Old 08-23-2012, 12:10 AM   #1
fatfro
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Default The importance of room acoustics

I really only have one room available to do my recording, editing, mixing, and mastering in. I still consider myself a beginner, but I have a few things under my belt. I have come to understand the importance of the room for recording and mixing. I am convinced that I should properly treat my room to get the best sound I can. It seems to me that most people make their mixing rooms less lively than their recording rooms. Am I right? In my situation where my room is forced to be both a recording space and mixing room, should I be aiming somewhere in the middle? Or should I just deaden the room? Does any one have a similar situation? Come on you know you do.
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Old 08-23-2012, 12:45 AM   #2
Nip
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I've been really lazy to do anything about the room, used both for recording and mixing. Partly because doing anything about 0-150hz really takes so much space. Low end is most difficult to get rid of resonances.

I don't see your point about making recording space less treated. I want it all as dead as possible - not having conflicting ambience to treat in the mix.

My focus right now is to decide about better monitors, with good abilities to adjust to room. Active nearfield monitors with many switches to adjust placement and narrow sweetspot making room less important.

Just as important is your listening position in the room. If in the node or trough in the low end. So some calculations on wavelength and stuff can help out. Just moving around in the room helps too.

I find books really well worth the money. One that really takes a large part talking about listening situation and environment is "Mixing secrets for the small studio" by Mike Senior. Really, really good.
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Old 08-23-2012, 01:32 AM   #3
RJHollins
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A well acoustically treated room does not mean a 'dead' room.

Done properly it is a 'Controlled' room.

My new control room is a RFZ design ... that includes plenty of treatment, including corner traps, wall absorption, and ceiling clouds.

It is the single BEST thing that I could have done.

Of course, I had a top professional design it for me.

Even though I still have additional 'tweaking' to do, the workability, and translation to the outside world [without having to guess], is nothing short of spectacular ... and very enjoyable !

Again, a 'dead' room could easily be considered a poorly treated one.
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Old 08-23-2012, 07:37 AM   #4
ramses
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Unless the room has an inviting ambience and sounds really good in itself I would err on the side of dead instead of lively. In my experience it's the lesser evil. Leave some reflecting surfaces though, it should not feel claustrophobic.
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Old 08-23-2012, 08:03 AM   #5
Norman Varney
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I would agree to lean on a slightly dead room, rather than too lively sound. Especially when the room is used for recording, as you cannot remove the sound of the room from the recording.

Note that the two most perceptual characteristics of a room are: 1) bass response as dictated by the room dimensions, placement of the listener, speaker and/or microphone. 2) Reverberation times. Ideally you want to control the reverberation times in a linear fashion across the audible bandwidth. Low frequencies are difficult to control. Most people end up over absorbing frequencies from about 500 Hz. and up, and do not address the frequencies below.
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Old 08-23-2012, 09:16 AM   #6
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Live music normally happens in "rooms" doesn't it?
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Old 11-18-2012, 11:53 AM   #7
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Question about room design as I proceed building up mine.

It seems like a good idea from the point of view of accessability and pragmatics to have my collection of guitars and other stringed instruments out and available (on racks, on the wall, etc.)

But what is the effect going to be when a bunch of SOUND is created by a musician being recorded, and the guitar strings (and bass and banjo strings) all start to resonate?

Should instruments be kept OUT of the performance room?
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