Room treatment : hi-fi vs studio

[Paul P[_3_]]

We've just bought a new house and I'm getting a room out of the
deal. I'm more of a musician than a sound guy and have put
together enough home-recording equipment to make decent recordings
(for my needs). I also enjoy listening to music, mostly classical
and some jazz, and have a reasonable sound system (NAD, KEF).

Now that I'll no longer be sharing the living room with the rest of
the family I'll be able to give the room some acoustic treatment.
My question is how the treatment might differ if it were being
optimized for recording or optimized for listening. Much like
the difference between studio monitors and hi-fi speakers.

I presume that things like bass traps would be beneficial in either
case to tame the room resonances (the new room is unfortunately a
box where my living room currently has a nice cathedral ceiling and
large openings and sounds pretty good without any treatment). The
new room is roughly 11' x 15' x 8', big bay window and one large
opening in one wall.

When listening to recorded music I like a bit of 'air' to the sound
and prefer it when some of the sound is bouncing off the wall behind
the speakers which I find gives the soundstage a lot more depth. But
this probably messes up the clarity some and might not be the best
for recording. I neither play nor listen at high volume so sound
proofing is not required.

By the way I never sit at my desk to record or to listen so the
speakers will be placed in hi-fi fashion out in the room. I often
record backing tracks to CD, bass and electronic drum, play them
through the sound system and play electric guitar on top of that.
I also play and record folksong type music, singing while playing
acoustic guitar.

Paul P

[William Sommerwerck]

Just wait until people start arguing about this...

Generally speaking, you want to keep the walls to the speakers' sides (and
to a lesser extent) behind them relatively dead, while the listening area
should remain more or less "live".

This is called LEDE (live end / dead end). The idea is to minimize
reflections where they would cause the worst colorations, while allowing the
listener to sit in an "immersive" ambient field.

[Jay Ts]

Paul P wrote:
> We've just bought a new house and I'm getting a room out of the deal.
> I'm more of a musician than a sound guy and have put together enough
> home-recording equipment to make decent recordings (for my needs).
>
> [...] I'll be able to give the room some acoustic treatment. My
> question is how the treatment might differ if it were being optimized
> for recording or optimized for listening. Much like the difference
> between studio monitors and hi-fi speakers.
>
> I presume that things like bass traps would be beneficial in either case
> to tame the room resonances (the new room is unfortunately a box where
> my living room currently has a nice cathedral ceiling and large openings
> and sounds pretty good without any treatment). The new room is roughly
> 11' x 15' x 8', big bay window and one large opening in one wall.

I am not a studio designer or acousics expert, so please take the
following lightly. I'm just going to tell you what's worked well for me
at my place.

Before adding furniture to the room, stand in the room with no noises to
bother you or reduce your hearing sensitivity, and clap your hands loud.
Listen to the reflections. Your bay window and large hole in one wall may
save you, but they are probably pretty nasty, because the sound bounces
off a wall to the parallel wall, back again, back again, etc. It's like
standing between two mirrors, and seeing into "infinity".
Fortunately, walls are not perfect sound reflectors. ;) You will probably
have far too much high frequencies bouncing around. You get used to them
in real life, but they can sound terrible on recordings in a small room
like the one you have.

As you add things to the room, the reflections will gradually diminish.
But if you do too much deadening, you will remove the room's natural
reverb, and it will sound too dead.

One thing you can think about is putting hangers on the wall, from which
to hang carpets or other textiles (a nice quilt, perhaps?). If you put
hangers all around the room, you can move the rugs around and listen to
the results. Things like that are good at deadening those high
frequencies, at least. And if you don't already have wall-to-wall
carpeting installed, consider some throw rugs. You might even have rugs
for the room that can go on the floor, or hang on the wall.

Or just add furniture to the room. In my living room, I put bookshelves
along one wall (the one that was causing most of the problems) and after
being filled up with books and other odd things, it deadend that side of
the room nicely. I have carpeting, that already deadened the ceiling-
floor reflections, and the other direction is longer and has vertical
blinds and other things to prevent excessive reflections. So adding that
bookshelf was all it took to tame the room.

