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Can a room be too dead/treated?

rifftrax said:
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.
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Kudos to your response.

My personal bias comes first from having been accustomed to mostly live performances, my father, my uncles, family friends who were professional performers, etc. One reason I don't place a whole lot of value in play back, i.e. stereo's, amp's, speakers (for home use), etc.

I try not to interpret a recording, though different engineers clearly have their own style, and arguably so do the artists who have a strong say in that part of the process. I appreciate "openness", which in a dead room can be defeated. To make up for it through engineering is no longer natural. usually I can tell the difference.

To me, personally, dead is to sterile, to hospital. It's not natural. We spend our lives listening to, predominately, reflective sounds, of differing degrees. Is anyone wrong for having a taste for a dead room? Not at all, it's a personal preference.

The absolute extreme of all this would be bose 901's in a room that was dead. I can't begin to imagine what that would sound like, probably very very flat, and of course I don't mean flat as in frequency response. Dry, dull, boring, etc.

Where I do have an issue is "easier ways from point A to B". Music shouldn't be a race to the finish line. Granted, budgets are there, and people will do their best to meet those budgets. I for one believe that mentality sells the artist short, and deprives us, the listeners, of potentially better recordings.

Dead or live? I'll take live. If I can tell it's recorded in a studio (which most everything is) it robs me of enjoying what I'm listening to. Put another way, if there's a guy dressed as a chicken, standing right there in the recording room I don't want to know he's there. Some recordings are messed with in such a way that it's all too apparent it's "studio". I don't need or want that distraction. Just as I don't appreciate over zealous and generous use of echo. However, exceptions exist, like "A Day in the Life" where the excess "stuff" IS part of the music.
 
The point of recording in a dead room is being able to "liven" it later in a way that's consistent with the rest of your mix. A recording in a dead room doesn't have to sound dead when it goes to be mastered.
 
barredowl said:
Your face value just fell to 01. :)

j/k.
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Lucky I didn't put much value on it! :yes:

In my (somewhat weak) semantic defense, I'm going to point out that there's a difference between a stairwell and a stairway. Edit: I see the original post on Bonham's drum sound says stairway, not stairwell. So, I'll take a remedial reading course, then amend my remarks to: " Stairway?! That's brilliant! Lots of live reflection but little or no standing waves!"

Then I guess I need to watch that movie. I've been wanting to.
 
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I hadn't planned on watching it but it was a lazy day and once I got started, I just hung with it. It's a pretty good look at the origins of Page, Edge, and Jack White.
 
JohnVF said:
I was recently in a recording room where they do voice-over work for animated movies, like Shrek, etc...it was DEAD.
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There's a story doing the rounds that one of the engineers at Philips Matlab once got sick when he spent too long in the anechoic room there, no idea it it's true but I could imagine.. Went in there once and it's a strange sensation.. The echo room in the same complex is a pretty fun and and disorienting experience too.
They should have echo/anechoic rooms in amusement parks too. :D

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So yes a room can sound too dead (or too reverbery)

dualhead said:
I don't know, some of the "Shakti Wands" and other expensive gadgets seem pretty goofy.
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Ghehe, dunno about voodoo stuff, but there are definitely going to be some African masks and on my listening room walls.
 
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Rooms can be too dead for sure, however the biggest issue is bandwidth. Most damping schemes affect top end more than bottom so a heavily treated room becomes tubby & boomy. (btw vocal booths are usually small with higher fundamental modes so over-treating only accentuates them). Bass traps need to be very large to really affect a room and as modes occur at specific frequencys, broad band traps will not really fix the problem. Symmetry is critical in that the room needs to be returning a similar signature from both sides, most domestic listening spaces are not acoustically symmetrical. Texture is also important. Square hard walled rooms tend to return a few discreet relections. Using irregular surfaces to diffuse the reflections without damping them can be very effective. Graphic EQs do more harm than good, the more bands the more harm.
 
