Why

[Sonixx]

Why do so many with small recording spaces make it even worse by partitioning the space further...

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

They have nowhere else to replicate except inward.
fitz

[knightfly]

It's the "Negative Helix" syndrome - Flying in ever-decreasing circles, until you finally disappear up your own ass...

Or, like the old Polish joke - Waiter - "Do you want your pizza cut into 6 pieces, or 8?"

Customer - "Better cut it in 6, I'm not sure I can eat 8 pieces of pizza..."

Seriously, good question. I guess it's just the perversity of human nature, doesn't often make good sense... Steve

[Sonixx]

Hey... some of you that have garages or attics or whereever and you've made it even smaller (more problematic) by creating tracking rooms or booths, why... i've seen a lot of energy spent on fixing small rooms when the answer may be tearing down the walls you have.

i'm asking because i had my basement subdivided for several years, and now I've dismanttled it and I've moved to one room. The largest room I had before was about 2000 cuft. now I'm looking at about 8000cuft and the improvement is significant... especially my listening environment and when mixing. the separation and imaging is like night and day.

if you're considereing subdividing your space, think again...

[laptoppop]

One reason is if you prefer to use monitors instead of headphones while the artist is tracking. One "bigger" (I won't say big) room means its headphones for everyone. For me, its a bit easier to find a sweetspot for the microphone with the speakers, but I can live with headphones.

-lee-

[John Sayers]

Sonixx - I hear what you are saying - it's due to the fact that a bigger room has longer and weaker 1st reflections coming back at the listener so your speakers and the room sound better BUT if a smaller room is properly treated it can sound just as good. Having a separate recording room has a lot of advantages going for it, I suppose you have to track drums with headphones ?? have to wait for playback to hear what it sounds like??

cheers
john

[Sonixx]

John... I wouldn't begin to argue against your experience. I feel this to be true though... most if not all really small home studios are not treated correctly or even close and the owners have made the situation even worse by dividing the volume further. Of course, I have no way prove my point, but I know my experience with treating small rooms, and it's no easy chore.

I do know this, my larger room has required significantly less treatment. It's not where I want it to be, I'll probably never be satisfied totally... like my recordings, but the separation and imaging was immediately perceivable.

Everything involves tradeoffs, and I've found that the tradeoff of separate smaller rooms for monitoring during tracking does not outweigh the benefit of a better tracking room and better room for mixing.

-kp-

[TexRoadkill]

I'm working in one room that is 17'x31x8' and I can't imagine trying to work with much less. It is a slight inconvenience for tracking but not that big of a deal. The main problem is trying to kill all the fan noise from my Radar. I may end up putting it in a different room but I don't really want to snake 48 channels back and forth. I just scored some 703 so hopefully I can isolate it well enough.

If things keep going and it looks like I can make a few bucks I may find a better property or buy this house and add on a good tracking room.