quote:

So, I'm looking at the Primacoustic panels you're talking about, Dusty. You know what feature would taotally sell me on these finacially?

If they would make the things slide up and down on the frames...so that you could position it low to the floor like the "GT" panels...then slide it up the frame to stand tall like the "XT&SD" panels. Being able to turn/flip them would be cool as well. See, you could get four...say $600ish...and have them surround you for vocals(standing)...down and over a guitar amp...maybe I need to design my own.

...you know what Pop...that's a damn fine ($$$) idea and easy as hell to fabricate in any number of ways and with any number of materials. Jeez...a little seed money and you might be looking at the next "iPod"...well at least the next Chia Pet. I guarantee you that you could do a set of four even as one-offs for a helluva lot less than $600.

-john

I don't wanna sell anyone on anything. I'm presenting some theories and ideas to Pop. And when I'm finished he can make up his mind about the best way to go.

Please let's just keep this about Pop's room. If you guys want to work on some ideas for your rooms, then start a topic.

Thx

Oh, you were talking to Nick. Sorry. Carry on...

I'll start another topic for Pop's studio when I get a sec.

quote:

I guarantee you that you could do a set of four even as one-offs for a helluva lot less than $600.

The acoustic panels would be easy enough to come by...how would you go about the frame that you could slide them up and down on...maybe I should give some thought to it. Those would be pretty cool.

So...with Nick's stuff thrown in...is all you need medium density insulation? It would seem like, while better than hardwood, it's still flat, no? Does the contours of the foam do nothing to help delflect/dispurse reflections?

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So...with Nick's stuff thrown in...is all you need medium density insulation? It would seem like, while better than hardwood, it's still flat, no? Does the contours of the foam do nothing to help delflect/dispurse reflections?

The ridges give the foam more surface space. More bang for the used real-estate... So they also aid in absorbtion... Perhaps more than diffusion because it doesn't seem like foam would be a great diffusor to me... The most obvious standing waves aren't heavily effected by foam are they?

-Dusty

Pop,
The carpenter in me says a set of sliding dovetails would be lovely/elegant (they sometimes use these as drawer guides or even for mounting breadboard ends on table tops)...they would be nice but there are easier ways. For one, a frame with uprights made out of PVC plumbing fittings and then the "sliding" fixtures could just be made from couplings. Since the couplings are made to fit rather tightly, they'd have to be reamed a bit to slide well...but that would be a cinch (and super cheap. You can also use the primer that is normally used to clean PVC fittings before "solvent-welding" them as a way to remove the writing from the pipe. Careful though...the stuff is a guaranteed brain-cell reducer. As for locating the thing at different heights...some simple holes with pins will work. Another more elegant-looking way to do it is to just go to either a hardware store or home center and get aluminum tubing (say around an inch diameter) and then the next size up that fits over it to cut to shorter sliding fixtures. BTW, sometimes square aluminum extrusions will slide more easily over round tubing because of the reduced contact between them. Once you have the uprights and sliding fixtures made...you just need to connect them to a suitably heavy base...as well as the acoustic panels. Piece o' cake.

-john

Oohh...drawer guides. Now that's something to look at. That would pretty easily handle the up and down...maybe I'll go look at them--see if something occurs to me about the swinging from the middle (and staying in whatever angle)...

Hey Pop, how high is your ceiling and what is it made out of?

Yes, ceiling important too. it's another surface contributing to the sound. Do some searching on "acoustic clouds"

Glad to see you're getting around to treating the room(s). I gotta go back and read all of this again before I make redundant comments...

are you OK at DIY?

OK, I've read the entire thread. Some smart dudes here!...and also me too with whatever synapses still work

a few points came to mind when reading this;
703 panels, realtraps, corner traps and the like are broadband bass traps. Almost nobody in this context is using tuned bass traps. You can't overtrap a room. Maybe it feels like you're going to suck too much bass out of the room but it doesn't work like that.

you can however over absorb a room towards the higher end of the frequency spectrum. Too much foam syndrome. That's not good. Balance is what you're after.

If you have no treatments, doing anything will not make the room worse.I've yet to hear a small sized room be better for drums without treatment. Unless you lucked into a room with perfect dimensions, walls splayed at 12 degrees, with some sort of built-in bass trapping it will always sound better with some flutter echo treatment and bass trapping. You don't do drums right now but the principals still apply.

Treating acoustics is not about looking cool and like a studio, that's dumb. It's about sounding like a studio. Obviously you want your space to look cool and some of the products look nice...but curtains and home made traps would work fine and look rather normal.

just because your mixes are really good already doesn't mean you'll change that when the room is fixed up. your ears won't change. People who make good recordings at home tend to defend their setup as not needing anything to get good mixes. So, your mixes are better than most folks at these types of forums, that may be enough to argue that you don't need help. Pop, I would say that your mixes are fine already as comparisons to most folk's demos and indie home records. Better for the most part. But arent you wanting to move them past that? Taking a look at acoustics seems a no brainer towards that growth. Besides, I can think of little gear that would be used on every single mic'ed up track like your room would be.

