My God, a stunning thing happened.

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jeff0633

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I went over to a pro studio to meet this guy that saw me play at one of my gigs. He runs a small studio near here. When I walked into the studio, the sound was just vacumed away from my ears. It was so quiet in there, it was as if I entered a different world. i was walking through the place and low and behold, I see a guy with a small recording deck in the main tracking room. The guy tells me that's his son. He was a teenager. I go over and he is sitting down and he has a Boss BR1180 recorder and a AT-3035 mic. He tells me that he was laying some tracks down with his bass and acoustic guitar. I put his headphones on and was STUNNED at what I heard. The recording was better than anything I have ever done in my life. I used to own that same model recorder, and I never got even in the same league as what he was getting. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, IT WAS THAT ROOM!!!. I could hear every nuance of the acoustic guitar. The low frequencies were balanced and it was so clear that it made me catch my breath. I didn't want to take the headphones off. I could have sat there all night listening. Folks, that room made a hundred times more difference than any chunk of gear that I have ever purchased. Nothing else explain it. I have owned the same recorder, and the 3035 is a low end mic, right? The recordings he was making right before my eyes were what I have been after for 5 years since I started this. I was absolutely shocked. I am thousands in debt because of trying to find what he was so easily getting. Now, I came back home and listened to my room, and holy shit, it sucks. Good God, no wonder I can't get even half of what I hear in my head. I told the Father this morning that I had some foam on my walls, and asked him why my room sounded nothing like his, not even in the same universe as his. He actually busted out laughing, then tried to stop himself. He said he had paid very much money to have his rooms treated properly. He said that there was NO WAY I would ever get even close to a pro sound if I had sound waves bouncing all over and outside noise coming in. He said it was the same for him, and that he had to learn the same things. He said that real pros were used to working in good rooms, and many of them just assumed that others were working in decent rooms too, and they take that for granted when trying to help others. I told him that I live in a mobile home. he laughed again and said it was very doubtful that I COULD EVER get a good recording in a mobile home unless it had recieved some serious traetment. I was telling him about this site and all you knowledgeable pros hear. He said that if you pros here were to walk into my bedroom that you would immediately tell me that I could never get a pro sound recording in this environment. He said the pros that I am talking with on this site probably can't even imagine that anyone would try and record sounds in a space like mine. He said that the pros do all their work in good rooms, and that this is so basic, that nothing can really be done beyond it. So, was this guy on the money? Are you pros here so used to working in good rooms that you can't even imagine recording in a mobile home with some foam on the walls? If you came into my room would you immediately bust out laughing and tell me that no good recordings could be done in this room? Is the room so basic that you pros are just assuming that others are recording in comparable rooms to what you have? All morning I keep thinking what Fletcher would say if he walked into my mobile home bedroom to record something. Somehow, I get the feeling he would have a few things to say after he stopped laughing.

My god. I can't afford to do all the things that he was telling me were needed. At the same time, after hearing what a REAL room sounds like, I realize that I will never get the sounds I am after if I don't do those things. I am very depressed this morning. There's no way I can record in this bedroom anymore and take it seriously. DAMN!!

Jeff
 
jeff0633 said:
If you came into my room would you immediately bust out laughing and tell me that no good recordings could be done in this room?
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No, I'm too nice for that.

I'd probably just give a polite chuckle under my breath.
 
Eesh, harsh reality.

How was his room that he was recording bass in configured/treated?
 
did he say what exactly he did? i'd be interest in what he did.

I think you have to do with what you have and make the best of it.
 
Yeah the difference in how a pro room sounds is NOT subtle. Back when I had access to UofMichigan's studio, I remember being amazed at how focused the monitoring sweet spot was. If I closed my eyes, I could tell immediately if my drifted out of either monitor's line of fire.

I have anechoic chamber here at work, it's for electicomagnetic radiated emmissions testing, but acoustically that room is absolutely DEEEAD. You could pick up the exact direction of a pindrop in that room.
 
Well, the other thing to take into account is the guitar being used. I find the instrument can make an even bigger difference than the room - which is pretty big.

Not not mention the playing and micing techniques used.
 
jeff0633 said:
He said that real pros were used to working in good rooms, and many of them just assumed that others were working in decent rooms too, and they take that for granted when trying to help others.
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Jeff, I'm experiencing the same thing. However, I would debate the premise above. I've seen it mentioned time and time again by people around here who really know their shit-- the room matters as much (or more) than your signal chain.

A couple months ago I took this advice and bought some rigid fiberglass panels for my "control room" (AKA: spare bedroom). I don't really do any tracking in there but I do alot of mixing. After putting 16 panels around my room, the difference is stunning. I can hear a BIG difference when just typing on my computer keyboard. Those panels really suck the sound out of the air! Needless to say, my mixes seem to be coming together easier.

