Can a room be too dead/treated?

[barredowl]

I mainly listen near field in small spaces BTW so I am not getting a great deal added reverb, I suppose my opinion might change 20 feet back in a room with high ceilings, not a problem I foresee having anytime soon. Though I wonder how many studios mix in a room that size far field to see what it sounds like?

Anyway this is all far afield of our own listening rooms. Any other ideas?

 

[rifftrax]

and artificial reverb is not as complex and organic if you will, as natural reflections so it can't really be wholly added back in IMO

Or, you can use a stereo convolution processor with a well recorded impulse loaded, in which case the difference is effectively nil (and often better as you have complete control over the impulse envelope and equalization settings and can load any space you please limited only by the selection of impulses on hand).

Adding a touch of "actual small room" early reflections due to your vocal booth not being dead enough is nice I guess, if you're into that sort of thing and like layering reverbs on each other (which can be effective, it's just as I mentioned purely an artistic decision and it makes virtually zero sense for a professor to "rail" against very dead vocal booth use). I prefer complete control over my vocal, foley or dialogue recordings so I'm not inherently limited to the space in which it originally was recorded or layering fx to cover up early reflections cues and whathaveyou.

And there are plenty of algorhithmic reverbs out there that are really superb. If you don't have access to recording by yourself in a large concert hall, really - what choice do you have?

 

[saea501]

No, not good for him. His instructor was not talking about listening rooms. He was talking about vocal booths. Those are worlds apart in form and function unfortunately.

The fact that reverb of any type whatsoever serves to smear time-domain response of source material should be granted. If you like a "live" room, that's certainly up to your preference. If you're talking about dead accuracy, that's another thing entirely.



.

.....heh......heh........you need to hear my system. In fact, you need to get out more.

 

[RevMen]

how much is enough?

This is completely a matter of personal preference. Some people like dead rooms, some people like them a little lively. There's no right answer.

 

[JohnVF]

I just moved my speakers to get them away from a very lively back wall made entirely of glass. I knew it was a problem but they were easier to live with along that wall. That's the problem with a lot of our rooms, they're made of compromises. So the speakers sit farther away from a wall that doesn't reflect as badly, shooting lengthwise down a long room so that there's not a wall behind my head to reflect the sound back to my ears. Its an interesting change. I was getting a bit of echo that, although not readily apparent, was smearing details. Now to decide whether I can live with the speakers sitting right in the entry to the room...

 

[barredowl]

Rifftrax why are you so militant about this? Some people are willing to give up some leakage control in return for a more natural sounding recording. The proff listed the pluses and minuses and then said in his *opinion* vocals sounded more natural in a booth with both absorbing and reflective surfaces and I for one agree. That's not to say that some superb recording haven't been made with dead recording booths and then panning and adding reverb back in like say Dark Side of the Moon, but IMO they still don't sound as cohesive or have as real a sound stage as say a jazz combo or orchestra recording together in a somewhat live room. You have your first priority which is leakage control to have control over tracks for mulitracking, and I have mine which is capturing a natural sounding performance neither is wrong, shrug.


I actually agree BTW the simulations are getting better and better though I am not convinced any sound as good as the rooms Columbia had available in the late 50s.

Anyway...

 

[dnewma04]

Agree 100% with Ray, if you've ever been in an anechoic chamber, too dead is certainly possible. I prefer the Geddes method of constant and controlled directivity to promote particular types of reflections and reduce others.

 

[TerryO]

My room is usually pretty dead with all the people crammed in the room, waiting to hear if my latest APTS treatment will enhance the already incredible sound!

Ok I made that up, but I've heard over-damped rooms that were somewhere between boring and dull. I don't mind a bit liveliness, or even a bit too much, compared to over-damped, but that's me.

Best Regards,
TerryO

 

[JimPA]

The best example of a dead room like an anechoic chamber would be a hearing test booth that audiologists have.

 

[rifftrax]

Rifftrax why are you so militant about this? Some people are willing to give up some leakage control in return for a more natural sounding recording. The proff listed the pluses and minuses and then said in his *opinion* vocals sounded more natural in a booth with both absorbing and reflective surfaces and I for one agree. That's not to say that some superb recording haven't been made with dead recording booths and then panning and adding reverb back in like say Dark Side of the Moon, but IMO they still don't sound as cohesive or have as real a sound stage as say a jazz combo or orchestra recording together in a somewhat live room. You have your first priority which is leakage control to have control over tracks for mulitracking, and I have mine which is capturing a natural sounding performance neither is wrong, shrug.

Vocals can certainly sound very natural in a semi-reflective environment if the room is the size you wish to emulate, there's no argument there. But with convolution processors like altiverb or reverberate LE that make it next to impossible to distinguish against whether it was actually recorded on locale or not - the usefulness/tradeoff of trying to record in a live room is pretty well diminished. It may sound like I'm "militant" I suppose but really there are a lot of techniques that very few people are accustomed to using that are dead-easy and uber effective and offer greater control over the final sound. If you want the cohesiveness of a live take in a single room with all the band members together then that's awesome, there's certainly nothing wrong with that except it normally costs more money and time to accomplish. Of course, if a "live" take and cohesiveness is the goal - then you do what you have to do.

I'm just saying there are easier ways from point A to B. You mentioned in the first post that your professor "railed" against overly dead booths. That's a far cry from listing pluses and minuses of both and then having a final opinion about it lol.

