Real Bass Traps in CR, foam bass traps in LR

[RecordingMaster]

Hey acoustics guys!

This goes out to anyone with good knowledge and experience with acoustics. I myself have learned a lot over the past couple years about acoustics and am very well aware of how important bass trapping is for not only your Control Room, but the Room you Record in. I have taken the right precautions in treating my spaces the best i can. My current control room and live room are treated to avoid the nasty reflections, as well as have some bass trapping. In my other larger live room I use (basically I convert my untreated bar room for bigger things like drums or really loud amps) has no treatment other than portable baffles I'll bring in to treat somewhat around the source I am recording. I do have one single portable bass trap I keep in there on a table, straddling a nearby corner to the source, which is 4" thick of OC705. I've not heard anything on the raw tracks that tells me I should have used more bass traps in the live room (other than perhaps the toms can be a little boomy before eq but thats probably because I tune them that way and am close micing). The room is about 20x15.

So riddle me this...what, in your experience, have you noticed on a raw track that demonstrates the need for bass trapping in a live room? Really boomy drums or guitar amps? Way too much muddy "room" sound in the recording? Or perhaps the absence of bass traps isn't giving off the sound of "too boomy or muddy" but perhaps the lack of bass trapping is causing the source sound to cancel out at certain frequencies which the mic is also not picking up? I think THAT is the one thing I'd worry about the most. But if all sound fine going in, I guess there no sense worrying.

The reason why I ask is because I am currently looking for a new place, and when i do find it, it'll have ample room in a high enough basement where i can have a similar sized live room and a control room which i will sector off. I am basically budgeting the build and materials I will need to do a complete studio redo from the ground up. I'd rather toss my old 4" thick foam panels I have in the main live room and go fiberglass for the broadbands, as well as save whatever fiberglass I am using currently. But it's expensive. So here's what I am thinking I'd like to do, but not sure if it's a stupid idea....Have the control room very well trapped with 4-6" rockwool in all 4 corners, floor to ceiling, then the usual broadband trap locations on walls and ceiling. Then the live room will have a few broadband traps around strategically, and pretty much the same amount of diffuser panels on the cheap. Like the Auralex Metrofusors. I have a bunch of foam corner bass traps currently in my live room and due to my explanation above above, I'm thinking I could get by with having only foam bass traps from floor to ceiling in each corner.

Is it worth even doing that or do you think I'm creating more problems rather then just leaving the corner more "live"? Since those things don't do much below 200hz, I'd worry I'd only be trapping the low-mid mud and mid boxiness, but doing nothing to the extra lows, making it come across as bassier and boomier sounding due to everything else being under control.

So what do you think?

Sorry about the long explanation, but I wanted to include all the details and thinking here. Thanks in advance!

[Ethan Winer]

With close-miked sources, bass trapping is less necessary in a live room. But more distant drum overheads would benefit, and the sound in the room the band hears is hugely compromised by bad acoustics. If the sound to them is boomy and muddy, they'll have a hard time playing their best.

--Ethan

[RAMI]

foam corner bass traps

Isn't that an oxymoron?

[GIK Acoustics]

Isn't that an oxymoron?

According to our tests, it does seem to be! Comparing Acoustic Foam to GIK 244 Bass Traps

[RecordingMaster]

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Yes I guess it is, you clever rascal, you. I know they aren't real "bass traps". Hence the title of the post.

But then again, I'm sure someone else will trot along and start telling me the "real bass traps" I described aren't effective below 100hz or something.

[RecordingMaster]

With close-miked sources, bass trapping is less necessary in a live room. But more distant drum overheads would benefit, and the sound in the room the band hears is hugely compromised by bad acoustics. If the sound to them is boomy and muddy, they'll have a hard time playing their best.

--Ethan

Thanks Ethan. That all makes sense to me. The only thing I'd be curious about is actually throwing the band into a treated live room like the one I described above and see how they play. Since musicians are most commonly playing in less than ideal locations, one could assume that they'd be used to that. Not only that, but 9 times out of ten, they're wearing headphones. I guess all rooms are different though, and doing my above treatment to thew live room may in fact change it from what they're used to in a bad way (for rehearsals and such when headphones aren't involved), over-amplifying only the rumble.