ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,012
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Post by ericn on Apr 28, 2019 9:56:21 GMT -6
I don’t know the answer to the specific question, but I agree that eliminating the room from the vocal sound is typically preferred. Too much room will get weird as soon as you start compressing and tuning. You must also be aware of comb filtering in booths that are too small without broadband absorption. Unless you have a great room, a great singer who knows how to use the mic, and it’s the sound your after. Of course this requires planning and talent at all stages, otherwise yeah keep the room sound out, but if yo got it flaunt it!
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,012
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Post by ericn on Apr 28, 2019 9:57:55 GMT -6
Yeah. I would disregard all that Jazz. If it sounds good, it IS good. It’s all about the song, the song, the song...and a little bit about the singer. It always comes down to song and performance, unfortunately both seam to be less and less important to in our beat based culture.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Apr 28, 2019 10:43:20 GMT -6
That’s why I said keep checking around the room. My living room doesn’t sound great, but there are a couple of places it sounds much better.
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Post by guitfiddler on Apr 28, 2019 11:27:23 GMT -6
That’s why I said keep checking around the room. My living room doesn’t sound great, but there are a couple of places it sounds much better. The same applies to drums! I recall getting out of the vocal booth at my last commercial studio I was running, and we tried using the hallway on the vocals instead of the 90% dead vocal booth, which by the way sounded really nice. That room has character and vocals sounded great in there. But back to the hallway, we used a Peluso 47LE short body/vf14 steel-tube, that mic just sounded dead on with this particular singers voice. The hallway sounded great and there wasn’t any deadening material but on the sidewalls and he stood about 1 1/2 ft from the mic. It picked up a cool vibe and his vocal just fit the track perfect! It was a real quick scratch vocal track that we kept. That mic was like no other mic I had. It was impressive sounding, and the only Peluso mic I heard that I liked so far.
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Post by the other mark williams on Apr 28, 2019 12:33:35 GMT -6
That’s why I said keep checking around the room. My living room doesn’t sound great, but there are a couple of places it sounds much better. The same applies to drums! I recall getting out of the vocal booth at my last commercial studio I was running, and we tried using the hallway on the vocals instead of the 90% dead vocal booth, which by the way sounded really nice. That room has character and vocals sounded great in there. But back to the hallway, we used a Peluso 47LE short body/vf14 steel-tube, that mic just sounded dead on with this particular singers voice. The hallway sounded great and there wasn’t any deadening material but on the sidewalls and he stood about 1 1/2 ft from the mic. It picked up a cool vibe and his vocal just fit the track perfect! It was a real quick scratch vocal track that we kept. That mic was like no other mic I had. It was impressive sounding, and the only Peluso mic I heard that I liked so far. Nice! Just goes to show: you gotta experiment and be willing to be surprised.
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Post by Ward on Apr 28, 2019 12:45:04 GMT -6
a 5' x 5' by 8' booth will work, just keep it really well treated. Doesn't need be too anechoic but dead-ish
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Post by christopher on Apr 28, 2019 12:51:25 GMT -6
just a quick tip I discovered. If you are ever in a desperate need to eliminate the room, you can use mic stands and heavy blankets to make quick gobos or even a little tent you can sit under. Not ideal, but it does work in desperate times. If you have enough stands/blankets I imagine you can mount booms onto other booms and make it pretty big I guess.
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Post by EmRR on Apr 28, 2019 13:06:57 GMT -6
How many radio hits have their been that were the ADAT/etc demo done in a bedroom, never intended to be the final version? A fair number. But yeah, dead is your best friend with small.
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Post by the other mark williams on Apr 28, 2019 15:11:22 GMT -6
How many radio hits have their been that were the ADAT/etc demo done in a bedroom, never intended to be the final version? A fair number. But yeah, dead is your best friend with small. Oh yes, most definitely. Great point. Patty Griffin's first album ( Living With Ghosts) was recorded on an ADAT in her kitchen, of all places. Damn, I love that record.
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Post by sirthought on Apr 28, 2019 16:15:31 GMT -6
I know for a fact that the first couple of Lucious Jackson albums they recorded most of the vocals in their bathtub because that's where they could get a somewhat decent reverb (likely recorded onto 8 track cassette tape for the vocals.)
All the early Guided By Voices albums had vocals recorded in bedrooms on multi-track cassette tape. Not great sounding records compared to others, but they had a sound that made their fans buy records and they're still out touring today.
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Post by Guitar on May 2, 2019 16:49:23 GMT -6
I've got a good small room vocal story.
