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Old 02-07-2018, 08:42 AM
jim1960 jim1960 is offline
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Default Room treatment avoidance... how long?

For those of us who have set up recording spaces in our homes, how long did it take before you invested in effective room treatment?

I'm asking out of curiosity because so many threads come up where it becomes clear fairly quickly that recording complaints often are the result, in part or whole, of a lack of acoustic treatment in the room.

I know in my own case, it took years before I made the investment, and the initial investment was a complete waste of money. In those early years, I was convinced I could overcome my room deficiencies by investing in better gear or better plugins. When I finally started to believe what more knowledgeable folks had been telling me for years, I started looking for room treatment options. Not wanting to spend too much money, I ordered a bunch of stuff from a company called "Foam by Mail." What a waste of money that turned out to be. Shortly after that, I ordered bass traps and broadband panels from GIK Acoustics.

I think part of my reluctance to invest in treatment (and I'm wondering if the same applies to others) was that treatment isn't sexy. The panels don't come with cool looking lights or meters, there are no knobs to turn, and no switches to flip. I didn't want to steer money that could have gone towards the next "greatest" piece of gear into room treatment. Obviously my thinking on this has evolved and I'm looking forward to my impending retirement and relocating to a new home where I'm planning on having a dedicated recording room where my first investment will be room treatment.

Anyway... I was just wondering how long it took others to come around on that issue.
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Old 02-07-2018, 12:51 PM
DukeX DukeX is offline
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Because of the Internet, it didn't take me long. I was one of the early members at HomeRecording.com and other websites back in the day. It didn't take long for "room treatment" and "monitoring chain" to become big topics.

Last edited by DukeX; 02-07-2018 at 01:13 PM.
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Old 02-07-2018, 01:12 PM
RedJoker RedJoker is offline
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Long enough to convince the wife I was serious enough to mess up her décor with sound treatment.

In other words, I have no idea yet....
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Old 02-07-2018, 05:10 PM
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I came at it from the perspective of knowing I would need room treatment.
Because my first recording experience was in a high end post production studio that had 10's of thousands in room acoustic treatments for the mixing studios

I would say within a month or two of getting my first home system.
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Old 02-07-2018, 06:29 PM
Gordon Currie Gordon Currie is offline
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Way too long. I should have known better, as I've been in a number of studios from big to small, and ALL the professional studios, no matter how small and basic, had significant room treatment.

Same excuse - it's not sexy, no blinking lights, no 'mojo' involved. When I finally got wise, I had done so much studying that I neatly avoided the 'foam trap' (pun intended) and went straight for rockwool/fiberglass bass traps, as it's the bass chaos that has the most impact in smaller rooms.

Once I heard the improved clarity, I then did the same for my home theater. I'm a believer.
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Old 02-08-2018, 01:49 AM
alohachris alohachris is offline
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Default 35 + years!

Aloha Friends,

Cool topic, Jim!

It took me most of 40 years to fully commit to adequate Room Treatment for my home recordings, I'm sad to say. My main issue was that, as a lifelong renter, I couldn't permanently change any dwelling I lived in. And I was too cheap, lazy or stupid to figure out alternatives so I could record at home.

So I paid for studio time for decades. Recording wasn't really my main musical priority anyway because for 53 years, I was more into nightly gigging & playing live for folks. Back then in the analog world, pro-level, home recording rigs were prohibitively expense ($46 for a 15 minute 1" ferrous tape pancake on a $7800 two-track Studer recorder or cheaper TEAC) or crappy & un-professional (Tascam Portastudio) for making gig tapes for sale.

When the early DAW's came around in the 90's, and home recording got much cheaper & professional grade home recordings more possible with each DAW generation, that's when I came on board the Room Treatment wagon. The recordings I made to sell at gigs became hugely better as soon as I committed to R/T.

I read a lot on R/T first off. I spent more time in friends' studio's asking questions. I took the time to understanding Ethan Winer's Acoustic Bible. With the internet, I compared notes at gearslutz/studio building & other sites. I looked at manufactured gobos & all kinds of materials. And then I found out how everyday player/recordists like the very generous Fran Guidry were controlling early reflections in their home spaces & studio's w/ relatively inexpensive DIY Room Treatment. Great info popped up in many places when I looked for it. The internet made it so much easier to learn about Room Treatment. Many on this forum were extremely generous in helping me modernize my live & recording rigs - Thank You!

