Silly question but I gotta ask ...

[RFR]

No, you didn't exactly say that, but your rant could be taken by a newbie in that AT is not necessary.

That's ok. Most people take things with a grain of salt.
Besides, you promoting room treatment in almost every other post more than makes up for it.

Edit: just messing with you a bit.

 

[mjbphotos]

That's ok. Most people take things with a grain of salt.
Besides, you promoting room treatment in almost every other post more than makes up for it.

Edit: just messing with you a bit.

Only in threads where its appropriate! I ignored the advice from others here for too long. It's easier to 'keep trying to invent the wheel (better sound) oneself than to invest more money.

 

[cavedog101]

I dare you to find any previous posts in my history where I'm telling people not to treat their rooms..
I made a rant yesterday in an admittedly trollish fashion and here we are.. it worked. I stirred the Hornet's nest.

There IS however a serious aspect to my post. Talent trumps stuff every time.
Or should I say Talent trumps Treatment everytime.
Some people value the tools more than the art and skill. And THAT is wrong.
(Imho)

There's an aspect here that a generalization like this statement doesn't begin to cover..... "Talent" as a free form generalized description doesn't really delineate WHAT type of talent is being inferred...Are you talking musical talent ie: song writing, instrument playing, song arrangement ...and so forth. Or are you talking recording arts talent ie: capturing a performance, mixing multitracks, engineering sessions?? etc.....

Firstly....Some musical talent is inherited...parts of which cannot be taught only enhanced and trained. Secondly....In talking about engineering skills including mixing,editing,capturing etc...It is a LOT easier to train one's ears when the source can be heard with some accuracy. Room treatment will get you further in your quest to learn and understand the ways of balance and tone in a mix or a capture than any thing else. For those who have developed their skill-set and their ability to hear things in a critical way, working in a controlled environment makes the process so much easier and enables much better results without having to resort to 'repair' work.

 

[RFR]

Some of you just love to type, eh?



What do I mean by talent? Simple. Give one with 'talent' (in any field) the shittiest tools, and they'll do something great with it.

Give to someone the best tools available, but they have a lack of talent, they'll create shit.

Give someone with talent the superior tools, they'll create something great with ease.

Talent is that elusive quality of being good at something, either it is inherent, learned, or a combination of both.

We all fit somewhere in this scale

 

[Gary Harrison]

Op I've read conflicting view points from pros that do builds and installs. The overall consensus is, if it is placed in the wrong area, it could actually make the room worse. imho see what happens. That said, field recordings often don't get the luxury of anything but a crappy room/area. So you just do the best you can, with what you have to work with. Home set up, do what you can afford to do now, then fix it up when you get the funds. DIY traps and panels are pretty easy to put together. there are sound companies with pages of info that will show you how to take care of your room nodes, and 1st and 2nd reflections etc.

 

[bluesfordan]

What kind of mics are you using?

all kinds, as I'm working on my recording chops. Over the last 30 years I've accumulated via G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) a multitude of devices, not all of which I've really utilized very much until recently. Mostly it has been some SDC in a stereo X-Y configuration, other times it is a LDC by itself, sometimes SM57s, sometimes a ribbon mic. There is no actual deliberate room treatment at this time, the majority of my recording has been direct and I do almost all my listening (and mixing) via headphones I know, I know. I have been doing the night owl thing for my music lately, once my mom goes to bed and I try to not make noise.

It's only been recently that I've started recording with mics again, after borrowing my nephew's acoustic, that I've been paying attention to how the room sounds. My house is so noisy that I'm not being particularly fussy. I thought it was my imagination that the heating was loud until my sister stayed here a few weeks ago with my mom while I was out and she remarked "I can't believe how loud your heating pipes are compared to my condo." With the persistence of cold weather (I swear it was warmer in February than it has been in March and April this year) who knows when it will warm up enough to turn the heat off. Then it will be lawn mower, leaf blower, weed whacker season around here. Oh, did I mention the nearby airport (>2 miles) that has significantly stepped up its business since it added two new longer runways? Plus my house seems to be perversely inclined to conducting external sounds in. I've never heard a house so acoustically transparent as this place, it's like the walls are tympanic surfaces.