Again, I'm not an expert, but I think you'll get good results for
listening just by doing things like that. For recording, one of the cheap
tricks used by home recordists is to find some mattresses (tell your wife
and kids they'll get their beds back later in the evening), and build a
little box around the performer. Or stand the mattresses up on end and
put them in various places in the room. Try out a configuration and use
the "clap test" (listen to recordings, not just live), to get a quick
feeling for the sound of the room, to evaluate the placements. If you get
something you like, do some recordings of music for further evaluation.

If you don't have enough mattresses, try some heavy blankets, hung from
the ceiling, assuming it will take it.

Jay Ts
--
To contact me, use this web page:
http://www.jayts.com/contact.php

[David Gravereaux]

Soundhaspriority wrote:
> "William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Just wait until people start arguing about this...
>>
>> Generally speaking, you want to keep the walls to the speakers' sides (and
>> to a lesser extent) behind them relatively dead, while the listening area
>> should remain more or less "live".
>>
>> This is called LEDE (live end / dead end). The idea is to minimize
>> reflections where they would cause the worst colorations, while allowing
>> the
>> listener to sit in an "immersive" ambient field.
>>
> This is so for a listening environment. But I think Paul would like his
> instrument(s) to be optimally reinforced by the environment, unless he is
> specifically seeking a dead room. So this brings about the question: How
> does one optimally reinforce a musical instrument? Undoubtedly different for
> each case. I've read that for cello, for example, floor bounce is very
> important.

I'm with William on use of LEDE concepts. It's worked great for me in
the past. Paying strong attention to modes in the room will also
pay-off. You can build your own traps for most optimum tuning. QRDs
can be built with hardwood. See <http://www.pmerecords.com/Diffusor.cfm>

Rooms that are wider than deep have tended to turn-out better for me,
but speaker location is usually determined the sides that lack windows ;)

Consider a hanging ceiling with acoustic tile to damp the ceiling with
throw rugs on the floor that are removable when your bongo guy wants to
lay down some tracks.


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[philicorda[_7_]]

On Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:35:29 -0400, Soundhaspriority wrote:

> "Jay Ts" > wrote in message
> .com...
>
> Very good advice.
>
> Someone else (Scott Dorsey?) previously mentioned that there should be a
> rug under the microphone. I try to attenuate floor bounce on the way to
> the mike.
>
> But there is one thing which I find very hard to control -- lower
> midrange room resonances. These can reinforce an instrument, or color it
> unpleasantly. I find I have to use close miking more than I wish.

Are you building songs by multi tracked recordings, or getting a single
live performance?

If it's multi track then it can be good to use different rooms for
different parts. Even if they all have resonances then it does not seem
to sound so bad if they are spread around a bit. It actually helps for
separation and giving each sound a bit of character.

Learning to get the most out of the limited acoustic spaces I have has
improved my recordings more than any equipment. It's taken me a while to
be able to reasonably predict what's going to happen before picking a
space and setting up mics/headphones etc. You have to have some kind of
idea about how the different spaces are going to fit together before you
start!

I've found that even with close micing, though you get less of the
ambience, the characteristics of the space still seems to affect the
recording. Eg, my one dead and treated room still sucks some low end from
a guitar amp even if the mic is right up on the speaker.

Sometimes using omni mics quite close can be good if you really don't
like the space. You still get the room, but omnis seem to make it more
'ignorable' and you don't get so much proximity effect. Somewhat the same
with ribbon mics fig8 patterns. Even though you get more room, the
ambience can sound less weird and coloured than a close cardioid. I have
no idea why. Perhaps if you give the listener a clean enough recording
with enough information to work with they can use their ears to tune out
the nasties. Perhaps hearing the slap off a wall helps us separate the
ambience from the instrument?


>
> Hank, do you have anything to add, as to how to position a guitar in a
> residential room?
>
> Bob Morein
> (310) 237-6511

[[email protected]]

On 2009-06-16 said:
>> But there is one thing which I find very hard to control -- lower
>> midrange room resonances. These can reinforce an instrument, or
>>color it unpleasantly. I find I have to use close miking more
>than I wish.
>Are you building songs by multi tracked recordings, or getting a
>single live performance?
>If it's multi track then it can be good to use different rooms for
>different parts. Even if they all have resonances then it does not
>seem to sound so bad if they are spread around a bit. It actually
>helps for separation and giving each sound a bit of character.

