Pro studios w/hard surfaces?

[gmiller1122]

Hey, all --

Looking at pics of professional studios online, I've noticed that the recording spaces are enormous, for one thing, and that the floors are often hardwood, as well as the walls. They are certainly not covered with carpet or other sound absorbing material, or even mattresses (as in the pic of Springsteen and the E. Street Band on the inside cover of "The River" album.)

Why is this? Why is it wise that you should cover the walls of your home studio with all sorts of softer materials? Is it to keep other sounds OUT? In the professional studios, do they WANT the natural reverb of a very large room?

Thanks,

g

 

[knightfly]

You should read every bit of information on this site, section by section. The questions you asked would take an hour or two of typing to properly answer, but you can learn lots more than that here, compliments of our own John Sayer...

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

If you post back in less than a day, or maybe a week, We'll all KNOW you cheated... :=)

 

[Beezoboy]

I think the idea in pro studios with cavernous rooms and hard surfaces is diffusion. This reduces reflections of sound which cause distortion. I mean, imagine a studio that you can get natural reverb from rather than having to use a plugin or reverb box. To vary your reverb, all you would have to do is change type of mic and or distance to source. Man I would love to have that option.

Beezoboy

 

[Rochey]

beezeboy - I have a few issues with your post.. (not all bad!!)


Hard suraces is one thing, but for good diffusion an UNEVEN hard surface is best. If you just have a flat surface, then it will just reflect back at you!

As for a room which you get natural reverb. You get natural reverb in every room you can play in. And as for changing the characteristics of the reverb as you change the distace of the mike... i'm afraid thats crap.

Yes, you change the ratio of direct noise to reverb, but your not actually changing the characteristic of the reverb itself. If you really want to change the characterisitcs of a rooms reverb, i suggest you start with one of these.

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/pages/Low Frequencies.htm#vari

As for changing the mic, well, maybe, but i'm not 100% on that. Yes, the mike will change the sound, but it'll change the direct sound as well as the reverb. Is that an example of changing the reverb, if your screwing up your direct sound as well?


Just a few ideas.... discuss...

 

[M.Brane]

The simple answer is you can get away with reflective surfaces in a big room. It's early reflection and standing waves that causes the most problems. Depending on the source and the sound your after, reflective surfaces can at times be beneficial.

 

[John Sayers]

Also check out what those surfaces actually are - it may appear to be a reflective timber wall when in fact it is a bass panel absorber or a slot resonator.

We have a studio in Sydney that has a live room made with huge sheets of glass. Drums recorded in the room were toooo live so we used to set up outside the room for a close sound and then mike the room for ambience.
cheers
John

 

[version2]

Also check out what those surfaces actually are - it may appear to be a reflective timber wall when in fact it is a bass panel absorber or a slot resonator.

John,

I am going to be underway in the building of my studio in a week or so. Im going to be using the slot resonator idea on the whole thing, thanks to you. I appreciate the help you gave me in the past (I havent been here in a few months).

 

[frederic]

A lot of the issues in a smaller studio are less prevelant in larger spaces for several reasons.

1. The space is larger, therefore it takes longer for the reflections to go across, come back, and go across again. As sound travels through air it gets weaker and weaker, thus in large rooms you will typically have less standing waves.

2. The larger rooms are much easier to make non-parallel walls and line with foam, slot resonators, bass traps and refraction panels, simply because you have the space along the walls/ceilings to do so. Its tough putting 10lbs of sand in a 5lb box

3. Relating to number 1, the smaller the space, the faster the reflections occur. If you were in your tiled bathroom and yell "Hi" the echo would be extremely short. It would be longer in an old catherael, and significantly longer in the grand canyon. For this reason, I emphasize #1.

There is nothing wrong with having a dead room to record in, or a live room. The problem most home studios have is space - to have nice sounding natural reverb tails you need a larger room than most people have. If you look at more pro studios like Left Bank, Bear, etc on John Sawyer's site, you see quickly that most of the live rooms are not 6'x6'x7' closets.

Also keep in mind that you cannot "erase" reverb tails and other colorizations of the room. You can certainly add it via digital DSP processing, reverbs and other outboard, but its practically impossible to remove it if the room adds it right off the bat.

This is why my vocal booth is acoustically dead. I can capture a singer, an acoutical guitarist, trombone player etc, without any noticable sounds being added by the surroundings. I then have to add it later, but by doing so I can simulate different environments by twiddling knobs. Want a catheral or a bathroom, dial it up. Of course this never sounds as harmonically pleasing as recording in such places, but you can come extremely close.

 

[John Sayers]

most of the live rooms are not 6'x6'x7' closets

whilst that's true you should check out the drum room in Cloud Studios Further to my remarks about the large glass live room I was interested in building a smaller room with a shorter decay. The drum room here is less than the size of a small garage. There is no acoustic wall treatment other than timber - no traps or absorbers. The walls are at all angles to increase the diffusion.

The result?? WE loved it, the room is bright and clean, the verb is short yet with plenty of body I recorded an album at the studio and the drums were great, I also used the room for fiddle, acc gtr, percussion and didgeridoo. Well worth considering if you have the space.

cheers
john

 

[ausrock]

John,

From memory, the floor is slate.........or is my memory fading (with age) .

I have recordings here (pre-mastered and final copies mastered by Don Bartley at 301) which were done at Cloud Studios about 3 yrs ago. Drums and various types of percussion were all recorded from that particular room and were awesome.

On a good day Parris can work wonders

 

[version2]

whilst that's true you should check out the drum room in Cloud Studios Further to my remarks about the large glass live room I was interested in building a smaller room with a shorter decay. The drum room here is less than the size of a small garage. There is no acoustic wall treatment other than timber - no traps or absorbers. The walls are at all angles to increase the diffusion.

The place looks fantastic and that is about the amount of space I have to work with.

 

[John Sayers]

Yes Ausrock - the floor is slate. also one wall is the original garage door and is plate glass. Everything Live. Parris's mum found the glass - it was two sheets of 1/2" with a laminate. The glass cutters couldn't cut it, they tried hitting it with a sledge hammer and it still wouldn't break.

cheers
John

 

[ausrock]

John.

That sounds like Liz to "source" something like that...........lmao. Although I think there is an impact fracture in one of the windows these days. God only knows what caused it.

I recently cut some 10mm (3/8") laminate panels 1600x750, which are part of my "air-lock" from the outside world........great stuff to work with.......NOT!!!