RevMen said:
The point of recording in a dead room is being able to "liven" it later in a way that's consistent with the rest of your mix.
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Exactly!! A good ADR or vocal mix will be dry as bone. You use a very good microphone, place the vocalist or dialog person in close proximity of the microphone, and you can sweeten and blend it later when you get the rest of the stems or tracks. That is how it is done with a audio recording, and dialog for a movie soundtrack. That is for studio. There are some live recordings I have done in caves, barns, outdoor amphitheaters, and even in Central Park were you wanted to capture vocals in a very natural way. This is for more environmental captures that have acoustics so unique there is no way to reproduce it with DSP's.

A recording in a dead room doesn't have to sound dead when it goes to be mastered.
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You are correct. There are some really great reverb and echo samples, and really great ambience and environmental processors out there that have sample and bit rates as high as 24/96khz or 24/88.2khz. You can pretty much simulate thousands of different environments that sound so real, it would fool even the most purist of ears.

(btw vocal booths are usually small with higher fundamental modes so over-treating only accentuates them).
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A vocal room is for recording vocals only. There is nothing in the vocal range that would stimulate any modes in a vocal booth. There is usually far more treatment on the walls to rendered the room neutral in the vocal range.

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.
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I agree with this totally. IMO vocals are the only thing that should be done anechoically(if it is possible). Instruments are a different situation altogether. Reverb in headphones will sound overly wet when played back through speakers, so this is why the mix is monitored both in the ear, and on speakers - to get the right balance of the effects you apply. Woodwinds and strings need to mix with the air of the room to sound natural.

Sometimes a singer is simply unable to deliver their best performance when they can't feel the room reacting to their voice.
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What I have done when a vocalist is uncomfortable in a dead room, is to put a speaker in the room, and add a little reverb to its playback. You then flip the phase, so any out of phase component that the speaker brought to the mix is cancelled out. The vocalist gets a wet mix, and in the end you get a dry one. Mission accomplished!
 
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DeriHadler said:
Rooms can be too dead for sure, however the biggest issue is bandwidth. Most damping schemes affect top end more than bottom so a heavily treated room becomes tubby & boomy. (btw vocal booths are usually small with higher fundamental modes so over-treating only accentuates them). Bass traps need to be very large to really affect a room and as modes occur at specific frequencys, broad band traps will not really fix the problem. Symmetry is critical in that the room needs to be returning a similar signature from both sides, most domestic listening spaces are not acoustically symmetrical. Texture is also important. Square hard walled rooms tend to return a few discreet relections. Using irregular surfaces to diffuse the reflections without damping them can be very effective. Graphic EQs do more harm than good, the more bands the more harm.
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Sorry Deri, but I'm gonna' have to take you to task here. Much of what you are saying contradicts what I've experienced wrt to using room treatments to improve bandwidth reproduction. A fairly detailed account of the treatment of my room has been outlined in this thread http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=391094, but I'd like to address some of the inconsistencies between what you say and what I've observed.

"Most damping schemes affect top end more than bottom so a heavily treated room becomes tubby & boomy."

After I treated my room the high, mid, and low frequencies were positively affected with the most apparent improvement occurring in the lower frequencies. My damping scheme included floor to ceiling broadband absorbers in the front corners (703 superchunk bass traps), absorption panels on front wall behind speakers and at first reflection on side walls and ceiling and on back wall behind my listening spot, plus two floor to ceiling gobo panels to either side and behind the listening position. The resultant effect has been greater clarity, warmth, and detail at high and mid frequencies and low frequency reproduction has become less boomy and much more articulate and musical. As a matter of fact, where before I had boominess, out of control resonances, frequency drop out and nulls below 80hz those VLFs are now very well balanced and audible with equal distribution of db all the way down to 30hz....especially in the listening postition and off center several feet in either direction.

"Bass traps need to be very large to really affect a room and as modes occur at specific frequencys, broad band traps will not really fix the problem."

I think my floor to ceiling traps would qualify as "very large", so I'll comment on this as well. I had a terrible null below 100hz in my seated listening postition before I did any treatments. As soon as the corner traps went up the null started to disappear. So in my experience the broadband absorbers have had a postitive effect on the null. But it wasn't until I put up a curved deflector panel on the ceiling and first reflection absorbers that I heard the null completely disappear. So, saying the broadband absorbers won't "fix" the problem is probably accurate, but I think it's important to note they certainly can improve it....if not drastically.

