What I Hear: Before and After

[WhiteStrat]

In case you haven't seen my studio construction thread, I'm nearing completion of a studio in my house. While I expect to record others, mainly it's my little paradise--so it's a one room setup; no control room.

It's 16 x 26. My desk is such that when I'm leaned back in my chair, my ears are right on level with the speakers, and 35-40% down the long dimension of the room.

I've treated it with panels all over the place (GIK stuff). Thick tri-trap bass traps in all 4 corners. Flat bass & broadband traps all along the walls, including right at the first reflection points of my monitors. (For you visual folks, find my studio construction thread, I'll be posting final pics in a couple/few days.)

As I've put stuff back in the studio, I've obviously played around just to hear if I can tell a difference. Some (very) preliminary impressions: Acoustic guitar: tighter, and a lot less boom. Drums: WAY tighter (easier for me to assess because it wasn't me playing. I'm looking forward to tracking the drums! Electric guitar: Didin't notice much difference, but in all fairness, I wasn't being scientific. I was just dying to play, and so I cranked it up til my ears hurt and jammed.

Anyway, last night, I finished all the connections in my desk. As I did, it occurred to me that I could now listen to some tunes through my monitors instead of listening to Coast to Coast on the little AM radio that's been with me during construction.

So I sat in the captains chair and fired up iTunes. It's alphabetical by artist--cool, there's AC/DC. I love the whole Back in Black album and You Shook Me All Night Long is one of my all time favorite ballsy, in-your-face rock n roll songs.

So I double click. Then I literally laughed out (a freaked out, happy laugh; not a funny joke laugh).

I always thought my rig and space (it wasn't a room yet) sounded pretty good. And I love the stereo spread on that song. I could always hear that the one guitar was on the right, and then the other comes in on the left. The vocals & bass are in the middle. Snare & kick are in the middle but there's a decent spread with the rest of the song.

And like with most well recorded tunes, I could even hear some vertical separation. That's mostly a function of frequency, but the bass will sound like it's closer to the ground, the vox & guitars higher, the cymbals higher still. (Admittedly, that vertical separation's easier to hear on a good set of headphones.)

But I was literally astounded at what I heard now. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised--being a one room set up, I've been focused on making it a good listening room, so I can mix what I've tracked (knowing of course that what I've tracked should be better to begin with).

Long story short (I know--too late), here are a couple graphics that illustrate my point.

 

[WhiteStrat]

Here's what I used to hear. LIke I said, I thought it sounded good. Everything had it's own place (sort of!) and I could hear differences in where things were. But I had know idea how much overlap (is that what they call smear??) I was hearing that isn't really there.

 

[WhiteStrat]

Here's what I hear now.

The separation of instruments is downright amazing! I wasn't hearing things coming from general areas anymore--I could hear them coming specific spots--like the amp was right there. And when the vocals came in? It damn near scared me! Dude was in the room with me! And his voice wasn't coming equally from two speakers--it was coming from a mysterious spot right in the center of the two speakers. It's like there was a third speaker just for the voice!

And notice on the graphic that the vertical separation is greater. The sense of difference between high and low placement of frequencies was much more noticeable--like I've only heard in headphones before.

Since every element was much more clearly defined and located, the graphic might make it look like the sound was somehow "smaller." To the contrary, it was bigger! The well defined space between the elements made it feel like the band was in the room with me--and I could turn it up and up, and still hear everything so much better.

I don't know all the science behind it, but my guess is that before, all the reflections were filling in and "smearing" the sound as it hit my ears--making each element of the sound spread and overlap more than it should have. Now that the sound is being absorbed instead of bouncing back and mixing with what's coming out of my monitors, I'm really hearing what's coming out of the speakers.

God, I can't wait to mix in here!

 

[Weasel9992]

...aaaand that's the way it's supposed to sound when everything is done right. Nice job.

 

[dintymoore]

I like the graphics but to me the kick drum should be under the bass (as in Fender or synth bass), not on top of it. The kick drum should be a big flattened eclipse that goes completely from left to right, and should be the lowest thing in the band that everything else sits on. The whole graphics should be a pyramid shape, widest (by a long shot) at the bottom. The wider the better.

 

[WhiteStrat]

I like the graphics but to me the kick drum should be under the bass (as in Fender or synth bass), not on top of it. The kick drum should be a big flattened eclipse that goes completely from left to right, and should be the lowest thing in the band that everything else sits on. The whole graphics should be a pyramid shape, widest (by a long shot) at the bottom. The wider the better.

I get what you're saying, and as a representation of a mix in general, I agree. But in this case I was merely trying to compare and contrast the before and after on this particular song.

Were I too scale the "blobs" so that their visual weight matched their sonic weight, it would definitely look more like you describe.

 

[dintymoore]

Gotcha I did like the graphics - cool way to represent what you're hearing.

 

[Jiri92]

Oh man I envy you so hard, soon I will get to this point to !

 

[meowadishi]

Thats great man. I am going to have your studio in my head for when I finally have the space for it. SO impressive. I really really really dig the one room approach. With limited space. It makes a lot of sense.

I hate to say it...But I think I a jealous.

 

[buzzard bass]

Fantastic representation of what a room should sound like. I was into recording 20 odd years ago using a 4 tracker in the root cellar with 2 mics, yes we were totally professional back then. Did that for a few years. Your diagrams illustrate clearly what I should be 'looking for' in acoustic treatment. Thanks mate.