Questions abt room acoustics

[lppier]

Originally Posted by j3ffr0

It's not about reverb. Those first reflections don't really show up as reverb -- they are ever so slightly time delayed enough to cause some comb filtering. That first one has some low end build up from the corner that that is not as present in the other two to my ears. The first one also sounds like comb filtering in the mids that is making your voice sound less natural... compared to the others.

Using a tool like REW to measure the frequency response in your room can be really eye opening and enlightening. I've had a few revelations where "no wonder I'm boosting this or cutting that all the time; I guess I finally ought to find a way to treat that."

Thanks for the insight, I'll look into the REW as well. I had used it a long, long time ago for work.

[b1j]

Comb filtering is the tone killer. Hearing it on my recordings, on both guitar and vocals –– you listen and you think, "that's not what my guitar sounds like."

It's what finally got me to pay careful attention to the concept of absorption panels, and the good folks here who haunt the Record forum assured me I'd get a lot out of using 2' x 4' x 3-1/2" panels. Well, my eight panels have been built now for almost a month, but a couple of life imperatives have kept me from playing with them yet. That will be a highlight of 2024 for me!

[lppier]

Found this pretty informative YouTube video https://youtu.be/vEaRjt32kzc?si=4fRSp9w7GCalPb2C

[j3ffr0]

I'll share a personal lesson learned from back when I was skimping on room acoustics. I got into ribbon mics a lot (and I still love them). Early on all my solo acoustic guitar recordings with ribbons sounded leagues better and more natural than anything I could produce with a condenser. My conclusion for a while was, ribbons are just much, much more natural.

Yet it always bugged me that other guys seemed to be able to make condensers sound beautiful.... and very, very natural.

I finally discovered after doing much room treatment... especially the ceiling treatment... that my condensers were also capable of sounding beautiful and natural. I started making great sounding recordings without ribbons!

So why did the ribbons sound so much better in the old days? My theory is that my 8' ceilings were not treated (or not well treated). The natural null in the figure 8 pattern of the ribbons took care of much of those nasty ceiling floors modes that were being picked up by the cardioid pattern of condensers.