Recording the Sound of a Room

Tenson 12 March 2006

I wondered if you had any thoughts...

I want to record the difference between a room with and without extensive acoustic treatment. I am setting up a small business selling nicely made stuff that would not look out of place in a persons living room, but is also very high quality.

What I thought might be a nice idea is to record the difference on a CD that people can hear. I was thinking I might use a Neumann dummy head to try and capture this in a bin-aura recording that people could listen to on in-ear headphones. As most people have a pair that came with their walkman or something it shouldn't be too hard for them to do.

Any tips or other ideas though? I think I can get hold of one of these mic's but I have never used one before. Do you think it would even work?

Topic Tags

room

Comments

back to back PZM mics is a fast easy way to make an omni/stereo

Kev Sun, 03/12/2006 - 18:34

back to back PZM mics is a fast easy way to make an omni/stereo Head recording

A stereo mic perhaps ... but they do have a forward direction .... probably not a bad thing

Use a Mic-pre that has a switch for gain setting and no output trim
so you know you have the same gain settings for both recordings

perhaps even use something physical to record ... Like a wind up clock ... tic - toc
do some recording with and without the clock
be shure you document where the mic and the clock were for the first recording so you can duplicate it

perhaps a studio speaker with pink and pink bursts ... stuff like that

could be an interesting and fun project

You could do it, but it won't sound anythng like how your ears w

David French Sun, 03/12/2006 - 19:05

You could do it, but it won't sound anythng like how your ears would hear it in the same position. Then again, clients might not know that, so why not?
I would stick to the traditional measurement methods if I were you.

Hi, The clock idea is good... I realise using normal recording

Tenson Mon, 03/13/2006 - 06:14

Hi,

The clock idea is good...

I realise using normal recording techniques it probably won't sound anything like being there. The difference would probably be no where near as obvious. That’s why I was planning on using that special head microphone.

I will of course do the standard measurements as well but I thought it would be nice to have something more intuitive. I guess it’s just ‘suck it an see’.

Tenson wrote: ... but I thought it would be nice to have somethi

Kev Mon, 03/13/2006 - 12:22

Tenson wrote: ... but I thought it would be nice to have something more intuitive. I guess it’s just ‘suck it an see’.

yep
simple before and after stuff

I think it has merit
and it should be fun if you don't get over indulged and just keep it simple