Also, the drummer in my band recently decided to build a wall in his garage and make it into a studio/rehearsal space. I told him we had to get some of these panels for the walls. The project is almost complete and last night we finished hanging over half the panels. WOW! The difference is incredible. I have no doubt that our recordings will sound much, much better because of that treatment (and there are still more panels to be hung). I haven't done any testing in terms of measuring the room's frequency response, but you can hear the difference-- it's obvious (sounds nice and tight with no echo).

I wouldn't get too discouraged about your current situation (living in a mobile home). If it's the only space you have for recording-- make the best of it. Sure, you probably won't get it to sound as nice as this studio you are referring to, but I'm certain you can make it sound better.

Look into the rigid fiberglass options. You can also get rock wool (AKA: mineral wool, mineral fiber, rock fiber) which costs about half as much and has basically the same acoustic properties. The foam on your walls is only absorbing some of the highs and high-mids. You need broadband absorption and the rigid fiberglass (or rock wool) can give you that. You may not need to ditch all the foam, but the foam alone is not going to get you a nice sounding room.

Good Luck!
 
I converted my garage into another bedroom, but also knew I was going to be making a lot of music, and quite probably recording (which I soon after started doing). It's a 20x20 room, with both r-20 (exteriour-wall) insulation, and double sheetrocking throughout. It isn't acoustically top notch, and certainly isn't the way I'd do a professional sound studio, but the little bit of added dampening really helps a lot (as do solid core oak doors...). It keeps the sounds from inside the room in, and the sounds from outside the room out. The mic work I've done turned out pretty decently. I've also done some work that sounded like crap, but I think that's more attributable to a $5 peavy mic at the time.

My music partner and I started playing in a gallery about an hour from here. The space is incredible. The room is live as nothing I've ever heard... Grand auditorium reverb in this little 25x50 space. All hardwood paneling, so open and graceful...

I think your friend is right. If you're doing mic'd work, especially if you're using a condenser or large diaphragm - some kind of mic designed for use in soundproofed studios where ALL you'll hear is the recording subject, period - the space is very important, and really is one of the primary things you should look at. I've managed to get a couple of good tracks with my buddy's studio mic in his apartment, or someplace I was house sitting, but they're not something I'd consider releasing. I think, personally, all the factors need to be taken into consideration.

Space -
The mic won't make up for lousy space, because the mic pics up everything it hears, and if sound waves bounce around within said lousy space, they'll come back into the mic more than you'd like.
The Mic -
I wouldn't take my $5 peavy that I let my old guitarist beat up into a pro studio. I'd take SM-57s, condensers, quality stuff. Doesn't have to cost thousands, but should be something you *know* that all things being equal, will help give you a sound you'll be proud of.
The gear -
I also wouldn't take my stereo tape deck from the '80s into a session... Yeah, it's given me some decent sound in a pinch ("This sounds really good! Shit...where's my deck?"), but I've got better gear I put more faith into...

When I was training in a studio, my instructor and I were doing work at the high school I went to. He had easily $50k worth of gear, and was able to make incredible pieces when not recording live (working with prerecorded material, such as a concert from the night before or something). They were full, rich, essentially noiseless, it was inspiring. But the studio space next to the control room that we used for the session work was awful. Noisy, hollow, had a couple of windows that brought in outside noises, hollow core doors so we heard everything down the hall... Yeah, he could have used $2500 mics, but we both knew all that would do is pick up everything - including everything we didn't want to be hearing.

I, for one, second your friends opinion. Line-in work, or just putting down ideas in your space is one thing, and certainly shouldnt' be overlooked. If you're just piecing together ideas so you can hear how songs flow, with an eye to recording them 'properly' later on, then it doesn't matter where you're at. You can do that where you're at just as easily as in the back of a greyhound. But if you're recording things today as your final intention - what you record today you'd release tomorrow if you could - then all the pieces should be equal, and they should all fit together.

Props to you for even noticing...
 
Man I am not a pro so I don't know but I personally would not want to record in a dead room. I take advantage of every room in my house and mic from far away as much as possible. My house is floored with tile and the echos are horrendous. In fact,

I was recording vocals last night and could not get them to sit right, until I added a 2nd mic about 8 feet away. The "ambience" it created was just what the mix needed.

On the drum tracks, I used omnis for overheads, and there is more ambience than drums!!! YES!

I don't like to use any artificial reverb.

But I wouldn't exactly say my tracks are "pro" either.

So, while I might not be able to attain the sounds that your friend is getting, I am willing to be he can't get mine either. And I know for a fact I can't get the same sounds as you can in your mobile home.

So my advice would be to stop worrying about it and use what you have to your advantage.

By the way, most of my favorite jazz recordings were captured live to tape in a reverberant hall. And there is no way in hell your friend can get that sound in that studio.


quick question - what was the room like? was it carpeted? wood floors? vaulted ceilings? whats the low-down!
 
one other question -

wasn't this whole concept of a soundproof room created because of latent playback heads in the monitoring room, which are now obsolete?
 
