Great vid man making mine now during quarantine since the studio is closed for now

“Luckily, a lot of closets will not have power”

try the fifine k669 it's a good microphone but it's usb tho get an adapter too because the mic is only $30

Wow, your house is beautiful and the view is too! Future life goals

I'm in the early process of getting together equipment for a home studio. Do I need a dbx or not?

I like how he said "i like you cant hear any sound" -----waits for you to hear sound inside of a Closet.

Like,
"you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Nothing"

Nice video. Do you field questions?

What if anything did you do for ventilation?

Thank you for all the details! This is exactly what I was looking for and more!

I'll definitely check out Pluralsight. My biggest challenge right now is understanding the Abelton LIve software that came with my microphone bundle. I'm not able to understand how to use the "sound gate" plugins to cancel out the breaths taken between words. I'm doing things manually right now which is a pain because I don't know how to "undo" in Abeleton. I read somewhere to use control+W, but it doesn't do anything for me. With your current setup are you able to have demo/audition ready audio or do you need to send it off for mastering. I discovered a few studios around me but it seems counterproductive to record at home then send off my work and pay someone to clean up what I feel like I should be able to do at home.

When i finished installing all of my materials, I sat in my closet for a moment to gauge the noise level. I experience a weird phenomenon whereas I wasn't hearing anything and it seems like my ears where making up sound to fill in the void. Kind of a tinitus, but not. It was weird. I'd notice the quiet. Then hear "noise", then it'd get quiet again, then "noise", then quiet. It took several moments for my ears to settle into the quiet of the room. I"ve been in big empty rooms before without experiencing that, I think it was all of the sound absorbing material around me making the difference. I had forgotten about that until you mentioned that "going under water" sound pheneomenon.

I didn't know about the 90 degree angle/reverbe thing either. Great tip

Beautiful home 🥰. Thank you for sharing information 👍🏽