How Can I Tell ?

[smellyfuzz]

ALRIGHT ! I admit it. I’m an audiophile who knows very little about acoustics.

I mean I can tell a good pair of speakers or amp, but room acoustics, no way.

So after I finally build my basement studio, how can I tell if it is flat or not ?


Sean

 

[Ethan Winer]

Sean,

> after I finally build my basement studio, how can I tell if it is flat or not ? <

Play pink noise through your speakers, record that with a high quality omnidirectional mike, and look at a spectrum graph in SoundForge or a similar audio editor program. Then do the same thing playing sine waves instead of pink noise.

If your room is reasonably well balanced having a mix of reflective and absorbent surfaces, it will likely be reasonably flat in the mid and high frequencies. But without proper bass trapping you are sure to have severe response errors below 300 Hz.

--Ethan

 

[HangDawg]

Does this apply to a tracking room the same as a control room? When recording the pink noise, do you record from 1 spot (like mixing position) or different places in the room?

 

[Ethan Winer]

Dawg,

> Does this apply to a tracking room the same as a control room? <

Of course.

> When recording the pink noise, do you record from 1 spot (like mixing position) or different places in the room? <

In a control room the primary concern is where you sit while mixing. But clients on the couch against the back wall want to hear a good balance too, so if that applies measure there too.

--Ethan