Why seperate rooms?

M

musikman316

New member
Why multiple rooms, I have always been a fan of setting up in a warehouse and just recording. I find the "Control Room", "Live Room", "Vocal Booth" so anti creative?

Just wondering what everyone else thought.

Later,
Musik
 
It may be fine for home recordists who pretty much encounter only one type of recording scenario (themselves, maybe with a couple of others)... but in a commercial situation, where one encounters many varied recording scenarios, the flexibility of a variety of ambient environments and the ability to isolate one sound from another becomes critical....
 
oi blue bear, i have to admit your post count is intense. i just noticed it. i think in my past 12 months of relative hibernation on this site you have posted around 4000 posts. impressive. also impressive is your new setup. for musikman316, take this scenario. You record drums in the same room as electric guitar your drum take is fabulous, played perfect but the guitar take has a big mischord somewhere. Now if your isolation isn't good enough, like in the overheads then you could end up with some unwanted dissonance. Even worse, what if you change the key of the song later? You have to resetup the drums and retrack if you have out of key bass and electric guitar in there. what if you put a crazy effect on the guitar and there is some snare leak into it? now you have a weird sound coming on every 2 and 4 of the guitar track that you don't like. i mean the opportunities are endless why it is better. small dense rooms, large live rooms, medium choir rooms. whatever you want.
 
Okay, Blue Bear, I'm not a home recordist, but don't worry I haven't taken offense, this is the homerecording.com board :)

I am a freelance engineer and have worked in this manner for a while and love it! The idea of isolation wore me out, I hated the feeling of studios, it was so hospital like! I love the feeling of being in a huge open space, and with some gobos, sheets, blankets and various other "acoustic" material you can achieve any sound you want.

But of course I swear by tape, so that sort of puts me in a different situation than most these days.

This is really a concept I stole from Daniel Lanois. He started making records this way in the late 70s/early 80s. This is how U2s "Unforgettable Fire" was recorded. A genius album if you ask me.

I have even used this type of setup to mix, and to my surprise it worked out great. I still like the advantages of using an acoustically controlled environment, but if it comes down to cash, I'd do it again.

The reason I started working in this manner was because of something Eddie Kramer told me: "If you want a great drum sound and you don't have a multi-million dollar studio, set up your drums in the largest space you can find and throw up some mics." I mean, the guy did record Led Zep. outside with the Stone's Mobile truck (plane's soaring overhead and all).

This is also a great way to record your band if you don't have a bunch of money, you can get together some basic gear, borrow some gear from friends and rent the rest from someplace like Dream Hire, and for about $2,000 you can have a damn nice setup and track an album over the span of a week. And you can usually find a space to record in that isn't being used, just check with your city.

Anyone else have anything to say about this subject, it's something that really intrigues me.

Later,
musik
 
Whatever works.

However, one can still get the benefit of "warehouse acoustics" and have an isolated control room. If your control room is not isolated from the talent you really can't hear what the tape hears. That can be distracting in some cases.

On the other hand if you’re accustomed to it and are getting good results, who can argue with that?

:cool:
 
musikman316 said:
Okay, Blue Bear, I'm not a home recordist, but don't worry I haven't taken offense, this is the homerecording.com board :)
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I'm not sure why you thought I was somehow trying to offend you - I was answering your question about why multiple rooms are a benefit from MY perspective.

I'm not saying you should do it one way or the other --- all I'm saying is that for a working studio, the flexibility of either/or is necessary to handle all the different types of recording that goes on...

In my place I handle everything from live-off-the-floor demos to singer/songwriter guitarists to jazz bands to rock bands to voice-over work...

Each has different recording requirements in terms of different room ambiences and isolation needs.

If you're a free-lancing engineer, you hardly need to worry about it because you'll go to whichever studio gives you the environment you need for the project at hand.
 
I wasn't implying that you were trying to offend me, trust me, I know that you wouldn't come onto the board and be a dick. I was just stating my place as easy as I thought possible.

I do agree that freelancing offers me the ability to site behind a Ghost LE one day and an SSL the next, and I use this to my advantage, but I still think the benefits of having a band and engineer in close quarters outway the negative affect.

In response to the issue of hearing the band, I wear isolation headphones, and it works damn well, I was a bit iffy about this myself when I first started working like this, but I have become accustomed to wear cans when tracking. One thing i will say is that I can't wait until I finish my mix space... I could mix in a situation with gobo's and it works, but once I have my own space I can help lower costs for bands and I know exactly how the room is going to react.

Anyone else ever recorded like this?

Later,
musik
 
I've got a uniroom facility, but that is due to funding and the fact I do a lot of solo recording.

I'm not sure this point was stressed enought, but the seperate (sic) rooms are important for hearing exactly what the mic hears. The engineer can listen in the control room (hence the name) and hear the character of the mic, room and drums without hearing the real drums bias his/her impression.

In the one room scenario, we can move the mic a bit, record a bit, listen, then repeat until we get the perfect combination.

Also, I think there are very different acoustic considerations for control vs. tracking room.

That said, the one big room vibe is pretty great.
 