I would agree with this. Back when I lived in IOwa I used
to use the same space as I used for control room as my
acoustic guitar playing venue. Big vaulted ceiling with an
areas under the stairway and landing going to second floor.
I could set up on a stool in the entry hall near the stairs
and have all htat space. WAs a fairly decent mixinf
environment too, as I"d set up toward the back of what was
supposed to be dining room, my back to the living room at
the front of the house when at mix position, plenty of room
for things to develop.

FOr electronic instruments through amps I might use one of
the upstairs bedrooms, and my dormered attic which was quite
dead for vocals. Worked quite well.

DIdn't have that luxury in NEw ORleans in the townhouse.
Downstairs was impossible to get a good recording, even with
those high ceilings etc. TOo much noise from outside crept
in. UPstairs the rooms just wouldn't cooperate, not good
sounding without more work than I could afford to put into
them.


>Learning to get the most out of the limited acoustic spaces I have
>has improved my recordings more than any equipment. It's taken me a
>while to be able to reasonably predict what's going to happen
>before picking a space and setting up mics/headphones etc. You have
>to have some kind of idea about how the different spaces are going
>to fit together before you start!
Indeed you do. By the time we moved out of that house in
southern Iowa I knew every room in that house quite well,
and how it would act with various instruments and
microphones.




Richard webb,
replace anything before at with elspider

[hank alrich]

Soundhaspriority > wrote:

> "Jay Ts" > wrote in message
> .com...
>
> Very good advice.
>
> Someone else (Scott Dorsey?) previously mentioned that there should be a rug
> under the microphone. I try to attenuate floor bounce on the way to the
> mike.
>
> But there is one thing which I find very hard to control -- lower midrange
> room resonances. These can reinforce an instrument, or color it
> unpleasantly. I find I have to use close miking more than I wish.
>
> Hank, do you have anything to add, as to how to position a guitar in a
> residential room?

Belatedly, rooms are all over the sonic map depending on dimensions,
ratios thereof, configuration of openings like doors, furnishings, and
so forth. It's trite to suggest using one's ears, but that's what seems
to work best - experimenting in the room with various postions and
styles of playing, recording the results and listening critically.

Sometimes you want that sound bouncing off the floor, and sometimes you
don't. Rugs can help attenuate it. If a floor is already carpeted and a
room seems not lively enough, putting a sheet of good plywood (A/C or
better, 3/4") on the floor can help.

One key thing for me is generally to avoid positioning myself and the
instrument in the middle of the room, particularly if the room is square
or almost so. Moving to the side, slightly toward but not deeply into a
corner, and angling into the room such that boundaries are pretty much
at varying distances helps balance the contributions of the various
surfaces, keeping them spread over time instead of all arriving at once.

Selection of mic(s), patterns, and positioning all contribute,
obviously, but lots of folks don't seem to experiment much with the
details of this. Consider what you don't want the mic(s) to hear and how
your position in the room affects their relationship to that versus how
they're going to hear the instrument.

Carpet can be a good thing. My music room is roughly 19' x 21', with a
loft at one end, and a 12/12 ceiling starting about 9' up the sidewalls.
It had a bare wooden floor on which I'd put throw rugs for some
attentuation. I've made some good recordings in it, but it wasn't always
as easy as I'd have liked. One wall is mostly windows, all the way up.
Positioning of sources and mic placement was critical to getting tracks
that didn't sound muddy or as if they were cut in a cave.

Last summer while I was in Texas for months my family undertook a
remodal, one which included many elements I'd had in mind, including
carpeting and good padding over the whole floor. The improvement is
remarkable. The first time Shaidri and I started playing and singing in
the room after the makeover we were immediately impressed with the
greater clarity. For our low SPL acoustic string instruments and vocals
the room is now quite a lot of fun. The lower midrange mud is gone and
overall sonic balance is quite good.

