Wood Live Room with no Absorption?

[RecordingMaster]

Hi there,

Seems, more and more I'm seeing pictures of studios with live rooms that are made all or mostly of wood - the floors, walls and ceiling. And anytime I see this, there looks to be to absorption panels or bass trapping. I understand some rooms dimensions are designed in a way to avoid flutter echoes and bass buildup, so if you designed such a room, is it true that you would require no absorption at all? I know what some studios will do is cover an entire wall with absorption and then cover the absorption with thin spaced apart wood strips to act as a diffuser as well, but I doubt that's what these studios are doing...

For example, here is one higher profile studio (home studio actually) around my parts where all the bigger bands in the area record. Any bands around here that get signed and get their singles in regular rotation on the radio tend to record here since he has that "modern" rock sound and is very up with the times and good at what he does. Gallery | SLR STUDIOS - Sound Labs Recording

Here is another one a studio a few hours from my place which is much bigger and has a pretty nice looking setup. Also wood live room and no VISIBLE absorption. Go to the gallery section on this site: Beach Road Studios

What gives?

 

[diggy_dude]

Glad you made the distinction between live room and control room here. You can get away with no absorption in the live room if the room sounds good, but I doubt any control room would be correct without absorption.

 

[Massive Master]

Just because you can't see the absorption doesn't mean it's not there --

Most live room constructions I've seen / been a part of had huge amounts of broadband trapping behind the surface material.

THAT SAID - We're talking about a finite amount of energy in a specific space --- Control rooms tend to be much smaller than the (rather large) live rooms in these and other examples. Absorption is there to absorb energy, the amount of energy doesn't change from room to room (a drum kit in a closet produces the same amount of energy as it would in an open field). It's how the room reacts to it.

Think of that energy as water -- If you're in a 1000 cu.ft. room and you put 700 cu.ft. of water in it, you're eventually going to drown. That same amount of water in a 10,000 cu.ft. room will leave you with wet ankles.

 

[RecordingMaster]

Just because you can't see the absorption doesn't mean it's not there --

Most live room constructions I've seen / been a part of had huge amounts of broadband trapping behind the surface material.

THAT SAID - We're talking about a finite amount of energy in a specific space --- Control rooms tend to be much smaller than the (rather large) live rooms in these and other examples. Absorption is there to absorb energy, the amount of energy doesn't change from room to room (a drum kit in a closet produces the same amount of energy as it would in an open field). It's how the room reacts to it.

Think of that energy as water -- If you're in a 1000 cu.ft. room and you put 700 cu.ft. of water in it, you're eventually going to drown. That same amount of water in a 10,000 cu.ft. room will leave you with wet ankles.

I agree that they probably have some sort of absorption in place, I just wonder where. I ask because it would be cool to do this myself. I;ve been in SLR Studio (before I got into all this acoustic stuff) and the wood slats are right up against each other, although his ceiling looks black so maybe IT is the treated part. Oh and what you're saying with your analogy is, the reflections won't be as intense/harsh in a larger room as opposed to smaller? If so, yes that makes sense.

And Diggy, assuming the room sounds good without treatment, I'd still wonder about the lows being too boomy, and if THAT isn't even a problem, we can't deny reverberation length. The bigger the room, the more open sound and more reverb you're going to get. If they wanted to record a dry drum kit I guess they just can't? Maybe they don't care to. I guess I'd be better off asking the source for that detailed of a question.

 

[Farview]

Those are both pretty big rooms. The bigger the room, the less treatment you need. Even though you will get more reverb, you will hear it mostly at the other end of the room.

The bigger the room is, the less sound energy bounces off the walls (because they are farther away) and gets back to the source. So the reflections are so quiet in the mics, that they don't matter.

Add that to the fact that any comb filtering that can happen will be happening at a much lower frequency than it would in a smaller room. Low frequencies need more energy to propagate, so they don't travel as far and tend to peter out before it becomes a problem in a large room.

 

[RecordingMaster]

Those are both pretty big rooms. The bigger the room, the less treatment you need. Even though you will get more reverb, you will hear it mostly at the other end of the room.

The bigger the room is, the less sound energy bounces off the walls (because they are farther away) and gets back to the source. So the reflections are so quiet in the mics, that they don't matter.

Add that to the fact that any comb filtering that can happen will be happening at a much lower frequency than it would in a smaller room. Low frequencies need more energy to propagate, so they don't travel as far and tend to peter out before it becomes a problem in a large room.

That puts things into perspective, thanks. Once I started becoming more observant of other studios' acoustics, I always wondered why some seemingly successful studios with live rooms on the larger side had little to no treatment. The fact that the mics (close ones anyways) just won't pick up ALL that ambiance in a larger room makes sense to me now. Thanks again.

 

[witzendoz]

The spaced wood paneling is not a defuser, the slots are tuned to frequencies that need to be reduced, behind the panelling is a ton of material designed to be a bass trap or mid band absorption.

For example behind my drum area there is what look like a solid wall, in fact it is a sheet of plaster board with a ton of absorption material behind it, thick high density mounted on the back of it and some rolled up mid density a few inches further back against the secondary wall. The low bass can travel through the board and it is trapped inside the cavity. I designed it this way as I did not want to reduce the high end and the sealed cavity can absorb a lower bass frequency. It actually works very well.

Alan.

 

[RecordingMaster]

The spaced wood paneling is not a defuser, the slots are tuned to frequencies that need to be reduced, behind the panelling is a ton of material designed to be a bass trap or mid band absorption.

For example behind my drum area there is what look like a solid wall, in fact it is a sheet of plaster board with a ton of absorption material behind it, thick high density mounted on the back of it and some rolled up mid density a few inches further back against the secondary wall. The low bass can travel through the board and it is trapped inside the cavity. I designed it this way as I did not want to reduce the high end and the sealed cavity can absorb a lower bass frequency. It actually works very well.

Alan.

VERY cool! Where in your room is the drum area? I can't really see where you would have done this when I look at your live room pics.

 

[diggy_dude]

And Diggy, assuming the room sounds good without treatment, I'd still wonder about the lows being too boomy...

The lows being too boomy would preclude it sounding good.

...we can't deny reverberation length. The bigger the room, the more open sound and more reverb you're going to get.

I would assume they use such a room because they like the natural reverb.

The point may be moot anyway because, as Massive said, there may be room treatment that you can't see in the photos.

 

[witzendoz]

VERY cool! Where in your room is the drum area? I can't really see where you would have done this when I look at your live room pics.

The drum area is the end with the single door in the corner, and a pile of mic stands there at the moment, if you have a look at the blog photos there are pics of drum kits set up. There is a strip of acoustic foam at about head high that I put in to tame the liveness a little for the cymbals. The door is a little inconvenient, but I was working with the constraints of the actual building size and the door has direct access to the loading area which is handy.

Alan.

 

[RecordingMaster]

The drum area is the end with the single door in the corner, and a pile of mic stands there at the moment, if you have a look at the blog photos there are pics of drum kits set up. There is a strip of acoustic foam at about head high that I put in to tame the liveness a little for the cymbals. The door is a little inconvenient, but I was working with the constraints of the actual building size and the door has direct access to the loading area which is handy.

Alan.

It looks very discreet. You can't even tell you did that (in the pics anyways).