Natural Acoustics - On Purpose?

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Rich Smith

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Digital equipment and the conventional wisdom of current recording technique requires that Natural Acoustics in the recording environment be totally Killed. Then you rebuild your recorded frequencies within the controlled environment of whatever magic boxes are at your disposal. But it wasn't always that way.

All rooms (and some open-air evironments) have natural acoustics that either enhance or degrade musical performances. Carnegie Hall is "the" legenday live performance hall; and a few small places like the old Sun Studio in Memphis are legendary recording studios. The challenges of capturing the true sound of a Big Band echoing through a large dancehall or something like Dick Dale's surf music at the "Rendezvous" were especially difficult. In the 50's and 60's it was commonplace to work with the best Natural Acoustics available to you. Small startups often used a stairwell to get some reverb. It was a practised Art filled with surprise, dissapointment, and sometimes great reward.

Anyone out there still working Natural Acoustics.... on purpose?

Rich Smith
 
While most folks around here don't record in Carnegie Hall, you'll find that most of us also don't record in dead spaces. The conventional wisdom is to treat a room, but not kill it.
 
Care to elaborate?
What "Natural Acoustic" qualities do you attempt to retain and capture?
How? What methods?

Rich Smith
 
Rich Smith said:
Digital equipment and the conventional wisdom of current recording technique requires that Natural Acoustics in the recording environment be totally Killed. Then you rebuild your recorded frequencies within the controlled environment of whatever magic boxes are at your disposal. But it wasn't always that way.
Click to expand...

The 'conventional wisdom' to which you refer is more notional than actual, but predated digital recording by a couple of decades. There was an era when studios were little more than claustrophobic boxes.

As Whitestrat says "The conventional wisdom is to treat a room, but not kill it". A dead room can suck the life out of music.

Recording in venues because of their acoustic qualities is common. I do some recording this way (particularly for big bands and choirs).

I did hear a CD the other way which boasted of being recorded in a small community hall. I was disappointed, because there was no senses of the hall in the recording . . . it may as well have been recorded in one of those claustrophobic boxes. So it doesn't always work out.
 
Rich Smith said:
Anyone out there still working Natural Acoustics.... on purpose?
Click to expand...

Designers do it all the time by using the Golden Ratio or by building using particular sizes, shapes and surface compositions. It's integral with the design process.

If you mean, who's using small-room sound in recording, then the answer would be, whoever needs it. There are still plenty of albums out there with small-sounding rooms recorded into the album. There's nothing wrong with it. I personally love using a huge gymnasium that I have access to for recorded drums on some things.

Frank
 
As a guy who used to record classical music let me just say that in almost any recording involving a microphone, you cannot totally remove the room. The most common method for classical recordings involve a stereo mic pair picking up the orchestra in the room.

How many of you spend small fortunes on reverbs that do what? Replicate different room acoustics. Making a studio neutral and close micing and adding room later. This will certainly give you flexibility and while sometimes reverb is an artistic choice, the most common use is to simulate a natural space. The studio I used to work for had Sony and Lexicon reverbs that modeled a bunch of real concert spaces. Symphony Hall in a box if you will.

Butt..when you have a great room and a great orchestra there is little else to do but hit the record button. Every great hall I've ever worked already had a pair of mics already placed. The real fun came when we began to experiment with recording multichannel stuff. Still I prefer a good stereo recording done with the room as opposed to the zone micing we experimented with. Now a lot of surround work is just simulated.

I have worked with a client that plays cello. He plays both electric and acoustic instruments He is at cellobop While he prefers to record up close due to his style, I like some of the recordings that we did from further back. I feel the instrument sounds more natural when recording with natural acoustics. I feel the same way about acoustic guitar.

My advice, treat what is wrong with your room to make it suitable for the type of recording you are doing. A great sounding room makes mixing that much easier..really.

Don
folkcafe
 
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Rich Smith said:
Digital equipment and the conventional wisdom of current recording technique requires that Natural Acoustics in the recording environment be totally Killed.
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Sorry, but that's simply not true.
 
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Rich,

what makes you think that this is the case?

