tell me how room treatments improved your home recordings

Hi guys,

As i slowly start heading down the path towards better home recordings my first step is room treatments, specifically 4 GIK 4" thick gobos. Once I learn to tame my recording space and improve my mic placement technique I'll move on to better mics etc. First things first, as they say.

So tell me: how did room treatments improve your home recordings? Were the improvements dramatic, or more subtle?

[lkingston]

Another option is to use mics that don’t pick up a lot of the room: usually a good dynamic mic with a FetHead or a CloudLifter. The Shure SM7B is wonderful for this. It is also good for tracking with a live band or tracking vocals while playing guitar. It also minimizes outside traffic and air conditioner/heater duct noise.

[rick-slo]

My CDs on my website and more recent recordings I have posted give a pretty good idea how recording sound can evolve with room treatment and gear. At the time of my first CD there was no room treatment and the gear was not great. Hard to get anything half way decent recording wise. By around the third CD the room began to be treated with panels. Gear and software continued to improve.

[Chipotle]

One of my lockdown projects was to treat the room I use as my studio. It's just about a worst-case scenario: 11x10x8, practically cubical, with hard plaster walls. I made recordings of the untreated room, with just bass traps in most of the corners, and then adding wall panels on back and sides.

These recordings were made with a Shure KSM44. I was seated in the center of the room for all, with the mic at mouth level about 9" away. I strummed a bit of guitar with the mic in that same position, and recorded both omni and cardioid pattern so you can hear the difference. No attempt to level match, but I did have the preamp gain settings the same each time (Scarlett 2i2 interface). FWIW the guitar is a Composite Acoustics GX.

I just talked a bit and then strummed a few chords, but it will give you an idea of how things progressively improve even in a bad room.

Bass traps: 18"x8'x6", angled across 3 corners of the room floor to ceiling and one just half-height because it was sitting on a desk that was there.

Wall panels: three 2'x4'x4" panels on the back wall and two 2'x4'x2" panels on each side wall.

No sound treatment, Omni
Bass traps only, Omni
With wall panels, Omni

No treatment, Cardioid
Bass traps, Cardioid
Wall panels, Cardioid

It's not perfect by any means, but you can definitely hear the difference! This should give you some idea, at least.

Even after putting 100sf of treatment, I still had a nasty ring, almost like a spring reverb, between floor and ceiling! So a bit of "cloud" is next, along with a couple 4" gobos to put behind the mics. I'll record those too when I get it all finished.

[alohachris]

Aloha Triple 000 Doug,

Good Question RE: Effect of Treatment.

Rather than tell you, listen to the dramatic differences here from Doug Young:

I imagine you've heard this before, but here's an example of what treatment did in my garage. I recorded something in the same spot before and after. The first pass is a mono recording, 1 mic, 18 inches away before treatment, empty garage. 2nd is same spot, etc, after treatment. 3rd pass is stereo mics, moved up to 8 inches from the guitar, after treatment.

https://soundcloud.com/doug-young/ro...nt-effect-demo

BTW, Room EQ Wizard (REW) is free software that will help you measure your room and both help you know what you need, and help you quantify how well whatever you do is. So you can use it to see of blankets help, etc.
__________________
Doug Young

When I fully committed to Room Treatment, J-Doug, I already had a great signal chain, great mic's, knowledge about mic placement, I still was in my prime as a singer & player, & decades of screwing around with recording striving for acceptable tracks - & largely failing.

The difference for me with Treatment is Night & Day in the consistency & quality of my recordings. It finally allowed me to relax in the tracking process. So my performances were more dynamic & relaxed as well. I'd say that was worth any amount of money after pursuing even mediocrity for years. To finally be happy hearing myself play & sing after decades of futility & able to do it consistenly almost every time I played.......priceless.

Controlling your space is as vital to your recordings as the gear itself.

Pull the plug on those gobo's, J-Doug. Or I'll help you DIY.

alohachris

[min7b5]

I got one Primaacosutic London 10 kit on my little home office and it made a huge difference. I won't make an album here. I'll always go to a pro studio to make records (partly because it just frees me up) I'm not saying it's perfect, but I record some YouTube videos here now, lessons for students, video editing work... and I've done quite a bit overdub sessions for people this year.. The room is ten by ten, with ten foot ceilings, the dreaded cube! But with hardwood floors there was a lot of flutter. Primaacosutic London 10 was a big transformation. At one point I got a second kit, but ended up only using a few of the additional panels because the room started to get too dead..

[keith.rogers]

I treated my room primarily to help with mixing. A side effect is that it makes the room better for recording, but I think being better able to hear the mix was more important, since a lot of what I was doing for a while (not this year!) was recording folks elsewhere.

[KevWind]

Others have mentioned some specific things
I will make some general observations and then try to answer your question.

First, all enclosed spaces ( other than an anechoic chamber or total ISO booth) are subject reflections
However ::
Reflections can either enhance or detract from the sound we are hearing, depending on an endless number of variables, and sometimes can even do both at different frequency ranges. Because of the amount of variables involved it is very hard to predict how room treatment will affect your specific situation of recording and mixing .

Everything in the room environment and in the signal chain path (every analog circuit and every digital algorithm all analog and digital components ) to some extent (some more noticeable, some less, some not ) but virtually all has some effect on the sound because all recorded sound is the "sum total" of everything involved.

As to your question (depending on your room, and all your equipment , record and playback) And your learned critical listening skill you the effect of room treatment can be from fairly subtle to fairly dramatic.

But only in the most general terms, if the room treatment is effective at all, what should start to be noticeable is when listening back the sound (hopefully) should start to move from muddy-ish , flatter linear (2 D-ish ) to more detailed and more spacious depth ("you are there" type 3D -ish ) In varying degree again depending on all the variables involved.

Note often that mud is not perceived so much as "muddy" but often simply perceived more as a subtle lack of depth and or detail ... More like listening from "out of the room" than "in the room"

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

One of my lockdown projects was to treat the room I use as my studio. It's just about a worst-case scenario: 11x10x8, practically cubical, with hard plaster walls. I made recordings of the untreated room, with just bass traps in most of the corners, and then adding wall panels on back and sides.

These recordings were made with a Shure KSM44. I was seated in the center of the room for all, with the mic at mouth level about 9" away.

Did you sit in the center of the room to highlight the difference ?
I have been told that the center of the room in a square or centered along the long walls in a rectangle, is the least desirable position (to mix or record) from ?

Thanks for all the responses guys! The audio clips were especially telling.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Did you sit in the center of the room to highlight the difference ?
I have been told that the center of the room in a square or centered along the long walls in a rectangle, is the least desirable position (to mix or record) from ?

Yes, and simply for consistency's sake. I forgot to mention that I am also facing a wall in the recordings.

When tracking, I move around a bit to try and minimize any bad reflections I'm hearing, and also tend to face the mic towards a corner rather than a wall. My mixing position is about 3' out from one wall, with panels on the side walls situated at the first reflection points.