(They also built me a humidifiable closet for the string instruments,
which has smoothed their living conditions, seeing as how it is often
very arid here. Opening a door and grabbing something to play is much
more fun than dragging out a case, opening it, blah blah, and leaving
instruments out to play wasn't a good idea. Then they also buiolt
closets outside the room for all the cases, so those no longer lurk
under the piano, and all the cable and stands not in use, etc., also got
stashed there. This was all a hell of a wonderful surprise.)

--
ha
shut up and play your guitar

[hank alrich]

philicorda > wrote:

> I've found that even with close micing, though you get less of the
> ambience, the characteristics of the space still seems to affect the
> recording. Eg, my one dead and treated room still sucks some low end from
> a guitar amp even if the mic is right up on the speaker.
>
> Sometimes using omni mics quite close can be good if you really don't
> like the space. You still get the room, but omnis seem to make it more
> 'ignorable' and you don't get so much proximity effect. Somewhat the same
> with ribbon mics fig8 patterns. Even though you get more room, the
> ambience can sound less weird and coloured than a close cardioid.

Something thing that I have found really helpful is use of gobos
(baffles) to block the room sound's path to the mic(s). This can help
regardless of mic quality or pattern. You learn to identify the
reflective cause of some detrimental aspect of the recorded sound, and
then intercept that reflection with a gobo. McQ is a wiz at that.

--
ha
shut up and play your guitar

[david gourley]

(Richard Nowebb) put forth the
notion :

> On Mon 2037-Jun-29 14:35, hank alrich (1:3634/1000) wrote to All:
>
> ha> Something thing that I have found really helpful is use of gobos
> ha> (baffles) to block the room sound's path to the mic(s). This can
> ha> help regardless of mic quality or pattern. You learn to identify the
> ha> reflective cause of some detrimental aspect of the recorded sound,
> ha> and then intercept that reflection with a gobo. McQ is a wiz at
> ha> that.
>
> Gobos are easily enough built in one's own workshop too.
>
> ONe thing I like to do with gobos is build them so that one
> side is reflective while the other is not.
> HERe again, if anybody has some of Malcolm Chisholm's old
> articles he describes a method of gobo construction using
> hinges and door pulls, and caster wheels. POsition 'em
> where you want, they fold flat for storage. NO good studio
> should be without them.
>
> Regards,
> Richard
> --
>| Fidonet: Richard Nowebb 1:116/901
>| Internet:
>| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
>| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

Here are some, relocated to another site-

http://malcolm.bignoisybug.com/rsdp/


david

[Richard Nowebb]

On Mon 2037-Jun-29 14:35, hank alrich (1:3634/1000) wrote to All:

ha> Something thing that I have found really helpful is use of gobos
ha> (baffles) to block the room sound's path to the mic(s). This can
ha> help regardless of mic quality or pattern. You learn to identify the
ha> reflective cause of some detrimental aspect of the recorded sound,
ha> and then intercept that reflection with a gobo. McQ is a wiz at
ha> that.

Gobos are easily enough built in one's own workshop too.

ONe thing I like to do with gobos is build them so that one
side is reflective while the other is not.
HERe again, if anybody has some of Malcolm Chisholm's old
articles he describes a method of gobo construction using
hinges and door pulls, and caster wheels. POsition 'em
where you want, they fold flat for storage. NO good studio
should be without them.

Regards,
Richard
--
| Fidonet: Richard Nowebb 1:116/901
| Internet:
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Richard Nowebb[_2_]]

On Mon 2037-Jun-29 19:25, david gourley wrote:
>> HERe again, if anybody has some of Malcolm Chisholm's old
>> articles he describes a method of gobo construction using
>> hinges and door pulls, and caster wheels. POsition 'em
>> where you want, they fold flat for storage. NO good studio
>> should be without them.
> Here are some, relocated to another site-

> http://malcolm.bignoisybug.com/rsdp/

Worth a look for all the newbies. NO web access reliably
these days but would love to have some of those. Some of
the wit and wisdom they include is priceless, especially for the newcomers to this art/science, etc.

Thanks DAvid!

Regards,
Richard
--
| Fidonet: Richard Nowebb 1:116/901
| Internet:
| \\---> Pull YourHead out to reply via email. <---//
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site