I started making portable broadband absorbers about 20 years ago. And then over about three years time, I made O-C 703 absorbers as needed (22 in all) for my room, tracking, editing & mastering spaces. Cost about $25 per absorber.

As a longtime microphone nut, trader, & high-end gear addict (cured about 10 years ago), Room Treatment finally allowed me to hear & fully appreciate the subtle differences among mic's, mic-pre combo's & all kinds of signal chains - especially the great ones I moved up to eventually. Man did it ever. I loved those mic recordings. It allowed me to rent gear I was interested in, do my own shoot-outs at home & hear the differences.

More importantly, R/T gave me consistency in my own simple acoustic & vocal recordings - the differences between my earlier & later recordings were astounding. And I could adapt my free-standing absorbers to any living space I was in without permanently changing it. And then store them to use the room for other purposes.

So I became a true believer in & proponent of using adequate R/T for DAW home recording, ad nauseam, to any poor suspecting reader @ this & many other sites.

I hope to help other player/recordists avoid the ignorance & wasting of time, money & all those lousy, inconsistent recordings of my past (35-40 years of bad recordings in all) by touting adequate Room Treatment as a first priority. If you wish to home record - start by making 2-4 2"x2'x4' O-C703 broadband absorbers (c'mon, you won't find Roxul in pro studio's!), then take it from there.

Now 72, it doesn't even effing matter anymore for me, because NOTHING is going to help my vocal recordings now, ever again. Or my diabetic hand neuropathy that prevents me from playing any guitar. All My Life's a Circle - Ha!

I've sold off most of my gear now except for some Schoeps CMC641's, a Microtech-Gefell UM-900, an Apogee Duet2 & some Adams A7X's. But I still have those same old trusty broadband absorbers around - just in case I feel it on a good day - & also for listening to your recordings here.

A Hui Hou, Friends!

alohachris

Last edited by alohachris; 02-08-2018 at 02:42 AM.
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Old 02-08-2018, 08:46 AM
MikeBmusic MikeBmusic is offline
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Too long.
My first attempt at controlling those bad acoustics was recording vocals under a heavy quilt draped over me and the mic. 5 minutes of that and I was sweating like a pig in August.
Then recording in my largest room, facing out across the longest dimension. then hanging a moving blanket behind me in that room. It was better, but the fact was my regular room, used for mixing still had terrible sound.
Luckily, I had read enough that I didn't invest in a wall of foam first (almost did!)
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Old 02-08-2018, 11:00 AM
jim1960 jim1960 is offline
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Thanks to all for the interesting responses. This thread has been an interesting read.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DukeX View Post
Because of the Internet, it didn't take me long. I was one of the early members at HomeRecording.com and other websites back in the day. It didn't take long for "room treatment" and "monitoring chain" to become big topics.
I use to hang around that forum as well but my mind was so focused on gear that I ignored the threads about much else.

Quote:
Originally Posted by RedJoker View Post
Long enough to convince the wife I was serious enough to mess up her décor with sound treatment.

In other words, I have no idea yet....
Gobos. You want gobos. Then you can just put them away and keep your marriage intact.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KevWind View Post
I would say within a month or two of getting my first home system.
The headaches and money I could have saved if I were as wise.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gordon Currie View Post
Way too long....Same excuse - it's not sexy, no blinking lights, no 'mojo' involved.
Perhaps there's a business opportunity there. We should develop a line of acoustic panels with lights, switches, and meters. The electronics don't have to actually do anything but look impressive.