I've been doing one room recordings for a few months now and it has it's advantages and disadvantages. It would be nice to have some isolation but unless you have an assistant to move the mics you still end up doing all your mic placement with headphones. Whether you do your critical checks while they play or just record a few bars and listen afterwards it's all the same.

Doing everything in one room does make it a little easier to be more creative and flexible because you aren't limited by distance or patching ability. It also makes it more like being part of the band then being the engineer behind the glass. If you are also producing that can be beneficial.

I would still like a nice multiroom facility but it's definately not a must have. Given a choice between a killer sounding big room and small isolated rooms I'll take the big room anyday.
 
Why multiple rooms, I have always been a fan of setting up in a warehouse and just recording. I find the "Control Room", "Live Room", "Vocal Booth" so anti creative?

Just wondering what everyone else thought.
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If you have a studio with different rooms, generally they are treated differently. You might have one live room thats really life, you might have a second live room thats sorta live, and a vocal booth thats as dead as can be, so you can record the vocals as dry as possible so any editing doesn't modify reverberation and other artifacts associated with a live room.

For my home studio, I can't afford the space for several rooms, so I've made the vocal booth large enough for a drum kit, or a digital piano, or a vocalist. I'm going to make the room as dead as possible, then add environmental effects in the mix (reverb, delay, etc). By doing this, the console room is much larger, which makes for a comfortable workspace for me.

The other advantage of multiple rooms is you can lay tracks from drums, guitar, and bass at the same time (for example), using headphones for foldback, and not having the guitar mic pick up the drumkit. In the "one huge room" scenario you may run into placement issues, especially if the "sound" people are after requires "loud", such as metal god wannabe's with marshall amps :-D
 
I know that you wouldn't come onto the board and be a dick.
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Why not? I do.:D Like multiple rooms. Depends on the source;) Hey, all kiddin aside, I've ALWAYS wanted multiple rooms, but spit in one hand and wish in the other ya know. So as far as home recordings are concerned, one room is all I've ever had. And you know what. I've been pleased with the results, even though my recording experience is less than a lot of you, it doesn't matter to me. I record for the sheer enjoyment of the experience. Its capturing the music of the moment that is important to me, and my collection of years of recording myself and my friends has given us endless hours of laughs, gawks, oohs, ahhs and a few...."burn that motha". I get more pleasure out of listening to these old tapes, regardless of the hiss, cracks, laughs, pops, blank spots and what have you, than listening to anything on the radio anymore. ESPECIALLY since every recording out there in the mainstream is not the type of music I enjoy.
Sure, everybody wants to make studio quality recordings and yea, the pros here help a lot in reaching that goal. And if your recording clients, thats your job. But for me, its all about the music, fun, laughs, and the playback for those friends a year, or 10 later. I wouldn't trade those tapes for an SSL. And they were all done in one room.
But IF, I were in a position to build a facility to record for hire, I'd build a multiple room scenario in a heartbeat. I mean, how else are you going to monitor how the studio sounds unless you are isolated from it, in a monitoring environment that doesn't influence what your monitors are telling you. But in reality, I wouldn't know that for a fact, because all I've ever had is one room and some of the recordings made in it is downright pleasant. Some of it is, well lets put it this way.......eck. But afterall, thats home recording. Well you asked for .02, thats mine.
fitZ
 
I'm new to the board , this is a great place. I've been doing recordings since 65' 4trk 1/2 inch, now use adat, the reason I came here was for the ada info from the digital gurus (you might be some), just finished building a studio/the shed outback with 4 rooms and like someone else here I'm using the drum booth for a dead vocal spot, have a control room (both with angled glass) and out back my motorcycle shop haha I've been doing some research on the wall treatments, is this slat over fabric really a good sonic absorber with double walls? I've broke up the big room into alot of surface angles. Anyway I'll try to attach a sketch and I've got to say whether it's live or controlled, music is a good life. If anyone has any experience with this acoustic issue let me know.
 

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Todzilla said:


I'm not sure this point was stressed enought, but the seperate (sic) rooms are important for hearing exactly what the mic hears. The engineer can listen in the control room (hence the name) and hear the character of the mic, room and drums without hearing the real drums bias his/her impression.
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This to me is the big issue, especially when working with loud mic'ed sources like drums and guitar amps. You get it sounding great in the room but who knows what you are getting on tape.

I would say my bias is for 1 great sounding room, with the option of other rooms for either bleed issues, or creative reasons (getting something different). I also am coming to the realization that I prefer rooms that naturally sound good - older buildings, rooms not originally designed for recording. Then you can treat it temporarily. I am finding this in my own house I recently bought. There is room in the backyard to replace an old shed with a very sizable studio & 2 car garage. That plan scares me to death. Spending money creating a room that could turn out not sounding great.

Alternately, I am currently working in a spare bedroom, that sounds decent. But have easy access to small bathrooms (vocals and shimmery guitars), other bedrooms and closets (amp isolation), a 13x26 room with 10 foot ceilings, and an hall/foyer with 20' ceilings. And they sound great as is, and serve other functions by day, sotospeak. Obviously not ideal for a regularly booked studio, but good for my needs.
 
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