"Symmetry is critical in that the room needs to be returning a similar signature from both sides"
"Using irregular surfaces to diffuse the reflections without damping them can be very effective"

My room started off with a nine foot row of utility/storage shelves making up the left boundary (there is no wall) and a bare sheetrock wall on the other side making up the right boundary. So, it was reflection from the right and diffusion (from the variety of shapes and surfaces of the items on the shelves) from the left with no absorption in the room. To create symmetry I put up two 1/4" thick 4x8 plywood panels (framed for rigidity) on the left to cover up the shelves....in effect creating a "faux" wall. By eliminating the assymetrical diffusion and creating symmetrical reflection and absorption the musical presentation is much more natural and coherent. I will say this, however....now that I've eliminated a good percentage of reflection from the room the soundstage has condensed. I only hear music in front and slightly to the sides of the listening position. I no longer get the "enveloping" soundstage I had before the treatments and I suppose this is because I've tamed many echos. I'll experiment with diffusion next and see if this doesn't open up the soundstage a bit more.

"Graphic EQs do more harm than good, the more bands the more harm."

Before I did the room treatments I relied heavily on EQ to get a sound I enjoyed. After the treatments I still use EQ, but with about half as much boost at the top and bottom as before and flat in the mid frequencies where before I cut a little in the middle. I have had much better success getting lower distortion reproduction from my 31-band Yamaha pro-audio EQ than I did a 10-band ADC unit.

And I see you have Infinity Reference Studio Monitors.....so do I and they've never sounded better than they do in a treated room.
 
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tomlinmgt wrote
"Sorry Deri, but I'm gonna' have to take you to task here."

Don't be sorry, I love being tasked and I fully expected it.

Much of what you are saying contradicts what I've experienced wrt to using room treatments to improve bandwidth reproduction.

Actually, I think we agree more than not.

"Most damping schemes affect top end more than bottom so a heavily treated room becomes tubby & boomy."

I said "most" damping schemes, yours is not most and is quite exceptional. I was thinking more of what normal people who can't go to the lengths you have might do.


"Bass traps need to be very large to really affect a room and as modes occur at specific frequencys, broad band traps will not really fix the problem."

I think my floor to ceiling traps would qualify as "very large", so I'll comment on this as well.


Again with the agreeing. Very large traps do help a lot. However in studios we tend to use tuned absorbers for the modes and these are often wall sized Helmholtz slot arrays. All I mean't was if a mode exists it will still be present after wide band trapping.


"Symmetry is critical in that the room needs to be returning a similar signature from both sides"
"Using irregular surfaces to diffuse the reflections without damping them can be very effective"

By eliminating the assymetrical diffusion and creating symmetrical reflection and absorption the musical presentation is much more natural and coherent. I will say this, however....now that I've eliminated a good percentage of reflection from the room the soundstage has condensed. I only hear music in front and slightly to the sides of the listening position. I no longer get the "enveloping" soundstage I had before the treatments and I suppose this is because I've tamed many echos. I'll experiment with diffusion next and see if this doesn't open up the soundstage a bit more.

Yep, Getting symmetry then introducing diffused reflection (rather than just damping it altogether) gets nice results. Still agreeing and youré proving that some controlled reflection is desireable.

"Graphic EQs do more harm than good, the more bands the more harm."

Before I did the room treatments I relied heavily on EQ to get a sound I enjoyed. After the treatments I still use EQ, but with about half as much boost at the top and bottom as before and flat in the mid frequencies where before I cut a little in the middle.


I knew this generalisation would generate some comment. EQ in itself is not a problem, cross-overs are EQ's, in a broad sense an amp is an EQ in that is has a response curve that isn't always flat. I just don't like all those capacitors splitting up the signal and recombining it. Less is more but I'll never contradict someones experience of their own system.

And I see you have Infinity Reference Studio Monitors.....so do I and they've never sounded better than they do in a treated room.

I'd love to get mine into a well treated room but wife, kids, life etc dictates otherwise. However a messy busy life does generate a lot of sound diffusing crap on endless shelves and lots of soft couches so I have some environmental treatment.

Thanks for the response and absolutely no offense taken what so ever.
DERI
 
Deri,

Man, I haven't met an Aussie yet with a bad attitude so I didn't expect to ruffle any feathers. And I can't help but draw paralells between Aussies and Texans....so bein' a Texan I can't help but like ya!

