We may be moving house which is going to give me a bit more practice space. I’m tempted to build a practice booth or convert a room with soundproofing and good acoustics. Has anyone ever seen a build or project log to give me some ideas?
What instruments?
What acoustics do you want? Hendrix and McCartney both used to play in the small toilet room in their houses because it gave really good acoustic reverb and volume - almost like an instant monitoring system. Not ideal for recording, but echoey rooms do sound great to practice in.
For recording ideally you want to minimise any reflections - so mic shields and foam surrounds behind the mic, lots of acoustic triangular foam behind and to the sides. You can then add reverb to suit in the editing process. Curtain drapes can also be useful as you can adjust these on the fly to different positions and extents to tune things a bit.
If you're trying to record any percussion you will ideally want to try and have a floating floor on resilient mounts and damping foam/rubber tuned to the relevant frequencies. This is usually beyond DIY level as there is a bit of work involved in achieving that and I don't fully understand the process myself. Accepting some noise transfer in and out is a better idea - though that may or may not be acceptable depending on where you live and who you share it with.
In making your booth remember a closed box can get stuffy and hot very quickly so think about ventilation and how that can be achieved - damped baffles, silent fans outside the box pushing air through it, without any motors inside the booth etc
I imagine the cheapest way is to look for perspex and acoustic quilt drum enclosures and start from there. Acoustic foam is relatively cheap, and you can get resilient rubber matting for not too much either to go under the floor. It won't be perfect but will cut down some transfer. Try also putting amps on stands and play around with how to isolate the feet to see what cuts out the bass transfer best. If you do long stints in it and it gets uncomfortable then a bit like PC towers rig up a box at low level (outside the enclosure) to push air in, and a box on an opposite side at high level to pull air out - low speed and slow, you don't need masses of air flow, but it will help stop you cooking. And you can obviously crank things up/ open the door when not recording. Do not attach the fans to the perspex, you don't want the vibrations exciting the panels!
Similar applies if you're doing a whole room. Best wait until you're in and play with the room. Rig up some plyboard with foam panels stuck to them and play around with throws/curtains to see which areas of the room need permanent damping, and which might need occasional damping. Then work out a permanent solution to suit. Every room is different, but generally try and keep mic positions free from reflected sound - particuarly from behind the performer, otherwise you get a quasi echo effect where the reflected sound arounds at the mic after the original projected sound. Same with sound going past the mic and bouncing back to it from behind. It can be a git to mix if it's not welcome.
You may want to consider doing something with the floor - eg acoustic quilt insulation between joists, adding dense acoustic board, resilient mounts and damping layers between joists and floorboards and between floorboards and carpet/laminate. Personally I'd always go for carpet in a recording room, but it's not essential. It just offers a bit more natural damping. I've been in studios with laminate floors that work fine. They also make cleaning easier when someone inevitably ignores the sign about "no drinks" and spills one.
