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Home Studio in a Creaky Big City Apartment // PLEASE HELP

Y'all, I'm going crazy here, and I need some serious advice about setting up a home studio. Here are the facts:

my apartment (in Chicago) creaks
my closet has little more than 3.5 square feet of floor space (not a square, either--see below) and a rack jutting out that would be fine if I were half a foot shorter
the closet is about 7'4" tall
I don't know how long I'll stay here, so I can't make permanent changes (the rack is painted into the closet)
my budget is pretty damn low

What I need from you:

suggestions on how to make this studio (closet) work
opinions on the sound quality of the audition I recorded yesterday: Morgan_Bailey_BestMovieContest2.mp3

I'm aware that the mic (a Samson C01U) is not broadcast quality. What projects would you deem this mic to be worthy of? Do I need to shell out some cash?? Luckily, the neighborhood is quiet. The apartment (if I catch it between bouts of heat) is pretty quiet during the day.

How can I make this work?

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Permalink Reply by TJ Jones on February 11, 2011 at 3:55pm

Well, a pint of paint, a brush and some sandpaper are pretty cheap, I'd say break the rack free of the paint, sand and touch up where it was, and proceed from there. Hang some furniture blankets and you're all set.

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Permalink Reply by Don Mitchell Jones on February 23, 2011 at 10:17am

Yes, i've done some blanket hanging along the way too! That'll getcha by. Also you might want to do a little google search and research or a good "expander/gate" plugin for what ever your recording software is. I prefer not using any of that and having the mic pull in everything it can for all it's blessed ability. However sometimes this doesn't work in the real world.

The "gate" will close the chain for audio between syllables and whatnot as to eliminate some or sometimes most strange ambient sound and wacky echoes that may be bouncing off of the walls. Trick is to find the perfect setting as to not have it cut off ends of words or tug and pull. (basically to have it work but not be able to tell when you play back)

It may take you a bit of time to find the perfect setting, but if you wind up doing v/o while traveling, it's a great skill set to have in your arsenal.

Here's a link to some free one's (disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer) Travel at your own risk here!

http://www.wavosaur.com/vst/noise-gate-plugins.php

Happy recording!

Don