Pop, I think you said something to the notion of what people liked and didn't about the various incarnations of the tracks you've cut in your two rooms, along with the gear chains used. I wouldn't be so sure about what isn't there as being a room issue as well, the forwardness or whatever. Nulls exist in rooms just as much as reflections creep into mics. You'd be surprised of what actually might not be there at mic position as a result of nulls in the room response. Of course vocal areas/booths tend to be dead for the most part, removing wall reflections but I take it that yours wasn't treated at all. Guitar can be affected by nulls too.

space between monitors is only part of the setup. angle of the monitors has some bearing on the perception as well. spacing out monitors and then having them be at near 90 degress to your ears isn't good either. 60 degrees is a common angle in studio monitor installs and pro setups.

how far a round trip from your head to backwall? Some diffusion issues arise on shorter than 20' round trips. RPG may argue that point some.
anyhow, I'm rambling a bunch of crap. just food for thought and perhaps some clarifications.

Kel has a bunch of good points/questions/observations and I'm looking forward to discussion on the topics raised.

On the general debate about room treatment, I just can't agree with the "no treatment" position. I mean, from the restaurant that I can't hear a damn thing in (a thousand voices in a box) to the concert venue that doesn't room treat (we've got a great hall that artists refused to come back to because sound was impossible), the space affects what sound sounds like. To a certain extent, the smaller the space, the more treatment can become critical. Well, everywhere except Tom Wait's bathroom!

With a lot of work, I got some decent recordings in my old largely untreated room. One thing that never worked well was recording multiple sources at the same time. It was hell at mix time. With the new treated room, its almost a non-issue. I did a bluegrass band the other day. In a 12 by 15 room, we did 2 acoustic instruments, 2 vocalists and harmonica all at one time. Harmonica volume was the only real issue.

OK, back to practical stuff. Pop, I hate foam. Sure it deals with high end flutter and dulls the hell out of things, but there are better options. Do you have any investment in foam, or are you open to other suggestions?

I have no investment in anything.

Ceilings==60's cardboard tile-cannot come down. They're shy of 8"...say 7.5". Floor concrete/vinyl tile. Thanks to someone for acknowleging the ceiling/floor. By every rule of acoustics I understand, it HAS to be the "biggest problem" from a tech stand point. No WAY you're gonna tell me the "back wall" angled 45 deg 14-20" behind me is a bigger problem than the 100% parallel surfaces 7.5" from each other that run the entire length of the room.

But, let's stay focused on the tracking. That's where DOT says he hears a problem. Assume the electric gtr amp is taken care of...really-I cut some noodles with the 4033>Hv3>La3a this weekend that kick ass. Any issue you hear in the two mono tracks in the latest mix are due to the closet they were cut in. My mistake. Not relevant here.

So, we're talking about two tracks here...if tracking is the issue: acoustic guitar--mono sm81>GreatRiverNV panned hard left. Vocal: mono Innertube87>Hv3 dead center.

The acoustic was compressed with a Distressor. The vocal here with a TubeTech CL1b. I have a version now with the vocal recompressed wih the La3a. Improved focus and inteligibility.

Would it help to hear the naked tracks? Sans anything?

Are movable panels going to be a decent solution?

A reminder for anyone starting here--there are floor layouts at the beginning of this thread, and my latest mix in the Music Station.

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Would it help to hear the naked tracks?

I think this would help a lot!

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Are movable panels going to be a decent solution?

I think "a decent solution" depends on your definition of the term, but they certainly have the potential to provide improvement – even dramatic. Obviously tho, there are lots of variables such as placement, material construction, etc., most of which have already been addressed in the thread.

drbam

After having two untreated spaces and then a nicely treated space, I know that I'll never go back. All three are small and far from the " golden ratio". My room is 12'x 18' with a drop ceiling, but for less than a grand I was able to build a very effective system and make it look kinda cool to boot. The clarity is wonderful as is the image and depth. It's like wearing a great pair of headphones and not having anything on your head. My software pans from 0 to 63 right and left, I can pan to 1 either way and hear the change in placement. I no longer needed a sub for defined bottom end and I'm able to mix at a very low volume and hear every fucking thing,I'm loving it! I used NO foam, everything is rigid fiberglass. Pop (and all) should be able to get a box of 2" 703 for less than a behringer headphone amp, take a little time and play with placement (you can tack to the wall with 8 penny nails)and if you don't like the results you can make gobos out of them

Cardboard tile!!! Oh crap. What a freaking pain. Anything you try to mount will keep kicking up dust (as things vibrate). Anything you use to seal it will be permanent. It does, however, have some dampening effect.

My ceiling is very low (about 7'). You should hear some of the flutter I've gotten off of tenors with big vibrato (before treatment). Sounded like a bad digital effect! At the very least, some 703 traps in a 4' by 4' area above a singer is a good idea. Standing singers are up there where short ceiling reflections can be killer.

I found corner slat absorbers very helpful. I tuned the slats to problem frequencies in the areas. Immediately, feedback problems while running the live p.a. went away. I could turn my di'd acoustic way up with no problems. That was before side wall traps.