My friend who we'll call "Charles" got paid to track an album for a band.
For some reason, Charles decided to put the singer in an untreated bathroom for all the lead vocal tracks, recorded to a Korg hard disc porta studio.
The singer was very unhappy with the mixes citing a "weird bad echo sound" but Charles demanded that he had done his work as funded and was not interested in changing anything or doing more work.
I was on the singers' side but I didn't want to hurt Charles' feelings so I didn't say anything.
There are experiences that you can and should learn from. UPS guy not being one of them.
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Post by donr on May 2, 2019 20:05:57 GMT -6
I recall reading somewhere that Glen Ballard recorded Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" in her apartment with an ADAT machine.
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Post by chessparov on May 2, 2019 20:41:21 GMT -6
Yes, the Album that helped launch a thousand Mackie/ADAT albums.
And also Fletcher's Mackie & ADAT "Sculpture" on a stick! :-) Chris
P.S. A Broadway musical based on it, is slated for later this year!
(the album-not the sculpture)
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Post by svart on May 3, 2019 7:24:43 GMT -6
Minimum size is dictated by the ratio of problems to vocal levels. If your reflections and comb filtering are too high for your given size, then you either need to deaden further or make the room larger.
You could make the room 1ft x 1ft if you could guarantee 100% absorption of reflections (or at least enough that you don't get crazy issues with the track). Of course you couldn't fit in that room, so make it as large or small as you need to fit your use-case while accounting for the amount of absorption you'll need.
I also have a story about vocals..
I did a band's instrument tracking but the producer and the singer wanted to do the vocals "at her place". I didn't get any input on the vocal sessions and didn't hear them until I was sent the tracks.
Completely unusable due to the horrendous reflections and comb filtering issues.. some of which were louder than the vocals themselves. Clearly tracked in an untreated empty room in a corner.
The producer didn't want to pay for me to redo the vocals, and I offered to "help" the singer retrack some(all) of the vocals in my studio but they declined citing being "over the whole thing".
I tried my best to get those vocals to sound right but ended up being very sub-par but the producer was adamant that it was MY fault the vocals didn't sound right and that the tracks "sounded fine when he did them" and that he wanted the "big room sound".
We didn't work together again and I think that's OK.
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Post by Guitar on May 3, 2019 7:35:50 GMT -6
Minimum size is dictated by the ratio of problems to vocal levels. If your reflections and comb filtering are too high for your given size, then you either need to deaden further or make the room larger. You could make the room 1ft x 1ft if you could guarantee 100% absorption of reflections (or at least enough that you don't get crazy issues with the track). Of course you couldn't fit in that room, so make it as large or small as you need to fit your use-case while accounting for the amount of absorption you'll need. I also have a story about vocals.. I did a band's instrument tracking but the producer and the singer wanted to do the vocals "at her place". I didn't get any input on the vocal sessions and didn't hear them until I was sent the tracks. Completely unusable due to the horrendous reflections and comb filtering issues.. some of which were louder than the vocals themselves. Clearly tracked in an untreated empty room in a corner. The producer didn't want to pay for me to redo the vocals, and I offered to "help" the singer retrack some(all) of the vocals in my studio but they declined citing being "over the whole thing". I tried my best to get those vocals to sound right but ended up being very sub-par but the producer was adamant that it was MY fault the vocals didn't sound right and that the tracks "sounded fine when he did them" and that he wanted the "big room sound". We didn't work together again and I think that's OK. I laughed a little at the story. It sucks that it happened to you. It's kind of funny to me the things people get away with now that "everyone" is a producer.
