How to fix up a room.

R

Rhino_Rick

New member
So I'm about to record the local band I'm with again. Drums and bass (direct) first. Last time we did it things came out ok, this time we're hoping for much better. I've read up on some technique, we're going to rent some hotter mics and we're all totally geeked abot this.

However,

The basement we're recording in doesn't sound very good. I've been in pro studios before and love the feeling of playing my horn and not feeling it coming back except for in my phones. It's so dead and cool and I'm sure that's the way it's supposed to be.

Does anyone have some suggestions for a temporary way to fix a bad room up for recording? We can't build a studio in the basement with foam as the drummers parents would drop a load, but there has to be some way to half-ass this.

Also, has anyone ever TRIED this?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

-Rhino Rick
 
Carpeting, burlap, blankets, or comforters can be used on the walls as temporary absorption material.

If you're playing in a medium or large unfinished basement you'll have to make the best of it.
 
carpet pading. sure it will look taky but it will sound great. it makes any room sound good'n dead. i got enough to do my hole room. carpet stores just throw this stuff away, so you can get it at a carpet store for free or real cheap. i got my mom(hee,hee) to

cut the pading down into 2 by 3' sheets and i posted them on the walls. then we cut the rest into sheets about 3 by 10' and posted them on the sealing. then we got some carpet and put down. and the sound was great!
 
Find out where people throw away their old bed matresses. get hold of some and you can stand them on end to make fairly decent screens to surround singers or guitarists while recording accoustic guitar. This month's Sound On Sound has a whole feature on this.
 
Wow! I didn't know there were anymore Horn players on this Forum! Whats your horn Rhino Rick? Mines a Trombone in a Ska band, but I do guitar, vocals, bass, drums etc too.
 
Try sleeping on piss stained matresses that the dorm gives you. Every one of em is stained, and yet I don't know anyone who's pissed in their bed, drunk or no. I think the university stains em over the summer.
 
Hi guys, thanks for the replies!

The carpet padding suggestion idea is totally doable. We've got some ins with some carpet people (scary isn't it) so we'll probably try that route first.

Neil:

I'm a tenor sax player by trade but I'm working on getting some hammond chops going. I recently acquired a XB-2 and a Leslie 145 and I'm in the process of getting some choppage going. The Leslie is a total riot to record, it sounds sooo cool!

Your a bone man? Off topic, but how do you record yours? I've got a strong bone player next to me but everytime she plays a good solid line it clips the hell out of our SM58. Is there a different angle we're supposed to put it on? She's been playing about a foot or more off the mic and pointing it up at her bell.

How irritating!

Thanks guys..
 
In the back of a recording magazine I saw that there are "Sound Absorbing Blankets" - they were pretty cheap ($20) and a pretty good size too. Dont remember what they were called tho ... anyone have any experience with these?
 
Rhino_Rick said:

I've got a strong bone player next to me but everytime she plays a good solid line it clips the hell out of our SM58. Is there a different angle we're supposed to put it on? She's been playing about a foot or more off the mic and pointing it up at her bell.
Click to expand...

I use a Sennheiser e604 about a foot from the bell, off centre, but pointed toward the bell and it seems to work fine without clipping. An SM57 would work well too. If your using a 58 (like I used to) I found you get better bass response if you take off the pop-shield. I think some other people in other threads have mentioned this before. It gives it that much more of a beefier sound.
If this doesn't work-She'd have to be a very loud, strong player though (not that thats a bad thing), you'd have to use a compressor or something similar. I'm not an expert on compressors.
Hope I've helped, Rick.
What sort of line up do you have in your band? What sort of influences? It's just interesting to hear from someone else recording Ska.
 
placing Carpet, Carpet Padding, etc... will only cause problems. these products do not touch frequencies below 500Hz and will cause significant low end problems and will cause the room to have a very uneven reverb or decay time. With the carpet, the room may sound dead, but the low end below 500hz won't be.

what's the room's dimensions, wall coverings and flooring?

i would suggest a LEDE (Live-End-Dead-End) treatment like aproach and only cover about half or less of two adjoining walls. this will be a very economical aproach. you really don't want an anechoic chamber and you'll never get there across the frequency spectrum anyways.

consider using R19 and some 1x8's and burlap. build a 4'X6' frame with 1X8's (brace it for stability) and fill it with unfaced R19. then staple the burlap to cover the insulation. build several of these and sit them on something, evenly spaced along each wall, about a foot off the floor and about a foot out from the wall on two adjoining walls (width wall and length wall).

the R19 will give you good coverage down to 500Hz easy and placing them out from the wall will extend the coverage down significanty.

start out with several of these and add more if needed. you can also use these for spot coverage.

you'll get a much more even decay time with this than with carpet, matresses, etc... and these treatments are a lot more useful, flexible and economical.

regards,
-keith welchel-
 
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