Quote:
Originally Posted by alohachris View Post
It took me most of 40 years to fully commit to adequate Room Treatment for my home recordings,
Chris, I feel your pain, literally and figuratively. Spinal stenosis issues have resulted in nerve damage that mostly affects my legs and abdomen but I do get some occasional tingling in my hands. But as for resisting for 40 years, I wonder if anyone is going to top that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeBmusic View Post
Too long.
My first attempt at controlling those bad acoustics was recording vocals under a heavy quilt draped over me and the mic. 5 minutes of that and I was sweating like a pig in August....I didn't invest in a wall of foam first (almost did!)
Congrats on not falling for the foam fallacy. I've warned more people off of that stuff than I can count. I know I've saved a few from making that mistake but for some the allure of a foam as a cheap fix is difficult to pass by. I felt like an idiot the day I finally bagged up all that foam and put it down at the curb.
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Old 02-08-2018, 02:54 PM
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I did a bit of home recording over a period of 8 years, off and on, before I used any form of treatment. During that time my equipment ranged from using a Zoom H4 to using a pair of external mics into an audio interface to the laptop. A few years ago I got a bit more serious, in equipment and expectations, and built several gobos. I'm not at a point where I can have a dedicated recording room. My room is shared for other purposes, and I record in various rooms. So for now, the gobos are my most workable solution.
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Old 02-08-2018, 03:55 PM
jim1960 jim1960 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChuckS View Post
I did a bit of home recording over a period of 8 years, off and on, before I used any form of treatment. During that time my equipment ranged from using a Zoom H4 to using a pair of external mics into an audio interface to the laptop. A few years ago I got a bit more serious, in equipment and expectations, and built several gobos. I'm not at a point where I can have a dedicated recording room. My room is shared for other purposes, and I record in various rooms. So for now, the gobos are my most workable solution.
There's nothing wrong with that. I'm doing the same to help my current situation. I figure they'll still be useful down the road when I have a better space.
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2017 Circle Strings 00 bastogne walnut/sinker redwood
2015 Circle Strings Parlor shedua/western red cedar
2009 Bamburg JSB Signature Baritone macassar ebony/carpathian spruce
2004 Taylor XXX-RS indian rosewood/sitka spruce
1988 Martin D-16 mahogany/sitka spruce

along with some electrics, zouks, dulcimers, and banjos.

YouTube
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Old 02-08-2018, 04:47 PM
midwinter midwinter is offline
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In my little basement spare room studio, there was enough stuff in the room—and I wasn't using good enough mics—for treating the room to be necessary.

Now that we've moved the recording gear and some much better mics into an office space? Treatment is one of the first things we're doing. I've tracked two voice-only sessions in there with no treatment, and it sounds like a bathroom on the tracks (although on one I draped a coat across a piano bench to kill some of the reflections).

In addition to hanging panels on the walls, I want to create some mobile baffles so that we can "shrink" the room down to whatever size we need when recording certain things.
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Old 02-09-2018, 07:42 AM
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Mr. Jelly Mr. Jelly is offline
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I did pretty fast. The problem is most of us record and monitor in the same space. A room used to listen to monitors should not have the same treatment as a room for recording. A good recording space should sound good before any recording happens. A good recording does not need much done to t. The more that needs to be done to a recording the worse it's going to sound.
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Old 02-09-2018, 09:41 AM
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Hi Jim…

When I was building (as in constructing) the studio we used for 8 years, I collected all the advice and expertise I could, and had a workable plan going in, and knew if I didn't have hundreds of thousands to construct a large space with proper reflection, then it would be smart to build a small, properly dampened space. I was still questioning some of the elements of outfitting the room properly (it was a dedicated space and not a shared room).

I took some advice from a pro studio designer who suggested having your plans in place, and then while moving ahead, he suggested starting to do test recording well before the room was fully altered to see what anomalies needed to be addressed. That was smart for me.

The room was built and walls textured, and carpeted, and the end result was we have a decent space which is about 10-15 feet with concrete floors (we discovered the carpet was producing a HUGE low mid bump), heavily textured walls, and reflective ceiling, with properly insulated walls which is isolated from noise sources, and is comfortably decorated to record in. We used self designed, home made noise dampening 'blocks' to control reflections from walls and corners.

It's large enough to place players far from any walls and corners, and produces very neutral recordings with no room reflection, which can then be properly handled in post production.



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Old 02-09-2018, 10:19 AM
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As a side note, I always use the word 'dampen' around our sound lab guys instead of 'damp' just see their eyes twitch. If I use it enough, I'll get one to go off on a sermon on the difference between two and which is correct.

Yeah, I'm a jerk sometimes...
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Old 02-09-2018, 11:10 AM
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I guess it took me about 5 years to do something significant to my recording. I had a home brew CD that was mixed/mastered by a local engineer and he was the one who first got me paying attention to some sort of treatment. After a couple of years I graduated to portable gobos (3) and took my recording downstairs to our dining room with high ceilings and wood/carpet floors. I also changed up the Zoom H4n and progressed to external condenser mics and a mic preamp and felt this advancement gave me the upgrade I was looking for. Still not "studio" quality recording, but suitable for my needs and investment. It's certainly a process which is ongoing!!
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