Ideal Acoustics

[Loco Mo]

If you could create your own studio for either listening to or recording music, what would be your design?

I have dreamt of being able to do so, especially if I had millions of dollars to invest in it.

So, let me ask a few questions:

1)  Would a listening room be different from one in which you record music?
2)  How much do you think it would cost you to create your ideal "music room?"
3)  Would an ideal acoustical room have any carpeting or would it be bare floor only?
4)  What would the floor be made of?  Wood, marble, etc?
5)  Windows in the room or solid walls only?
6)  Doorways or entrances - how would these be constructed?
7)  How high would your ceiling be?
  Room - square or round or other shape?  I think sound would travel differently in a circular room.
9)  When recording, where would you position microphones?  Equally spaced throughout or individually placed according to instruments being recorded?
10)  When recording, would you utilize headphones to listen to your music or would you prefer to listen to an open air environment?
11)  Would you want to create artificial sound environments such as wind, rain, chimes, storms, etc?
12)  When recording, how would you determine the attention accorded to the various music instruments in the room?
13)  When recording, what would you prefer?  The entire band simultaneously or breaking up the parts and mixing them together later if you could have band members record their pieces separately.
14)  Would you want a "live feel" to your recording?  Or do you prefer the sort of quiet studio feel?
15)  What about echoes and ambience?  By ambience, I mean sustain.
16)  What do you think of overlaying music on top of other music?  This is not exactly an acoustical question; I just thought of it offhand.

Thanks for your input!  Have a great day, artists, musicians and experts of one sort or another(s).

[nimrod]

I'll try to answer Loco.

1) No
2) $90k ish could be more, Im not sure. Depends how state of the art you want.
3) Carpet (thick)
4) ....
5) No Windows, sound insulation on walls and ceiling.
6) Insulated fire doors
7) 9ft
Rectangular
9) Individually placed
10) Both
11) Yes
12) Id give much attention to drums mostly I suppose then equal
13) Record each instrument individually, unless you want to sound like Neil Young
14) Quiet studio
15) You would need to buy a high quality spring reverb unit OR be happy with digital reverb/sustain.
16) You mean multitrack recording ? For me its the best way.

17) Could be...... do you prefer analogue recording or Digital ? For me Digital every time. The aforementioned Neil Young recrds eveything on an analogue tape machine, like the old days. He refuses to record digitally.

18) The ideal for recording or listening should be a completely 'Dead' room ie no outside noise, no echo, sound deadening walls, thick carpet.

[Moogmodule]

Would you want a listening room to be dead? I'd have thought a room with nice natural echo would be the most pleasant to sit and listen to music (as opposed to monitoring for recording) purposes). I was in an anechoic chamber once and it wasn't a pleasant listening experience.

Besides that Nims covered it well. I would say you can get some decent acoustic tiling that will deaden your room and prevent things like standing waves not too expensively. But if you want the rolls Royce including sound baffling then yep, big bucks.

You can also have non dead spaces for recording provided it has pleasant sound reflection. Sort of like people used to record in the bathroom because the natural echo was cool.  But getting that good room sound can be difficult. So for most of we home recorders, as Nim said, keep it dead then you can apply effects to it ( that, importantly can be turned off or altered if you don't like them).

One handy thing I have is a reflection shield for vocals. It's a small insulated piece that fits on your mike stand around your microphone. It significantly cuts down on room echo and deadens the recording. Not as good as a proper vocal booth but a lot cheaper.

[nimrod]

My main career was an HVAC design engineer and interestingly the hardest project was to air condition a recording studio when I lived back in LA.

To make things more difficult it was in an old factory with concrete walls. Fan noise or even air movement noise was a no no. But boy it got hot in there, what with equipment, people (usually smoking). The latent and sensible heat gain was huge, luckily very little solar heat gain though due to only one south facing external wall.

[Moogmodule]

^^^
Cool job. Not literally of course.

I learnt from experience that you want to sound insulate toilet pipes very well. At least one recording I did had the very audible sound of a toilet flushing.

[nimrod]

Would you want a listening room to be dead? I'd have thought a room with nice natural echo would be the most pleasant to sit and listen to music (as opposed to monitoring for recording) purposes). I was in an anechoic chamber once and it wasn't a pleasant listening experience.

Besides that Nims covered it well. I would say you can get some decent acoustic tiling that will deaden your room and prevent things like standing waves not too expensively. But if you want the rolls Royce including sound baffling then yep, big bucks.

You can also have non dead spaces for recording provided it has pleasant sound reflection. Sort of like people used to record in the bathroom because the natural echo was cool.  But getting that good room sound can be difficult. So for most of we home recorders, as Nim said, keep it dead then you can apply effects to it ( that, importantly can be turned off or altered if you don't like them).

One handy thing I have is a reflection shield for vocals. It's a small insulated piece that fits on your mike stand around your microphone. It significantly cuts down on room echo and deadens the recording. Not as good as a proper vocal booth but a lot cheaper.

Yes, I suppose I was thinking more about recording and then listening on monitors where you can analise the recording properly.

[Moogmodule]

12) Id give much attention to drums mostly I suppose then equal

Drums always take ages to set up and mic and get a decent sound. Bloody tedious. Use a drum sampler. Tell the band's manager they can do what they want for live performances.

