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Kurt,

In a previous post (that I can't find) you had mentioned that you have a small room similar in size to a room that I use as a tracking room. My room is 10x12 with hardwood floors.

Could you give me a little insight on the acoustic treatments that you have set up in your room? I have Auralex on the walls and ceiling in different patterns. I have about two and a half of the $99 roominator kits in there.

I know I'm going to have to build bass traps, but I'm not sure what else to do. The room sounds ok now. nothing special. .but I'm sure it is limiting what I can do. I don't think I should spend another dime on gear until I get that room a little better.

I know that this post would be better placed in the Acoustics/Design section of this sight, but I wasn't sure if you checked it that often.

Comments

therecordingart Sun, 02/27/2005 - 22:31

Wow......thank you for the response. Right now I'm trying to find all of the potential problem areas and get creative to correct them. Maybe I'll pick up a few moving blankets or something to cover the untreated areas.

Do you think I should go nuts on treating the room for bass build up issues or just leave it? My untrained ear doesn't hear a problem with the room, but I'm having a hard time getting some decent sounds.

I guess I'll work more on the ears and save money. Hopefully once my ears start hearing these things I'll have money to do something about it.

KurtFoster Sun, 02/27/2005 - 22:53

Arthur,
I am not an acoustics expert. I have set up some recording spaces that worked very well. Usually they were in rooms that had lots of volume.

My feeling about using small rooms is they do not usually work well as an acoustic recording space, so I just absorb the crap out of them, with what ever I've got ... blankets, carpet on the wall, drapes, foam rubber, fiberglass panels ... what ever. I worry about bass modes in my control area but not so much in the recording spaces because I close mic everything.

Then processing techniques in playback and mix come into play because I am not really recording an "acoustic space", everything is close miced and no room mics are used (because the rooms sound like sh*t) so I have to create the space with short reverbs and delays.

I am not saying there aren't issues using a room that doesn't have bass treatments, to record instruments in I'm just outlining what I do sometimes to over come the problems without putting up a lot of treatments.