I had the same experience when I visited Blue Bear's studio. What really got my attention was how the acoustics changed when I walked from each room to the next. Each room was treated to have a different amount of reverberation/brightness.

The difference between your average bedroom or basement recording space and a studio designed correctly is stunning.
 
The critical listening room at my school, UMass Lowell, is one of the most acoustically perfect rooms in the country. Needless to say, the differences in what you hear are amazing. The sound booth and control rooms are on different floors and both rooms are treated. If you have such a situation, this should be obvious, but you'd be surprised at how many home recorders don't realize this.

As for your room, some extra panels will help, especially in front of doors/windows that may be there. Good luck and don't get discouraged!
 
This quote has recently become my matra.

"Levels of importance (in order)

Monitor and room treatments. (room quality)
Microphones and mic preamps
Recording and mixing devices
Outboard "sound modding" devices
Clean layout, short cable runs.
Clean power, well designed circuits (lighting and sound totally separated)
Creature comforts. (this can bounce around) "

Bill Roberts, Bill Roberts Mastering
 
Well

Well, He said that he had a company come in and do readings in his rooms. there were three main rooms, and I think a small room that had a huge mci with a pop filter on it. Each room seemed to have many different things going on. On some walls, there were shapes of different size attached to the walls, and then there were many of what seemed like half pipes in various sizes attached to the ceiling and in some corners and such. The walls were covered in some kind of fabric and seemed soft, like I could push way in on them. Some of the half tube looking things were really big too, and others were small. He had these partitions that looked just like the walls, but they were movable. Damn, there were many different things in there. He said he had spent well into THE THOUSANDS on his rooms. When that kid strummed the guitar, you could hear EVERY string in the strum as if it were seperate, but yet it was a chord too. Every little nuance. The sound was DELICATE!! That's the perfect word--DELICATE. It reminded me of some olf Jethro Tull recordings. I used to love on many of their songs how it started out with just an acoustic guitar, and then that Ian guy would start singing, and it all sounded so real, and DELICATE. Well that's what it sounded like standing right there in that room. Listen to the Tull song *Skating away* That's what the room sounded like. That guitar sounded and reminded me of those recordings. That's what it sounded like even on the Boss recordings. Please just download the song "Skating away" by Jethro Tull.

Jeff


boogieknight said:
did he say what exactly he did? i'd be interest in what he did.

I think you have to do with what you have and make the best of it.
Click to expand...
 
Ever wonder why older recordings sound so awesome?

Good rooms, good mics, and engineers who knew what they were doing.
 
Acoustic treatments are awesome, but what sets a pro space apart is the dimensions of the room itself. Most of us work in a (small) box of some sort, lots of parallel surfaces, lots of standing waves, constant 8' ceilings. No amount of treatment can make up for this fact, but us homerecorders can come pretty close.
 
The importance of the room can absolutely not be overstated!!

You have to realize that some rooms can be made to work for some things, but the tough truth is you need some space and then treat it properly to really get things nice.

I've heard many fine recordings made in basement studios, but the owners all spent a lot of care on the buildout. Not money, but care.

You can't do Bonham's drums in that kind of room, but you can do some fine stuff.

And it's way more important that you get your room right first, then get that GR NV...
 
When I built my room 5 years ago, I didn't know as much as I do now, but I did a few things right. First of all, it's a tiny room, and there was nothing I could do about that. But I opted for staggered stud walls, insulation filled, and an exterior, weatherstripped door. Thus it's quiet enough in the studio that it's not a problem that the furnace is in the next room.

Second, I covered all the walls with fabric-covered rigid fiberglass, and filled above the drop ceiling (with the best-rated acoustic tile I could find) with 12" of roll fiberglass insulation.

So I have to add reverb electronically, but I have no nasty problems with nodes or flutter echo.

Now in a proper, larger room, you wouldn't want to do all that, you'd want it balanced. But in a tiny room, kill it dead, and bass trap all you can.

It's easy to add reflective surfaces to a dead room if that's what you need.

Neo had a good point--if your room sucks, then close-mic. You still gotta mix in it though.
 
I spent about a grand on Auralex True traps genesis system for my basement studio (3 sets). The result was excellent. Mostly diffusion and bass trap products. I didn't kill the room, I didn't want that. I wanted nice ambiance.

Anywho, you think there's no way...just kill the room and close mic everything and make up for it with a good reverb. No big deal and you can still achieve amazing results.
 
Sometimes a really dry sound with almost no room accoustics can make for a really cool-sounding recording. If you listen back to some of the Neil Young stuff like Harvest Moon, or stuff from the Band, even modern stuff from Wilco ... you just can't get that kind of drum sound in a live room.

Of course, sometimes it's all wrong, too. :D
 
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