Do I NEED bass absorption?

[Diffusion]

thanks... now what if point 2.5 is "I plan on eq'ing my vocals."?

 

[chris-from-ky]

You can eq the vox but, it's highly likely that the room you mix in will give you a false representation of the actual vocal. This is why absorption is so important. In a nutshell, what you hear in your mixing room won't necessarily be the same as what you hear in another room or in the car, etc. For example, I mixed 8 tracks of accompaniment the other day and in my headphones, the shaker sounded well seated in the mix. In the car however, the shaker was WAY OUT FRONT in the mix. Why? Because heaphones and untreated rooms do the same thing. They give you a false representation of the actual audio. What you should be most concerned with is the final stereo mix. Does it "translate" well to other sound systems. This is trial and error without a well treated room. Treating a room lets you remove a lot of the guess work in mixing.

But the bottom line is that since quality is not THAT important to you, do what you want to and see how it sounds outside your studio environment.

 

[travelin travis]

think of your room as a piece of gear in your audio chain. imagine your room as being an equalizer hooked up between your speakers and ears. in this example, for simplicity, that imaginary equalizer is set with the lows cut by 20 db's, the mid's boosted by 10 db's, and the highs boosted by 10 db's. would you want to try to mix anything, even a couple of tracks, with this equalizer hooked up between your ears and speakers?

if you don't understand why this imaginary equalizer will cause you problems, then go ahead and do a test. run your tracks thru an equalizer with a few random frequencies slammed up and/or down. you can't touch the eq controls after they're set. this is the same concept of having an untreated room.

now go ahead and try to mix those tracks using any volume or eq settings that you want but don't touch that first eq. you'll get an idea of how a room with peak and null frequencies complicates things and how hard it will be to get your mix to translate to other systems. also, keep in mind that peaks and nulls are only one of many problems with an untreated room.

the whole point of acoustically correcting your mixing room and having real monitors is to be able to hear what's really sitting in your tracks. it greatly simplifies things for you by taking obstacles out of your path when going from point a to point b.

if you're getting the results you want already then why are you even asking about room treatment?

 

[Diffusion]

if you're getting the results you want already then why are you even asking about room treatment?

uhh... im not getting the results i want... i have absolutely NO treatment in my room as of yet, but, now that i have the money for it i am going to buy some... just curious as to whether i needed bass traps for my particular situation, thats all...

 

[fraserhutch]

uhh... im not getting the results i want... i have absolutely NO treatment in my room as of yet, but, now that i have the money for it i am going to buy some... just curious as to whether i needed bass traps for my particular situation, thats all...

No. You don't need bass traps. Your room will sound great without them. The auralex will work wonders and your mixes will translate really effortlessly.

There you go.

 

[NL5]

Diffusion -

One point you are missing.

Let's say your room is giving you a +6db node at the fundemental of one of the notes in your "beat". So, to compensate, you set your vocal a few db higher in the mix. Sounds great at your place. When someone else listens to it where they have a -6 db node at that fundemantal. Your vox track will be WAY too loud. (very simplified version of how it works)

That's only looking at ONE aspect of the total picture.

Do you see why you need bass trapping - even for just adding vox to a track?

Maybe the headphones idea would be an easier answer?

I can say from DIRECT experience - bass trapping TOTALLY changes the sounds of your mix. I have to remix anything I listen to know that was done before the traps. And, everything translates MUCH better now.

 

[travelin travis]

uhh... im not getting the results i want... i have absolutely NO treatment in my room as of yet, but, now that i have the money for it i am going to buy some... just curious as to whether i needed bass traps for my particular situation, thats all...

I'm no expert by any means by I would say yes, you need bass traps for mixing and no, you don't for recording vocals. Either way, you need them.

 

[travelin travis]

Take note...........I have'nt ever heard a single person say "I wish I had'nt put bass traps in my room".

 

[Diffusion]

ok ill get some bass traps then... are the auralex LENRD bass traps very effective? at 100hz its NRC is .97, and every other freq is above 1.11... i can get these cheaper than fiberglass panels..

 

[pandamonk]

If you make 4 rigid fiberglass bass traps, you can put them round you/the mic when recording, for a great booth. Think i read somewhere that you built a booth. I'm sure this would be much more effective.

 

[Zetajazz44]

think of your room as a piece of gear in your audio chain. imagine your room as being an equalizer hooked up between your speakers and ears. in this example, for simplicity, that imaginary equalizer is set with the lows cut by 20 db's, the mid's boosted by 10 db's, and the highs boosted by 10 db's. would you want to try to mix anything, even a couple of tracks, with this equalizer hooked up between your ears and speakers?

I've always had trouble understanding this whole bass trap method(s), but this is the best I've ever heard it put... It makes perfect sense to me now...

Thanks!

 

[chris-from-ky]

If you make 4 rigid fiberglass bass traps, you can put them round you/the mic when recording, for a great booth. Think i read somewhere that you built a booth. I'm sure this would be much more effective.

That won't persuade him... He already made a PVC + Blanket booth. He could make them and throw them up in the corners. LENRDS look cool but, I'm anti-Auralex because of the cost. There are equally effective means for less money.