If you were to record in an untreated room.

[DAS19]

How would you go about it? Say for vocals or acoustic guitar.

 

[Elton Bear]

The same way you'd normally record, it'd just sound like the room was untreated.

OR... Improvise using blankets, duvets, mattresses, anything mildly absorbent you have lying around.

 

[Massive Master]

For guitar, you're pretty well screwed... Aim *out* from a corner and never *at* another corner. That won't help much, but it'll minimize the goofiness (as will having the mic .38 the distance of the long wall from the short wall).

For the vocals, use a dynamic (which I usually end up using most of the time anyway, so that might be redundant). It'll pick up a lot less "crap" in the room.

 

[XLR]

For ac gtr, use a hypercardioid mic. Much less room sound. Sit in the middle of the room - away from corners. Be creative and come up with make-shift gobos. Move any soft furniture that's around into the corners.

 

[danny.guitar]

All of my recordings are done using an omni in a small, untreated room. I definitely can't get far from the mic at all without it being noticeable.

If I want a sort of roomy sound, I will back off about 1.5ft for "ambience" and then cover up the nasty room sound with a subtle reverb plugin.

 

[jndietz]

I've only taken into account the sound of the room when doing drums Otherwise, I'll record any instrument in any room. Probably not a kosher thing to do, but it works.

 

[Daisy]

How would you go about it? Say for vocals or acoustic guitar.

Rope a bunch of 703 insulation panels to the ceiling,

Grab some industrial pipe insulation, glue wooden caps on the ends, and put them in the corners, along with some old bed and/or futon mattresses. Hang some thick packing blankets along the walls, and scatter a bunch of wood blocks (2' X 4's, etc.) on the floor and along the walls.

Then you won't really be in an untreated room anymore, technically.

 

[pandamonk]

For ac gtr, use a hypercardioid mic. Much less room sound. Sit in the middle of the room - away from corners. Be creative and come up with make-shift gobos. Move any soft furniture that's around into the corners.

Middle of the room isn't a good place to be. Also, hypercardioids pick up more sound from behind than a cardioid, although less from the sides. It's kind of half way between cardioid and figure 8. So i don't really know what's better.

 

[XLR]

Middle of the room isn't a good place to be.

The middle of my rooms are. We're not talking about listening position for monitoring here. We're talking about minimizing ac gtr untreated-room boominess. And, even thinking for a moment about nodes, where's the mic going to be if the guitarist is in the middle of a (usually) fairly small room? Not in the middle.

Also, hypercardioids pick up more sound from behind than a cardioid, although less from the sides. It's kind of half way between cardioid and figure 8. So i don't really know what's better

Have you used hypercardioids on guitar? The rear lobe on the several I have is a very subtle thing, and WAY offset by the very full null at 130 degrees.

 

[rayc]

...IF....
If only it weren't so!

 

[MessianicDreams]

Just because the room is untreated doesn't automatically equate to it sounding bad.

Standing in the room, walk around and see what it sounds like. Does it sound pleasing? Room ambience isn't always something you need to fight against..sometimes room ambience is a really great thing!

 

[giraffe]

The middle of my rooms are. We're not talking about listening position for monitoring here. We're talking about minimizing ac gtr untreated-room boominess. And, even thinking for a moment about nodes, where's the mic going to be if the guitarist is in the middle of a (usually) fairly small room? Not in the middle.

Have you used hypercardioids on guitar? The rear lobe on the several I have is a very subtle thing, and WAY offset by the very full null at 130 degrees.

yea, a hyper will deff pick up less room sound then a cardi.