Vocals: Big room? Small Room? Bathroom?

[Good Bob]

I have recently started recording my own songs in my home on a VS-1880, and I am wondering if anyone can tell me what rooms would be the best to record in. The music I play is blues and hard rock.

My basement has a 7' ceiling, concrete block walls, and a linoleum tiled floor. The sound is all over the place. I can't picture it being good for recording anything. I have a freezer, HVAC, a water pump--too many utilities.

I have my home office, which is an 8' ceiling, room, about 13'x14' and is fairly quiet. The floors are hardwood, with some area rugs, and it has 2 medium sized windows. The meters on the 1880 register almost no noise at all when there is no movement in the room.

My "family room" has 9' ceilings, is about 20'x12'. It is wood paneled, with a brick fireplace. There are French Doors at one end of the room, and a large picture window at the other end of the room. It has wall-to-wall carpeting. The LCD meters register a slight amount of noise.

I have also heard people talk about recording vocals in a bathroom. Is it a good idea to do that? It seems to me that the bathroom is almost as noisy as the basement. Especially when I have gas. J/K.

I am using an AT-4033 mic>Mackie 1202>RNC>VS-1880.

Is there any science involved in selecting the best room in my house to record in? Is there a meter that I should use to determine the quietest room in my house, or is it better to sacrifice that little low-level noise I see on my meters and record in the family room?

Please excuse my ignorance regarding this. I'm new to recording in general, and if these are "stupid questions" I apologize.

Thanks!

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo Bob:

Did you know that BOB spelled backwards is BOB? A natural palindrome.

Since you have a digital box, the 1880 via Roland, I don't think it will matter too much what room size you decide to do vocals.

You have multiple choices of reverb/room/plate/etc.

So, as most DAW folks do, use some reverb for the singer to hear in the cans when recording; don't record that reverb. Rather, select the reverb that fits when you are mixing down your tracks.

Works every time.

Green Hornet

 

[littledog]

My "family room" has 9' ceilings, is about 20'x12'. It is wood paneled, with a brick fireplace. There are French Doors at one end of the room, and a large picture window at the other end of the room. It has wall-to-wall carpeting. The LCD meters register a slight amount of noise.

ooo baby! THAT be the one! If you don't want it, can I have it?

 

[Good Bob]

Well..maybe I can lend it to you from time to time...


What makes that one more desirable?

 

[Bigus Dickus]

My completely uneducated guess would be the (1) size, incluidng ceiling height and (2) wall to wall carpeting. Less problem with horrible room modes and excessive natural reverb.

The general idea, from what I can gather, is that if you don't have a terrific natural recording room (concert hall or similar) then you should record as "dry" as possible, and add all ambience with effects processing. That means getting as close to an anechoic chamber as possible... which means the bigger the better, and the more damped (carpet, curtains, etc.) the better.

 

[Badger]

I always prefer to record vocals as dead as possible. My vocal booth is about as dead as it gets. Then I can jack with all maner of reverb after it is recorded.

 

[djc]

Yeah, like Bdgr said. That's how I do it too.

 

[sonusman]

The volume of sound decreases by half for every doubling of distance it travels.

What we run into in this situation is this.

When you setup the mic in the room, you are not only recording the direct sound, but also reflections of the sound. If the reflection is long enough, you would hear it as an "echo". If it is short enough you would not hear it as an "echo", but that doesn't mean you didn't record a reflection, and THAT is where the problems start in small rooms.

Without getting too complicated, the close to a wall the microphone is, the more of a chance that you will record reflections that are too close to the original sound to be a echo, so that mean that the reflected audio will cause some phase problems to the direct sound on the mic.

In a low ceiling situation, the ceiling becomes the closest wall to the mic, and the first reflection from that will either cause certain frequencies to be out of phase with the direct sound, which would cause that frequency to be lowered in volume at the mic because the reflected sound is 180 degrees out of phase with the direct sound. Or, the reflected frequency could be in phase with the direct sound, and that would cause a doubling of the volume of the frequency. Usually though, you will have varying degrees of phase problems, meaning, it will not always be 180 degrees out of phase.

Since the mic is in a fixed position, different frequencies will be out of phase, and others will be in phase. The distance from the walls (or ceiling) and the frequencies produced by the performance will dictate this.

So, the reason that having higher ceilings is more desireable is that the walls will contribute LESS phase problems in the early reflections that the mic picks up. This means that the mic is picking up the direct signal without being molested by phase problems from early reflections. The mic becomes more "clear" sounding, and the overall eq of the source will be more accurate (you will now hear exactly what you mic placement really sounds like....)

Small rooms DO NOT equal "dead sound". EVERY room has reflections, unless you have the boundries of the room treated to absorb all reflections. What usually happens in small rooms is that the reflections are so short that they don't sound like discreet echo's like they would in a larger room. But they DO tend to "dull" the sound at the mic via phase coupling and cancellation.

John Sayers has discussed a lot in the past about effective ways to treat boundries in rooms to balance the RT of frequencies in a room. This is important if you want the best sounding recordings.

Anyway, while my contributions to this discussion is far from a complete essay on all the elements involved, it covers enough to deduct:

1 - Small rooms, depending upon how loud the direct audio is, and what frequencies are predominant in that direct sound, will tend to cause a lot of direct-reflected sound on the mic.

2 - Big rooms, minimize this effect.

In your case, the 9' ceiling room is the most desireable to use! In addition, the "wood paneling" possibly offers a more ear pleasing tone to the reflected sound. There are many other factors at play here.

Use the room that offers the best sound to you right now, and start brushing up on acoustics in general to understand better how your room contributes heavily to the quality of your recordings.

Good luck.

Ed

 

[TexRoadkill]

Do some test recordings in the different rooms and see what sounds best. You may have to unplug the fridge and any noisy appliances nearby. You will probably find you like different rooms for different things. You might like the small room on guitar and big room on vocals or vice versa.

 

[Good Bob]

Do some test recordings in the different rooms and see what sounds best. You may have to unplug the fridge and any noisy appliances nearby.

I also had to turn the heat off!! Forced hot air is LOUD!

Thanks for all the input.

*brushes up on acoustics*

 

[knightfly]

Ed (Sonusman) gave you a lot of info that will get you started toward that "brush up on acoustics" -

Another reason for using the larger room - the dimensions you gave will have a nice, even modal response clear down to around 40 hZ, which will have just a slight "hole" in response - since no vocalist I've ever heard can sing that low, it should sound great.

All that carpet may deaden the highs a bit, you might try NOT covering the glass to brighten things up a little - mic placement (both position AND direction) will also make lots of difference in the recorded sound...

The reason HOME HVAC stuff is so loud, is that it's usually done as cheaply as possible, which means smaller ducts, less bends in ducts, no muffling @ corners, small high speed fans, short duct runs between rooms, etc - If you have just the OPPOSITE of each of those conditions, it's called a STUDIO HVAC... Air noise is proportional to like the 4th or 5th POWER of speed, so the slower the air is moving the quieter. Large ducts with slow moving air get the amount of air necessary, WITHOUT the speed.

And, yeah, the cheapest easiest way to get around all that is just turn it off... Steve