In your case, you might want deep traps in the corners. You've got enough distance for some deeper waves to get up to peak energy. Then again, the amp space and the stairway can be outstanding bass traps and you don't do a lot of heavy low end amplified (as I recall). So, for practical purposes you might not need the deep traps.

If you don't want to do a lot. Get your 4' by 4' ceiling traps, buy 4 packs of 703 or 705 and stand them in the corners (up close to the ceiling) and then talk to Nick about 4 or 6 of his stand-mountable traps. You would hear a difference.

If you want to do slat resonators and can wait until summer, I'd come by and help you build 'em. I'm by your way all the time. Will work for beer and the chance to meet St. Popmann!

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If you have no treatments, doing anything will not make the room worse.

The above quote is a blanket statement. Untreated spaces CAN sound absolutely incredible, and professional treated rooms can sound absolutely terrible.

Music is an art. Recording is an art. Acoustics are a science.

I believe acoustics should be an art… And many of our favorite records made it one.

The Smashing Pumpkins rehearsed Siamese Dream in a small concrete room in a parking garage for months mastering their sound and then went to record in a fine studio and spent 6 months trying to replicate it before giving up…

The "rightous" Black Album drums were a result of pulling every absorber out of the studio... Disregarding the science-based sound of the million dollar design.

Butch Vig did the same thing on Nevermind…

Bohnam recorded in a gymnasium….

Daniel Lanois use to record in old houses that had great sounding rooms... The idea WASN'T to find a great sounding room AND TREAT IT!

These stories are endless…

Put a pillow in tri-corner above your mixer, tack some egg crates to your side walls and place your left monitor on top of a bass trap tuned to 82hz, Pop. According to this blanket statement it will improve the sound of any source in any place in any room…

I've heard plenty of that non-sense, and I use to believe it and preach it myself with plenty of conviction. But it's untrue.

It is very possible to accentuate the flaws of your room! -- Even if you do your homework.

I had two rooms of the exact proportions and treated very similarly side by side, and I remember talking on the phone one night while pacing between them and hearing my voice drop an octave as I walked from one room to the other...

The signature of your tracking room should work for what you do. What would suit Zeppelin’s vibe best is probably pretty far from what Pop’s home-fried soul-rock would thrive on.

Here’s an idea... Make your room compliment your soul.

Maybe you want to sound dry, resonant or even boxy. If the mic isn’t picking up the tone you want… MOVE the source, the mic or both, or try a different room.

The widespread “make your room RIGHT” concept is a gross example of over-thinking art at the home studio level, IMHO.

Remember that acoustic products only control the reflection of the source. The source remains the same. Sometimes a room full of nothing but high-end absorption IS the frickin-ticket! Sometimes you may want the high end to ring and the low end to be tight and controlled and want nothing but low-end control.

Maybe you want to over-absorb the mid-range so you can capture the disco smile with less EQ.

Maybe you love the way your amp feeds-back when the treble knob is dimed, but want a middy tone without adding drastic EQ in the mix…

Shit, fuck this commercial bullshit. I’m constructing my next tracking room out of chrome, leather and ostrich feathers… With vibes that sexy how could it not sound brilliant?

****

Woo…

That’s my two conviction-filled disagreements, impregnated with passion-laden bullshit and I’m sticking to it.

Ya dig?

-Dusty

quote:

Would it help to hear the naked tracks?


I think this would help a lot!

Here you go: YouSendIT download

I chose this stanza due to the fact that it ranges loud to soft dynamics.

Dot changed the topic name to "Some general concepts on the live-end/dead-end theory of acoustical treatment"...

My theory of the concept is that it is bullshit. Is three winks enough, No?

-Dusty

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Some general concepts on the live-end/dead-end theory of acoustical treatment

Ah-ha. Ah-hahahaha. Ah-hahahahahahaha. Oh jeez.

So, one up for the treated room. But, I suppose it is a bit of a preference thing. Kinda like albums. SO...Dusty:

Billy Corgan's great. Does some really amazing shit. My quote's a damn Pumpkins lyric. But I'm not sure I trust his "sound." Mellon Collie's mix is pretty terrible, IMO.

Black Album, well, Lars' drum sound and drumming period, but especially Black Album-present, terrible, again IMO.

I just don't like Nirvana.

Bohnam's drum sound also sounds like he recorded in a gymnasium. Fits Led Zep, not much else.

No idea who that guy is, but wikipedia tells me I shouldn't really care.

Just fucking around, don't get pissed or nothing .

Anyway, for ME, I'm getting excited at the prospect of working in a decent room. But, I record other people as well as myself, so I think having a treated room will make it easier to mix a wider variety of styles. Might completely fuck it up, we'll find out once I move in. Now, for Pop, I say he should do what he wants. If HE thinks his tracks sound splashy when he listens in his car, cans, wherever, then he should do something about it. And, he has the luxury of messing with his room to suit HIM. For Pop, I think treatment could really help him if he can manage to get his room sounding right for the vibe he's going for.

This isn't about treated rooms vs untreated spaces. These are some practical solutions to use if you find yourself working in a space - often for many what is basically a small box - and want to remedy some of the inherent acoustical problems.

I changed the topic to allow for more general discussion.