Hi All,

Everyone says 'room treatment' is one of the critical aspects for a project studio...

I was wondering what you thoughts were for the needed room treatment for tracking vox & guitars (elec and acoustic).

For vox, wouldn't deadening the space (gobos w/ corning 703 panels, blankets, etc) be sufficient?

For guitars, what's needed here? Deadening the room reflections, or getting the RIGHT refelctions, or controling the bass, or...?

FWIW, my studio is 10x22', carpet floors, has 2" wedge sound absorbtion tiles in various crucial areas (for mixing), no bass traps, two very large gobos.

Thanks!
Tom

I would say a combination of bass traps, multiband absorbtion, and gobos. The two inch wedge foam will basically take care of highs only. My room is very well treated and I'm so glad I took the time to do it. It has made my recordings and more importantly my mixes way better. My gobos are made from 3 hollow doors and wedge foam.

quote:

For vox, wouldn't deadening the space (gobos w/ corning 703 panels, blankets, etc) be sufficient?

For guitars, what's needed here? Deadening the room reflections, or getting the RIGHT refelctions, or controling the bass, or...?

There is no sufficient or not sufficient treatment. Do you notice any problems when you record in the room? Does the source sound the way you want it to be recorded? When you playback your recoded material can you hear clarity or mud? That's what matters.

Anything less than 703 or equivalent does little to nothing to frequencies below 500hz. 2" 703 won't do much below 250hz. 4" will go somewhere near 100-60hz area, could even go lower depending on the setup.
So everything that goes lower than your acoustic treatment material can absorb is going to be reflected the same way it used to before the treatment. Now how important that is in your room & you only you can decide.

I'd say the vocals will receive more sonic benefits from treatment. I f you're close mic'ing the guitar it may not grab much room sound. But, room mic'ing is another story. If you mix in the same room you may not notice much being askew..I'd at least start with some hevy packing blankets draped over some boom mic stands( with arms obviously horizontal) and place those around the mic to sing. then you should look into some bass trapping, not foam

I started out with foam. Later added 703-based gobos. Then bought some RealTraps (bass traps).

I wish I had done it in the opposite order. Bass trapping is by far the most important, IMHO, so spend the most money on getting really good bass traps. The see how your room sounds. From there I'd add gobos (703-based or really good solid ones, not just foam-based), then foam.

The foam I have is most useful for containing flutter echos, and I make sure it's widely dispersed. I could be wrong here, but IMO too much foam can create mud in that high frequency reflections are too attenuated. If Ethan's lurking here, he can give you a truly educated response on that.