Anyway, it's tought to be brief yet concise and thorough when discussing a topic so technical in nature. You hate to get on the forum and write a novella, but sometimes leaving out critical info can do more harm than good for those of us that rely heavily on the convenience of AK for info and research. I just wanted to clarify and elaborate on a few of your comments so that folks that are lookin' into doing some room treatments don't get the wrong idea wrt what is possible and what isn't. I've only been messin' with this audio/critical listening stuff for a few years and room treatments for a few months, so I'd wager you have an order of magnitude more knowledge on the topic than myself. At any rate, great discussion and thanks for the compliment.
 
Auzzies NEVER trust them.....:D

Nah, just kidding.....also everyone I have ever met from the South has been super friendly!!!

To the OP's question.....Yes I think a room can be too dead.....and this is for listening Im talking about...not recording.
I find the listening experience becomes a bit sterile IMO....
Little bit of liveness is good, but of course that brings its own set of problems about what sort of resonances and reflections add to liveness rather than cause problems....
Recording, it all really depends what you are trying to achieve..........I couldnt imagine Steely Dan using the drum sound from Led Zeppelins When the Levee Breaks.....
A voice-over, I would totally be using a completely dry dead non resonant or reflective environment....
Talking about Led Zeppelin, which was mentioned, Robert Plant said in an interview he personally likes a live vocal booth, but it has to be a certain kind of liveness, and his favorite was Polar Studios in Stockholm where they recorded their last album.
They also commented on the Drum sound they achieved on that album, being their favorite.....They liked the rooms.
I am possibly the biggest Led Zeppelin fan in the world, but man I've gotta say I love/Hate the drum sound in the entrance way at Headly Grange....Yes it was very innovative, but man it is so "Lo Fi", there is no top end and no bottom end, it sounds like someone playing the drums in the background when you are on the telephone.
Misty Mountain Hop is so "roomy" but its just got NO fat and NO detail in the drum sound, but there it is take it or leave it....As much as I have just criticized the drum sound, it is what it is, and it is the character of sound which we know Led Zeppelin for. However they did refine it through their carreer, I really like the Presence drum sound and of course the In through the out Door drum sound....
I could go on.....
Its too much room, and yes it sounds exactly like two Beyer M160's (I have a pair) in an extremely reflective room.
How that drum sound happened was John Bonham took delivery of his new "green sparkle" Ludwig at Headly Grange for the first time, and his tech just set it up in that space, of course when he played it everyone was amazed at the sound of it in the space....so it ended up on the album......
Interesting to note, not all the Led Zep 4 drum tracks were recorded in that space....they even recorded some of it at Olympic Studios in London....

I saw some discussion on digital reverbs.....well the world of vocal sounds changed when Lexicon released the 300 digital effects processor, then later the 224, the 480L and the 960L.........
Those processors sport the most incredible algorithms which can and have been used to great effect on some of the best vocal sounds around....

One step further, and I have use them occasionly, are the TC Electronics System 6000 (fully loaded). Not only is it an effects processor, but it has a dynamics package as well, and some of the best mastering tools around too....It is a simply stunning machine.....

http://www.tcelectronic.com/system6000theconcept.asp

Link to the Lexicon information.
http://www.lexiconpro.com/legacy_product_list.php?category=10

My go to Lexicon for live is the PCM90/91.........

Just a few thoughts on some of the various topics brought up in this thread......
 
Kevzep,

Holy crap....now a Kiwi!?!? Man, I'd love to sit and kill some beers with you two!! Geez I gotta make it down that way some day.

Alright, so you've now tread into territory that I do happen to have a little knowledge about. And my apologies to the OP as I'm gonna go slightly off topic here....but it's relevant and damn good stuff just the same.

