Big bare empty room...how to tame this beast??

  • Thread starter Thread starter jhadbaisley
  • Start date Start date
Buy a book, read it and place it on a shelf. Ignore all advice you have been given here. Repeat this process for ten years. You will now have a ghetto diffuser that will work almost as good as egg cartons. Sweet!

Keep on truckin hippie! (not meant to judge)
 
Big Boss man was recorded with only the curtains on the 2 windows.I used a Audio Technica AT440 with a windscreen.The drums,I used an Alesis drum machine on.The guitars were input directly into the mixer with an ART FXR Delay unit patched in.The bass was recorded through an amp using the same mic."It's Up To You" was the most tracks since I did all the backup singing.The horns were produced using a GR-1 guitar
synth.:o
 
Yeah Kenny, as I thought. Room treatment means nothing when you record direct. As well there is a whole different paradigm for treating mixing rooms as opposed to tracking rooms. You didn't say if you did the mixing or what equipment you have for that. Your stuff sounded okay to me but I'm no pro at this - others may find faults.

Anyway real acoustic treatment is a lot more substantial than burlap curtains.
 
Sky Blue Lou said:
Yeah Kenny, as I thought. Room treatment means nothing when you record direct. As well there is a whole different paradigm for treating mixing rooms as opposed to tracking rooms. You didn't say if you did the mixing or what equipment you have for that. Your stuff sounded okay to me but I'm no pro at this - others may find faults.

Anyway real acoustic treatment is a lot more substantial than burlap curtains.
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Exactly 100%. I didn't bother listening because I knew it was probably not real drums being recorded, and i was pretty sure I was going to hear something with very few real instruments, which proves nothing. Besides, I didn't want to turn the thread into a personal battle between people comparing music with each other, since that wasn't the point.

The point is that, curtains, carpets and egg crates have NOTHING to do with proper room treatment, as I said in my first response to those useless things being suggested as "room treatment". I record all real instruments, including drums. I, and anyone who records real instruments would never use crappy materials to treat a room for recording, and especially mixing, and expect anything good to come out of it.
 
:D

OP...check out GIK's or Ethan's goodz on this stuff.
Lots of good info to be had.

:drunk:
 
Hi jhadbaisley, regarding the comments about carpets, egg cartons and curtains, these do act as absorbers of sound but at specific frequencies.

A quick example: the room you are wanting to treat will have some inherent problems because of its size because its dimensions will have a mathematical relationship to certain frequencies. If you leave this untreated, you will hear a boom, an echo, an exaggeration of this and related frequencies, causing you to EQ your mix to compensate, which will now sound wrong when played in a room with different sound characteristics. Carpet, curtains and egg boxes will absorb some sound but how do you know that the frequencies thex absorb are the frequencies you need to treat? I hope you are not confused by that but see the need to follow the wise advice above.
 
Capriccio said:
Hi jhadbaisley, regarding the comments about carpets, egg cartons and curtains, these do act as absorbers of sound but at specific frequencies.
Click to expand...

True but most of the problems lie in the low end. Carpets, egg cartons and curtains don't do anything for the low end.

Think of the low end as being a freight train and the mids and highs being the unsuspecting squirrel on the tracks. :p
That train just runs all over the furry little fellow and doesn't even think twice.

Same thing with the lows. Much more powerful than the upper registers. So the idea is to treat the problem areas...which is the bass frequencies that are stompin the shit outta your highs and giving a very skewed picture of what's really goin on.

and don't forget the lava lamp. :)
 
I was considering buying a preamp as my next "big purchase" but after reading the stuff here on this thread it seems to me that I can get more bang for the buck with acoustic treatment. I especially liked the Realtraps articles. I've yet to go the GIK site.

Thanks dudes
 
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