It really isn't - believe me - I've designed and/or overseen the construction of a few world classs studios - all of which have ambiance......... as do a multitude of studios designed mby people I know (or know of) and none of them are anechoic chambers...... not even the iso-boths......

The trick is to design a room that is reasonably flat across the board close to the deck - and very live up high - that would be a pretty perfect tracking room - you could record just the band (without eq) at floor level and have it sound exactly like it would sound if you were in the room sitting in a chair listening to it.

Then you add room mics to pic up the ambiance of the room - with the very highest mic locations (oh about 24 to 26' off the floor) so live it sounds like you recorded it live in a hot nightclub. This (of course) assumes you have the luxury of a space that large to construct within,

I would probably describe conventional wisdom (if there is any such thing) as treating until the room was flat (thinking amplitude staying within proably a 3 dB spread)) which means backing off the natural reverb of the room just to the point where it did not cause anomolies...........

So no modal activity - no flutter echo - no comb filtering - etc., etc., etc.

But the room then has a definate life all it's own..........

I still wonder on what you base your original statement...... would you care to elaborate?
 
Rich Smith said:
All rooms (and some open-air evironments) have natural acoustics that either enhance or degrade musical performances.
Click to expand...

It depends entirely on the size of the room! The natural ambience in a bedroom size space is always terrible. Always. Likewise for a vocal booth built into a 3 by 4 foot closet. If that's what you have, then you need to mostly kill all reflections. But a much larger room can have a pleasing natural sound if the dimensions are favorable.

--Ethan
 
Ethan Winer said:
It depends entirely on the size of the room! The natural ambience in a bedroom size space is always terrible. Always. Likewise for a vocal booth built into a 3 by 4 foot closet. If that's what you have, then you need to mostly kill all reflections. But a much larger room can have a pleasing natural sound if the dimensions are favorable.

--Ethan
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Ethan,

the OP's point was that this was as follows (related to pro-studio design - not home studios): (Note the bold and underline are mine for clarity)

Digital equipment and the conventional wisdom of current recording technique requires that Natural Acoustics in the recording environment be totally Killed.
Click to expand...


This is certainly NOT the case........

Rod
 
Thank you all. I’m very glad to read that working with Natural Acoustics has never died at all. And happier still to find that “killing” the naturals isn’t conventional wisdom either; except perhaps in the very smallest of rooms.

I did a lot of small venue and home studio recording in the 60’s, but managed to miss the evolution of digital equipment all together. Now I’m equipping a home studio again, and guess I’ve been talking with too many salesmen and hearing/reading about the misadventures of too many spare-room enterprises.

The very best room I ever worked was just 20’x20’ with only an 8’ high acoustic tile ceiling. It gave consistently wonderful results when recording anything non-amplified. The improvement over what could be heard in the room live was absolutely spectacular. The same space could double as the playback/mixdown room. The very worst rooms I’ve ever experienced were small bars and coffee houses. I don’t think I’ve ever got a decent recording in a bar..... no matter what size, shape or how I set things up. ( I suppose it was the everchanging variance of people and activity in the bar that made most of the difference.). I still prefer analog tracking and really enjoy working in acoustically great rooms.


Thanks again for voicing your experience.

Rich Smith
 
Rich Smith said:
Digital equipment and the conventional wisdom of current recording technique requires that Natural Acoustics in the recording environment be totally Killed. Then you rebuild your recorded frequencies within the controlled environment of whatever magic boxes are at your disposal. But it wasn't always that way.
Click to expand...

Actually, though I'm quite fond of my magnetic tape recorders and use them more than digital gear, I would point out that digital equipment can have the advantage in terms of compactness and weight that allows easy portability to record with a multi-track system in good sounding spaces. For instance, my studio in a box can record 8 tracks at once through its own mike preamps and digital mixer to 8 of the 16 total tracks and it weighs all of 13 pounds.

Thus, not only would I argue that there is no current wisdom requiring natural room sound be killed, but that digital recording gear makes it more convenient to record remotely in good sounding spaces. You can do it with magnetic tape recorders, but you have to carry heavier gear, and possibly more pieces, and most studio tape machines would have to come along in a remote truck, not the trunk of your car.

Cheers,

Otto
 
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