I'm a drummer and have been heavily influenced by Bonzo (and funny you mentioned Steely Dan...Zep and Dan are the two bands my style draws most heavily from as they are undoubtedly my biggest influences). You're right, the acoustics at Headley Grange remind me of the first time I set up a kit in a gymnasium. It sounded huge and everywhere but the sound just seemed to float away instead of hitting you in the gut. The fact that Bonzo's green sparkle kit was of maple construction (well, except for the unmistakable supraphonic snare) didn't help matters either as maple inherently has a lot of midrange presence and not much on top. This prevents maple from having what would be considred a "punchy" sound (like birch) which would've been better suited to cut through the ambiance of the recording space at Headley Grange. However, maple is pretty strong on the bottom end and this played into Bonzo's heavy style wonderfully...but it was only to the best effect when recorded well (in the right room). So your observation about the drum sound they got at Headley Grange sounding "roomy" is spot on...maple needs to be controlled with good acoustics otherwise it's strenghts will never come to the forefront. I mean, compare Headley Grange (IV) to everything after. I'm fairly certain Bonzo continued to use the same green sparkle maple shell drums in the studio right on up to Physical Graffiti (my favorite...even if it doesn't have "No Quarter") and the drum sound on Houses and Graffiti really fattens up with better detail of the maple's sonic character. Same drums, different rooms....major difference. Now, by the time they got to Presence and In Through the Out Door Bonzo had moved on to the stainless steel kit...which resulted in some outstanding drum tracks. The drums in "Fool in the Rain" are just legendary not only because of the playing but the sound. But as it relates to room acoustics, that stainless steel kit at Headley Grange would've sounded like a Howitzer going off in a blimp hangar.

So back to the OP's topic. When I do my critical listening I am very intently focused on the drums/percussion. I've been listening to the real thing for over half my life so I know when I'm hearing an accurate reproduction and can pick out deficiencies in detail and nuance instantly. Drums cover the whole bandwidth...and I mean every stinkin' bit of it, so for me it's a very good reference wrt the reproduction capabilities of a system. Now that I've explored room treatments/acoustics I have gained a better understanding of how a room should sound to facilitate accurate reproduction. No doubt, it can be too dead. There has to be some liveliness (reflection/diffusion) in the room or the dynamics and sonic character of the instruments in the recording will be quelled.
 
Rooms can definitely be over treated, and I have been in quite a few that were. It seems that when we begin to speak of room acoustics, all folks lock in on sound absorption. They don't seem to understand the role of diffusion, abfusion, and various other acoustical tools. There is nothing more unpleasant than to walk into a room, and hear your voice collapse into your mouth because of too much absorption in the room. The object is not to eliminate the room, but to control its negative impact on the music or soundtrack. The smaller the room, the less absorption you should use.

I attended a lecture by Dr. Floyd Toole last year, and his ideas on room acoustics would be considered heresy when compared to what has propagated over the net. I think his opinions line up more with Dr. Geddes philosophy than anyone else's.

When dealing with room acoustics, a balanced approach will yield much better results than just absorbing everything in the room.
 
Having heard Earl's system and a number of others using other techniques, I'd have to say that Earl is doing something very right with his approach. The combination of minimal room treatments, speakers designed to reduce the bad effects of the room while promoting the good, and the use of distributed bass system makes his system as good as anything I've heard. Nothing has ever done the disappearing act more convincingly, IME.
 
tomlinmgt said:
Kevzep,

Holy crap....now a Kiwi!?!? Man, I'd love to sit and kill some beers with you two!! Geez I gotta make it down that way some day.
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You are most welcome any time....:thmbsp: We are even further South than TX.....:D So Im on your vibe man.......

I dont want to steer the tread off topic, so I will keep it short. I enjoyed your post excellent insight.....right on with the Drum sounds...

Also some good information coming though from Sir Terrence and dnewma04.....excellent stuff.......
 
Having tried a variety of treatment schemes ranging from near-dead to fairly live in several rooms, I've found that in every case a judicious combination of absorption and diffusion gives me the most satisfying illusion of "close to being there" in terms of tonal balance, imaging, and dynamics with good to better-than-good recordings. To my ears, too much absorption sucks the life out of the performance.

I'd also observe that, with due respect accorded to the laws of acoustics, the diversity of individual listening room configurations--shape, composition, dimensions (including LxWxH proportions), furnishings, windows, etc.--not infrequently requires the listener to venture beyond pat "textbook" treatment formulas to achieve the most realistic "you are there" effects recording technology and playback equipment allow. In other words, treating a room requires active "work" and maybe a bit of creative ingenuity on the part of the listener to get it right.
 
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