Room Differences, mastering ver studio

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malcolm123

malcolm123

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Whats the major differences between a nice Studio control room and a real Mastering Suite's room.

I would assume that a mastering suite's room is design to give you more accuracy as too what your listening to, but why wouldnt a nice studio control room be designed the same way?

Is it due to the nearfields in a studio room?
How different would the acoustic treatments be?

Just curious,, Ima do some search's in the meantime.

Thanks

Malcolm
 
AFAIK the main difference is that there is nothing in between the monitors and the engineer. Just having a console in front of you can slightly alter the sound and cause comb filtering. The room design is pretty much the same.

The equipment used in mastering is a little more specific and if you are on a limited budget then you would want to spend it on the gear that will accomplish the job. It might not make sense for a tracking/mixing studio to spend $100k on a 2 channel EQ/Compressor/Limiter/monitor chain but for mastering it does.

But I could be wrong.
 
Yeah, good mastering suites tend to have fewer acoustic compromises simply by virtue of their flexibility due to a vastly reduced gear set and the lack of a large mixing console.

HOWEVER, the traditional control room layout does have a major advantage over the traditional mastering suit layout. Mastering suites most often use free standing monitors while the main monitors in a good control room are most often soffit mounted. Mastering suites have favored free standing monitors simply because there is a much wider selection of very high end systems available in that configuration. These high end monitors usually double as hi-fi speakers for the audiophile market. Most audiophiles are not willing or able to flush mount their speakers - despite the fact that flush mounting is a clearly superior approach.

So, there are advantages to both traditional layouts. A more optimal layout for either case would be the less obtrusive gear compliment of a mastering suite combined with flush mounted monitors.

Thomas

http://barefootsound.com
 
I have often thought about this1

You would think the best control room would be one that is disigned just as a mastering suite so an engineer could hear exactly what is going onto tape. In other words...we know rooms affect sound so why would it not make sense to have the room at the front end of the project be as close to the room at the end of the project??? I wonder if Abbey Road in the 60's have specific mastering/mixing rooms? Sometimes I wonder if all that IS neccesary. Im mean, some old recordings to my ears are GREAT and I know they were not near as technical as today. Are these fancy matering and mixing room just a poor repair for poorly recorded sounds in the first place????I dont know????? Jim
 
Re: I have often thought about this1

jmorris said:
You would think the best control room would be one that is disigned just as a mastering suite so an engineer could hear exactly what is going onto tape. In other words...we know rooms affect sound so why would it not make sense to have the room at the front end of the project be as close to the room at the end of the project??? I wonder if Abbey Road in the 60's have specific mastering/mixing rooms? Sometimes I wonder if all that IS neccesary. Im mean, some old recordings to my ears are GREAT and I know they were not near as technical as today. Are these fancy matering and mixing room just a poor repair for poorly recorded sounds in the first place????I dont know????? Jim
Click to expand...

It's more of a practical issue. You can't mix without a mixer and you can't have perfect sound with a mixer in front of you reflecting the sound.

Designing a production facility is a balancing act with the budget, requirements and profitability. If you have the money to do everything absolutely right then you have the money to build seperate rooms. Once you spend hundreds of thousands on a mastering chain you wouldn't want it sitting there wasted while another project was being tracked and mixed. You would put it another room so both systems could be used to their full profit potential.

Mastering in the past was much more specialized than it is now. They had to master for multiple formats like vinyl, 8track, casette, R2R, etc. Each of those distribution formats required specific knowledge, equipment and mastering formats. With CD's becoming the standard there is only one set of technical requirements and the rest is pretty subjective. The newer surround formats will change that up a bit because new technical requirements will come into play again.
 
So basically they are pretty close as far as room acoustics go, but when mastering one would avoid having a large console in front to prevent reflections as well as speaker positions or provisions being more spread out instead of having them close "near field" in a control room?


Malcolm
 
malcolm123 said:
So basically they are pretty close as far as room acoustics go....
Click to expand...
Well, if you precisely optimized the reverberant field for either soffit mounted or free standing monitors the rooms would be somewhat different.

A free standing mastering type monitor would probably sound a little bass heavy in a room optimized for soffit mounted mains - and vise versa.

Thomas

http://barefootsound.com
 
In my humble opinion, there are no solid reasons why mastering rooms and tracking rooms should be different. In the past, and in studios with a monster analogue console - yes, as the console's footprint is simply to large not to effect the sound. But these days, if you have a control room where the console is nothing but a computer control surface, it does not have to be an issue.
Also - regarding freestsanding v.s. soffit mounted monitors, I know good mastering facilities with free standing monitors, and as many good facilities with soffit mounted monitors. On top of that, I have been in a fair few mastering facilities where the console has a large (and in my opinion unacceptable) footprint.

The main principle for both rooms is the same......... a good sounding, acoustically correct room, with accurate main as well as equally acurate nearfield monitors.
 
From the times I have spent in mastering houses with the mastering engineer this is what I have observed as being different,

The various specialized monitors.

And in my opinion the best value:

The ears and experience of the mastering engineer.
 
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