Big room big sound?

[UkuDougE]

Hello everybody,
Let me start of by saying hello, this is my first post. I've been lurking around here for a while now and thought it was about time I actually ask some questions or attempt to contribute.

I have a relatively decent recording rig, and my biggest problem, I would imagine, at this point is my room. I'm not going to go into what would be needed to treat my room just yet, because I have a new opportunity I would really like to jump on and I'm here for everybody's help.

My school has a music and art building where all of the artistic things go on, and here they have the rooms where the highschool band plays and practices and whatnot. The room that is up for me to use is actually a Choral Hall, a large space, very tall cielings, good acoustics from what I can tell (I'm going to look at the room more closely when I go to school tomorrow). It also has various isolation rooms meant that I wouldn't call treated, however they are good at keeping outside noise out, and inside noise in, and they also have ambience controls to change the sound of the room (seems like it'd be fun).


My biggest problem with my recordings has been the "small sound" that I know so much of us have a problem with, and I'm wondering how much a big room like this would contribute to a bigger sound. I have some decent audix d series mics, I'm working to get some good condensers, and the school is stocked with tons of 57's so I think I could really get some decent sounds out of this big room.

Sorry for the overly long post for a simple question, but basically, again, my question is would a big huge room like this with very tall cielings, contribute to a bigger sound?

 

[jmorris]

Hum? big sound. Well, the room may be good but the "stocked up with a bunch of sm57's so you should be able to get a good sound" comment...well.. There is a lot more to getting a great/big sound. First, sm57''s are NOT going to get you a big sound,I dont care what room your in. It's a balance of knowlage, skill,experience, a good room and good gear.

 

[MCI2424]

Hello everybody,
Let me start of by saying hello, this is my first post. I've been lurking around here for a while now and thought it was about time I actually ask some questions or attempt to contribute.

I have a relatively decent recording rig, and my biggest problem, I would imagine, at this point is my room. I'm not going to go into what would be needed to treat my room just yet, because I have a new opportunity I would really like to jump on and I'm here for everybody's help.

My school has a music and art building where all of the artistic things go on, and here they have the rooms where the highschool band plays and practices and whatnot. The room that is up for me to use is actually a Choral Hall, a large space, very tall cielings, good acoustics from what I can tell (I'm going to look at the room more closely when I go to school tomorrow). It also has various isolation rooms meant that I wouldn't call treated, however they are good at keeping outside noise out, and inside noise in, and they also have ambience controls to change the sound of the room (seems like it'd be fun).


My biggest problem with my recordings has been the "small sound" that I know so much of us have a problem with, and I'm wondering how much a big room like this would contribute to a bigger sound. I have some decent audix d series mics, I'm working to get some good condensers, and the school is stocked with tons of 57's so I think I could really get some decent sounds out of this big room.

Sorry for the overly long post for a simple question, but basically, again, my question is would a big huge room like this with very tall cielings, contribute to a bigger sound?

The "big room sound" is usually derived from rooms that are acoustucally treated correctly. The "small room sound" is usually derived from a room (usually small) that has tons of standing waves, bass problems, phase problems and all that. Recording in a big room allows all the reflected waves to "go away' from your mic. If you ever soloed a single guitar track,for instance. from a heavy song mix you would be surprised how small they sound. If you are close micing, the room should not matter as the mic never picks up any much of the room sound, but depending on the mic and placemant, some of the bad room sound gets mixed in. The real problem is when you use a close mic and a room mic placed away from the source. That is when the room size will matter most, and the acoustical treatment will matter most.