Mics & Ideal Recording Rooms

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Permalink Reply by Tony Hogan on July 19, 2009 at 3:32am

Check out the bottom article Acoustics: the really simple way. http://www.tweakheadz.com/recording_studio_accessories.html And the next page Room Treatment
Over the years I have seen fantastic articles in Home Recording Magazine.

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Permalink Reply by Staffan Svahn on July 19, 2009 at 7:37am

Hello Matt,
I can highly recommend the blue snowball with a MacBook and Garageband. If you look at my videos they have all been recorded with this mic and iMovie (which also is bundled within iLife). They have all been recorded in my bedroom without any preparation of the room and the sound has not been manipulated in any way.
I think it is great to start with this equipment.
Best regards
Staffan

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Permalink Reply by hue on July 25, 2009 at 5:44am

I always try to do things with aesthetics in mind. Not that aesthetics will affect the sound but I figure, you're gonna have to look at this for a while so you may as well make it look nice. I use blackout drapes on the windows and you can put a tapestry on the wall along with some minor dampeners. You can build simple room treatment with 1 x 4's and rigid fiberglass covered with cloth. You don't want your room to be dead. You just want to control some of the reflections and prevent any potential problems with standing waves.

I don't know anything about the snowball but Steffan's recordings do sound decent. Of course it does help that he's such an accomplished musician.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Chilvers on July 28, 2009 at 6:15am

I tend to use heavy curtains around the room.

That said i would give it a try without anything you can get some great 'airy' 'spacial' sounds using a rooms natural reverbs. That said there is an old saying..........
'If you cant take the room out of the recording, then you cant take the recording out of the room'

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Permalink Reply by Kyle Ober on August 4, 2009 at 3:18am

Matt ...

This really is a loaded question .... without a simple answer I might add.

Everything plays into it from room size, the type of surfaces in the room, it's shape, where you're sitting in relation to what kind of reflections you'll get off whatever type of surface you're near. The reflections are what gives a room it's sound or in basic terms ... it's reverb. Ideally, you want to control these reflections so they don't overplay their welcome. Personally, I like as dead a room as possible and regardless you're always going to get some of the room, unless you're in an am-bionic chamber. Richard's statement is a revered truism in recording circles.

As I do quite a bit of recording, I'm fortunate to have a pretty good selection of tasty reverbs hence, dry works for me since it gives me maximum flexibility. However, if you have to tame a room, be aware of all the above mentioned. Generally speaking, you don't want parallel walls around you or very many hard surfaces if any at all. If you can interrupt the flat ceiling above you in any way, do so. If you can afford it, Auralex columns around you is not a bad thing. 2 will come encased in 4 convex molds of the same material that you use to set up a wall of sorts around you to at least control the reflections that would slap back at you from an undesirable wall surface plus contains your sound somewhat. The more Auralex, the more control you have of coarse.

Once you think you have that figured out, get the best mic you can afford. Ideally of coarse you really don't know what that is unless you try them all. What works well for one situation/person is not necessarily the ideal fit for the next given all the above reasons and the clarity of each frequency. Blue certainly makes some good stuff in the upper range of their line. Can't say I've used the Snowball. "Rode" makes some very good inexpensive mics. Regardless of what you get it's only going to be as good as your placement of the mic. Every instrument has a sweet spot. You have to find it .... hover your ear while somebody else plays the guitar ... and then place the mic there. No ... there is no one, absolute place to set the mic and each spot will sound different in the end result ... which combines with all that I mentioned before. Ho close you place the mic will also determine the amount of room in your final result ... which also correlates to the room itself and how it's treated.

This is probably a little more than you bargained for with what you may have thought was a simple question ... LOL I'm not even going to get into pre's, EQ's and Compressors which will also make a difference but I'm sure you get a general idea. It is often said, it's not the equipment you have but how you use it. This is true. Just remember, the ROOM is part of the equipment that effects every other piece you use. If you go to my page there are multiple samples of my work that sound very different from each other. And yes the room does pop up in various degrees even though I am using additional reverb.

Be well, have fun and don't forget to experiment ..... a lot :-)
Kyle

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Permalink Reply by Matt Lean on August 5, 2009 at 11:11pm

Haha thanks for the valuable information! You'd given the best answer I've seen so far (I've posted this question in another forum as well). Really thanks a bunch! I'll try experimenting as much as I can with my new Blue microphone mic. The quality is pretty decent, so I'll try many different mic positions and room setups to try and get the best sound.

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Permalink Reply by Kyle Ober on August 6, 2009 at 10:18pm

Fill us in with your findings :-)

Ciao,
K

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