 

[RevMen]

An argument for not going anechoic is that some instruments interact with a room when played. Putting some reverb in the earphones doesn't fix it, because acoustic feedback from the room has an actual effect on how an instrument feels when it is played. This is very true of wind instruments and somewhat true of acoustic string instruments and vocals. Sometimes a singer is simply unable to deliver their best performance when they can't feel the room reacting to their voice.

 

[barredowl]

That's the sort of thing I am talking about rev man.

Bob Clearmountain is famous for his preference for a drum room with a live sound for example:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun99/articles/bobclear.htm

And the Led Zeppelin drum sound is recorded in a stairway:

"A2: Andy Johns who recorded a number of Zeppelin's album says he used two Beyer M160s that were placed in a large staircase area and recorded his set. They were at some distance away and then the mics were compressed. It produced a big sound especially for those days..."

http://www.kellyindustries.com/drums/john_bonham.html

So people do have different recording philosophies Rifftrax.

Anyway how about our rooms, any other comments, I found your situation interesting Johnvf, how are the speakers next to entryway working out for you?

 

[JohnVF]

Anyway how about our rooms, any other comments, I found your situation interesting Johnvf, how are the speakers next to entryway working out for you?

You know, I thought everything sounded ok but I ended up moving everything back to where it was originally because I couldn't get my listening chair close enough to the speakers without it messing up the whole decor of the room (the Quads sound better to me closer, with the speakers farther apart then they do farther away from them with the speakers a bit closer).

Basically, to get the sound I want, I'd have to exchange walls in my building instead of moving speakers (to get the less reflective wall to be the long wall instead of short one). Since that isn't going to happen, I dealt with the compromises and picked the one that worked best all things considered. Admittedly, if my room was a bit more dead they'd sound better...and so I'm going to be looking at some sort of passive room treatments to put behind the speakers, and possibly on the wall behind my head. Bass really isn't much of an issue in this placement for some reason. The carpet probably helps with reflections.

 

[barredowl]

Deadening a glass wall certainly makes sense, I am not anti deadening, I just think it has to be balanced with some reflections in a home audio situation IMO.

 

[rifftrax]

An argument for not going anechoic is that some instruments interact with a room when played. Putting some reverb in the earphones doesn't fix it, because acoustic feedback from the room has an actual effect on how an instrument feels when it is played. This is very true of wind instruments and somewhat true of acoustic string instruments and vocals. Sometimes a singer is simply unable to deliver their best performance when they can't feel the room reacting to their voice.

Certainly, yes - this is a good point. :thmbsp:

As I mentioned, I'm not against recording in live rooms by any reason with general instumentation (this started about 'vocal' booths I seem to recall, which is what I was focusing on - not any and every instrument). For those that don't have inifinite resources/money/rooms to experiment with - there are ample ways around it. The room can certainly cause the instrument to feel different but the degree to which that happens depends on the room again.

So people do have different recording philosophies Rifftrax.

No argument here. I was just providing a counter-point to the "live room or nothing" frame of mind, which some engineers do get embroiled with. As technology gets better, the difference between virtual ways of getting something done (when approached well) and the "live" way will continue to diminish. People like Bob Clearmountain had nowhere near the available tools that are usable today, so they got really good at using what was there.

Also...

"I make records for the general public. I don't make records for audiophiles - I'm sure they don't listen to my records. They'd probably be appalled by what I do. People just want to hook up their system and listen to some music."

That's Bob Clearmountain, from the article you linked to.

 

[JohnVF]

Deadening a glass wall certainly makes sense, I am not anti deadening, I just think it has to be balanced with some reflections in a home audio situation IMO.

I totally agree. Part of the 'charm' of my dipole speakers is that they radiate sound in more than one direction, I like the result but it can be too much (say, with a wall of glass).

 

[dnewma04]

I totally agree. Part of the 'charm' of my dipole speakers is that they radiate sound in more than one direction, I like the result but it can be too much (say, with a wall of glass).

The best part about about dipoles is that they a darn fine job of removing the room. The nulls formed at the sides of the speakers reduce early reflections. Leaving the walls behind the speakers as the area of importance.

 

[Rapidan]

Dead room/live room

My .02, take it at it's value.....

The John Bonham reference is likely apocryphal, most of them are. Andy Johns famously replied to a question about how to get the "Bonham drum sound" , "Easy, just play like 'im!" The "mics in a stairwell" used to be a common technique for added reverb, not direct recording. The most controllable technique was achieved by placing a playback speaker at one end, pickup mics at the other, and adding the result back in just like any effect. This gave a bigger reverb sound than the EMT plate reverbs which were prevalent at the time.

Most control room environments are designed to be fairly neutral, neither live nor dead. Multitrack recordings mixed in a perfectly dead environment run the risk of not sounding real great when played back in the real world.

As far as dead iso/vocal booths go, they're quite handy. You kind of need one for any serious multitrack recording. That's not to say you can't record vocals or overdubs in a live room, or the hallway, or the bathroom, but when you need to create or match a soundspace, dead's the way to go.

 

[RayW]

The John Bonham reference is likely apocryphal, most of them are.

In the documentary "It Might Get Loud", Jimmy Page takes a tour through Headley Grange, the house where (among other things) the drums for When the Levee Breaks were recorded and points out where the drums were set up, how the cables were tied to the bannister, and where the mics were.

 

[barredowl]

Your face value just fell to 01.

j/k.