[Loco Mo]

I've seen a few YouTube videos in which artists have taken their instruments to the great outdoors such as on a mountain, near a cliff, in or near a field (such as with cows grazing in it, also elephants).

I thought this would constitute great sound but it seems to be that the open air environment is so huge it doesn't contain the sound.  It doesn't amplify it.  It seems to eat it up (like absorbing it).  Therefore, I've felt disappointed.

Nimrod:  Thanks for your answers.  There's a lot of food for thought here.  I noted that you'd prefer carpeting yet somehow I've believed that a bare wooden floor would be ideal.  Yet there's the problem of sound drifting or echoing with the result of compounding white noise, etc.  I can understand the idea of specifically situated mikes but also am inclined to consider the aspect of a listener in a live concert or nightclub-type setting.  What do they hear?  Is that preferable to Studio mixed sound?

I think that if you experiment with sound technology enough you will open up the sound dimensionally thus enhancing the music beyond what the passive listener would have heard in a more unidimensional environment.  Are we then adding more to the recording than the performer intended or even what the listener "naturally" expected to hear?

At what point have you altered the sound of a recording as opposed to enhancing it?

[Moogmodule]

I think that if you experiment with sound technology enough you will open up the sound dimensionally thus enhancing the music beyond what the passive listener would have heard in a more unidimensional environment.  Are we then adding more to the recording than the performer intended or even what the listener "naturally" expected to hear?

At what point have you altered the sound of a recording as opposed to enhancing it?

I'd argue you're altering the sound from the time it enters the microphone. You'll never record a "true" sound as this will be different to every listener depending on a host of variables. Including where they're sitting. "Natural" recordings can get just as much altering via EQ, reverb or compression to achieve that sound as one that makes a guitar sound like a trumpet.

I liken a lot of recording to those photos of food you see in ads. You find out that the food had all weird things done to it to make it look "natural" and appetising. For example the one about using motor oil on pancakes, as maple syrup doesn't photograph how we'd expect it to look. Plus when you see a picture of food you don't get the smells or sense of warmth or other things that appeal.

And with sound there's also the playback. What speakers or headphones make it sound "natural". What medium; CD vinyl or streaming. I could go on (but won't) as I find the whole business of recording fascinating.

[Moogmodule]

Nimrod:  Thanks for your answers.  There's a lot of food for thought here.  I noted that you'd prefer carpeting yet somehow I've believed that a bare wooden floor would be ideal.  Yet there's the problem of sound drifting or echoing with the result of compounding white noise, etc.

Lots of studios have both "live" and "dead" rooms. In the live room they can have bare floors. But they've been able to design it to get a good room sound. If money was no object I'd have both types of rooms as I think recording in a live room has its own advantages and sounds more natural as you play it. And in listening back to recordings you want to have some idea how it will sound to the average punter who will listen in a normal room.  But as a home recordist with limited space and ability to treat the rooms, something on the deader side, ie carpet, some acoustic tiling to reduce unpleasant echos etc I find works best. It's never completely dead of course, but it reduces the chances of bad echos ruining the recording and which can't be removed.

[nimrod]

Lots of studios have both "live" and "dead" rooms. In the live room they can have bare floors. But they've been able to design it to get a good room sound. If money was no object I'd have both types of rooms as I think recording in a live room has its own advantages and sounds more natural as you play it. And in listening back to recordings you want to have some idea how it will sound to the average punter who will listen in a normal room.  But as a home recordist with limited space and ability to treat the rooms, something on the deader side, ie carpet, some acoustic tiling to reduce unpleasant echos etc I find works best. It's never completely dead of course, but it reduces the chances of bad echos ruining the recording and which can't be removed.

Of course, you're right, they do.
You have to listen to what you've recorded as heard in the average home.

Reminds me of the reason Abbey Rd engineers made Pauls Bass lower in the mix early on, most Beatle fans listened on little bedroom record players and more/heavier Bass wouldve sounded distorted through those tiny mono speakers,

[Normandie]

Interesting. . . even though I am not a musician I've been absorbed in this discussion.

[Moogmodule]

Of course, you're right, they do.
You have to listen to what you've recorded as heard in the average home.

Reminds me of the reason Abbey Rd engineers made Pauls Bass lower in the mix early on, most Beatle fans listened on little bedroom record players and more/heavier Bass wouldve sounded distorted through those tiny mono speakers,

Apparently they were also worried a heavy bass would cause the needle to jump out of a record on cheaper sets with thin tone arms. When they had the heavier bass on revolver they had to adapt the vinyl cutting mechanism.

[Moogmodule]

  Room - square or round or other shape?  I think sound would travel differently in a circular room.

Heavens knows what a round room echo would be like. Probably unusual. The fact we don't see a lot of professional round studios probably suggests it's not ideal. Some designers recommend irregular shaped rooms, like hexagons. But it's pretty unlikely home studios are going to be able to have that sort of shape. Hence, as Nim said, rectangular is recommended.

[Loco Mo]

Moogmodule:  I didn't really know if round rooms exist.  I was just curious what musical tones would sound like in a circular environment.