Time to update with something useful…

Many of you know that I own a studio.  Some of you know that I’m also an acoustic engineer.  Not that I’ve ever worked anywhere in my discipline.  It seems that what we go to school for is, most times, hardly related to what we end up doing for a living.  At least that’s how it worked for me.  I spent a lot of years in the construction industry and could ply my “trade,” in some instances, to help make a space sound better.  But this was more related to office environments than it was to performance venues, or the real challenge, studio spaces.

It is rare that a studio is built from scratch, designed from the ground up.  Usually it’s an existing building, old garage, house, boat, trailer, or some other contained structure that someone wants to convert into a studio.  It’s not as easy as installing a bunch of gear and calling it good.  Fully half of your recording product is directly dependant on the room(s) the recording is done in.  This might seem to be overkill on the estimate, but it’s a fact.  Knowing your room, and how to deal with the issues it presents is half your battle.

I’ve built two studios for myself.  The first encompassed the entire first floor of my house.  This wasn’t a load in of gear and start recording.  I purchased the house in April 2001, and for the next year engaged in a major remodel.  The house had been built in 1904 and the original construction was…  interesting to say the least.  The house had to be completely rewired as it still had the original electrical installation from 1906.  The walls and ceilings in the studio space were plaster and the floors oak hardwood.

The old walls were, luckily, well insulated and thicker than the walls on new homes today.  Even before converting the space to studio, spl tests revealed that 120db inside the house only transmitted 80db on the other side of the walls and a little less than 70db by the time you reached the sidewalk 20’ away.  A good part of my job was already done here.  Soundproofing was out of the question, (I’ll touch on that in another blog, but it’s an expensive and area reducing process,) but the sound reduction was excellent so my concern was the design of the interior to take advantage of what was already there.

I planned as much as constructed.  I’m primarily an acoustic player so wanted a good acoustic studio.  My designs were based on that idea, but like most studios, I had to determine what I was going to get as a result based on what I had to work with to start!  For most this is a guessing game, but a lot of math and useful visualzations paid off in the end.

An area of the ceiling was designed to reflect sound at different angles and “emulate” the effect that 10’ ceilings have on a room.  This actually worked better than I had calculated.  The angles allowed the sound to “live” in the room longer and provide some natural verbs, space and a fuller final sound.  Great for acoustic instruments and voice, it resulted in the room sounding exactly the same no matter where you stood.  Unless you were directly in front of, or behind, the performer, (acoustic guitar, vocals, harmonica, stand-up bass,) you heard the same levels and the same “life” in the performance.  This would make recording even easier as there were no “problem” spots.

After the ceilings were addressed the only remaining issue was the windows.  These were covered with a custom designed sound block that tightly fit into each window opening.  These were removable panels that kept sound in as much as keeping sound out.  Another 5db of reduction was realized with these panels installed.  The conversion from house to studio was easier and cheaper than I thought.  (OK…  I had to replace the entire floor in the control room and the total cost of the remodel for the studio space was $6000 in materials.  I did all the labor myself.  (The advantage of having all the right tools and working in the construction industry for years.)  If contracted out the labor and profit for a contractor would have increased the total cost to $15,000.

The quality of the room was confirmed when my former chief engineer decided to open his own studio.  He opted for a “dead” space and converted his basement using the proper sound reduction techniques to keep as much sound contained in the studio as possible.  (His concern was more the rest of the house remaining livable as one of his “doom/stoner rock” groups blasted away in the studio.)  His “dead” design keeps the rest of the house relatively quiet and I heard from him for several months how much easier it was to record in a dead space.  It is much easier to record when you don’t have to consider reflections, standing waves, bass build-up, flutter echo, etc.  It was a great solution for the type of music he records.

Problems were about to arise, however…

We had a blues group in the old studio who decided to follow my former chief to his new studio to complete their CD.  I got a call from him with a complaint…  “Remember the harp parts we recorded in the studio?  Well, I set them up the same way here but the recording is lacking somehow.  It just doesn’t sound as good as the ones we did there!”  Well, your room is dead and lifeless!  It’s not that the harmonica recording sounded “bad,” it’s that it didn’t sound as good as when recorded in my studio.  It was really noticeable, actually.  What had been, “bring tears to your eyes” blues harp, had become just another harmonica recording.  Needless to say they recorded the harp back in my studio to get that “signature” sound.

Yes, indeed.  50% of your sound is directly related to the room you’re recording in.  I’d break down the remaining 50% as follows:  10% is the skill of the engineer.  (We’re talking someone who knows what he’s doing.  Not comparing a trained engineer with a self-taught home recordist.)  15% is the gear he’s using.  (Sure, better mics and pres will make everything sound better, but in the same room the ratios remain the same and a bad room will make even great gear sound like crap.)  5% is pure luck.  Hey, it’s gotta be in there.  Nothing is 100% sure.  The last 20%?  It’s mic placement.  Bad placement makes bad sounds.  Period.  Having a good room will actually make placement easier.  In fact it makes EVERYTHING easier, which is one good reason why 50% is assigned to the room.

Now this isn’t to say that you can’t record something decent sounding in your walk-in closet, your shower, your stairwell or your basement.  Anything is possible.  Having a good room, however, is not something you can emulate with software.  Using your room right also makes a difference.  As in the case of my former chief engineer?  He’s been adding reflective panels to create some life in his space.  After all, recording is all about sound and how it travels.  Close up micing techniques can reduce the need for a good room, but the final result is never quite as good.  You can’t close mic everything, (drum overheads for example,) and the room will be in your mics at one point or another.

I specially designed a “drum corner” for my new studio.  (I’ll cover that one in the next blog.)  This made a WORLD of difference in our drum kit recordings and has been convincing to many clients that it DOES matter where you record as much as it matters what you record with.

Guess the point of this is to say that there are MANY different problems you can encounter in a room.  There are as many ways to address these problems.  (My solution was to design the room to eliminate problems, or as many as possible.)

The old “standbys” of hanging carpet, putting up Styrofoam, using egg containers or blankets can all affect the sound in good and bad ways.  The misconception here is that some of these things address people’s “soundproofing” issues, when in reality, they only address reflection issues within a room and unless applied properly will cause more issues than they resolve.

Soundproofing is a different issue and it’s EXPENSIVE.  Don’t buy into someone’s statement that they can soundproof a room, unless you know they’ve been trained and have built actual soundproof spaces in the past.  Even my new studio isn’t soundproof, (and I KNOW how to do it,) though it’s a lot closer than the first one.  (Only get 52db through the walls and, while you can hear the sound if you listen close, it doesn’t register on the spl meter 20’ away.)