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Post by svart on May 3, 2019 8:10:46 GMT -6
Minimum size is dictated by the ratio of problems to vocal levels. If your reflections and comb filtering are too high for your given size, then you either need to deaden further or make the room larger. You could make the room 1ft x 1ft if you could guarantee 100% absorption of reflections (or at least enough that you don't get crazy issues with the track). Of course you couldn't fit in that room, so make it as large or small as you need to fit your use-case while accounting for the amount of absorption you'll need. I also have a story about vocals.. I did a band's instrument tracking but the producer and the singer wanted to do the vocals "at her place". I didn't get any input on the vocal sessions and didn't hear them until I was sent the tracks. Completely unusable due to the horrendous reflections and comb filtering issues.. some of which were louder than the vocals themselves. Clearly tracked in an untreated empty room in a corner. The producer didn't want to pay for me to redo the vocals, and I offered to "help" the singer retrack some(all) of the vocals in my studio but they declined citing being "over the whole thing". I tried my best to get those vocals to sound right but ended up being very sub-par but the producer was adamant that it was MY fault the vocals didn't sound right and that the tracks "sounded fine when he did them" and that he wanted the "big room sound". We didn't work together again and I think that's OK. I laughed a little at the story. It sucks that it happened to you. It's kind of funny to me the things people get away with now that "everyone" is a producer. A year later the vocalist contacted me about doing their next EP, which I accepted pending total control over the tracking process.. They accepted. I didn't hear from them for a while, and then I saw that they were tracking at a "studio" in someone's unfinished basement. I then got an email asking for me to "master" their record to fix a few things.. Turns out it was a huge mess of the same issues the vocals had on the last EP. I offered to remix what I heard to the best of my ability, but the band said that the person who mixed it wouldn't/couldn't give the raw tracks and that they just wanted me to do my best. I tried, and made it more "listenable" but it wasn't even close to their potential. They did at least say they should have gone ahead and recorded with me but the person who they went with was a "friend".
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miklo
Junior Member
Posts: 52
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Post by miklo on May 3, 2019 10:45:00 GMT -6
These replies have been awesome. These are the two rooms I have to choose from to turn into a vocal tracking room. Which would be the best choice? Attachments:
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Post by Guitar on May 3, 2019 11:00:51 GMT -6
I think either one would work perfectly fine if properly treated with acoustic panels.
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Post by Tbone81 on May 3, 2019 11:08:29 GMT -6
What he said...
I’d make the decision based off other factors beside size. Like, do you plan on having a window to the control room, and which one offers the best line of sight? Do you plan on having guitar/bass amps in there? Are there any issues with mechanical noise from HVAC, traffic, noise from adjacent rooms (above or below etc). Is it more difficult to wire one with tie lines than the other?
Both seem perfectly big enough but practicalities and ergonomics may make one much more useable than the other
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miklo
Junior Member
Posts: 52
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Post by miklo on May 3, 2019 11:27:02 GMT -6
No control room, just vocal recordings. Everything tracked here will be sent to mixing engineers.
Room two is a bit bigger. Do any of them have a shape that is better for vocals? Both are asymmetrical.
I got 4 inch bass traps ready to roll.
Where do you guys think the microphone should be placed?
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Post by svart on May 3, 2019 11:47:11 GMT -6
Room 2 would by my choice if I had to pick one of them, but I think either would be fine with enough sound control devices.
I wouldn't place the mic nearer than 4ft to a wall. Angle it slightly so that the back diaphragm is not parallel to the wall.
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Post by Tbone81 on May 3, 2019 12:05:39 GMT -6
Food for though: which one “feels” better when you stand in it? Does one have a cooler vibe or aesthetic? Is one more comfortable? Does one feel bigger or more spacious? Aesthetics, comfort and vibe are all things that we kind of gloss over when discussing acoustics and room treatment but they’re very much important. If you can make one of the rooms more comfortable, and give it more of a “wow” factor for your clients then I’d probably pick that one. Comfort goes a long way and pays big dividends when it comes to an artists performance. Plus it’ll keep people coming back to you, even over bigger better engineers/studios.
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Post by chessparov on May 3, 2019 13:21:01 GMT -6
I have moderate claustrophobia, so I resemble that remark. Mixing in the Box OK. Tracking in the Box-not OK! Chris
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avare
New Member
Posts: 5
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Post by avare on May 4, 2019 0:27:27 GMT -6
Is 4 inch thick panels deep enough for a room with dimensions close to 10x12? Or is much thicker paneling required for a room that small? Wavelengths do not shrink with room size. The minimum absorber depth i recommend is 8".
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Post by Vincent R. on May 4, 2019 6:46:10 GMT -6
Kind of coming into this conversation late. I have made recordings in rooms of various size with various treatment levels that have ended up on TV or in videos games, etc. if treatment is bad and the room is small, mic technique is crucial. A little treatment can go a long way, especially in a busy mix. Funny enough, for the mic nut that I am most of the recordings I made professionally were done on either an AT3525 MDC or the Shure KSM44 LDC. There are no rules. If the room sounds bad, add more treatment, move the mic around the room to find the sweet spot, or just get closer to the mic. The biggest issue I’ve faced was putting my recordings with cheap mics in poor rooms next to better recordings done at better places. There is a huge difference between my recording of “Bloody Verdict of Verden” done in a large (15 x 20), but untreated room with a KSM44 and Christopher Lee’s which I believe was also done in his living room, but with treatment brought in done on an M49.
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