Treatments for a single room studio. Both live and control.

[fingerace]

Hey guys,

Something I can't find in the "audio engineering" section of KHR is the use of a large multi purpose room as both the control and live room.

I don't have two rooms to use, can I get "pro" mixes by using one large room?

I am doing more acoustic treatment research and all I keep finding is "live room acoustics" and "control room" acoustics.

Should I just concentrate on getting the monitoring right, and let the tracking capabilities/acoustics of the room come out however they come?

Thanks

[garageband]

For me, the control room is some deader than my live room. You could do worse than having a live room that was a tad too "still".

Should I just concentrate on getting the monitoring right, and let the tracking capabilities/acoustics of the room come out however they come?

I would say. Adjusting a room for monitoring is also a higher level of precision than for tracking. For tracking, it needs not to suck. For monitoring, it needs to be good.

[Tony Ramone]

I got in touch with GIK acoustics once and they told me it's perfectly normal for home studios to have hybrid rooms. Must find the email they sent back with suggestions of what treatment to put in, but I think there's some info on their page as well.
I never actually got around to buying any of their panels yet...

[fingerace]

I don't think I ll be buying anything else except OC 703 4'' panels. GIK's Diffusors are priced right, but I don't think they will do much in a small space, I should be better of with absorbtion (that's what most people say at least).

At first I was thinking of building a wall. The reason for going with one large room is because "It's better to have one large multi purpose GOOD sounding space rather than two rooms too small to sound good". I read that in a realtraps article. Unfortunately it doesn't say how to set it up.

Do you believe a wall/partition is worth it?

[Audio~Geek]

When I mix I make my room smaller with 2 cubicle wall partitions and broadband absorbers held up on mic stands.
Makes a big difference.

If you split your room in two with a wall, both might be too small to be of much use.

2 rooms is good for isolation
1 room is good for communication

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by fingerace

all I keep finding is "live room acoustics" and "control room" acoustics.

The acoustic treatment strategy for a live room depends on its size. The approach for a very large live room like Studio A at Criteria / Hit Factory in Miami is totally different from what you'd do for a "live" room the size of a bedroom. You didn't say how large your recording room is, but I imagine you'll want to treat it more like a typical home studio control room.

--Ethan

[fingerace]

The room size is 20.5'x12' and 11' high. Not big enough to be comfortably split. IMO

I am a guitarist/trumpet/harp player as well, and I would hate to have to run back and forth the two rooms.

Excuse my ignorance, but what I fail to understand is why there HAS to be isolation between the control and live room. I understand that there have to be different acoustic properties in the two rooms because of their purpose. Why isolation though?

The real question is whether someone is able to get both good (enough) tracking and monitoring in one single room.

[Audio~Geek]

Isolation makes the engineer more comfortable, he can listen on monitors if he wants and not have to compete with ambient noise.

when the artist and engineer are the same person 2 rooms makes less sense.

[fingerace]

Originally Posted by Audio~Geek

Isolation makes the engineer more comfortable, he can listen on monitors if he wants and not have to compete with ambient noise.

That's it? I don't know how important that is, but it seems unnecessary to me.

Can't you just use headphones for that. If you 're recording live the mousicians will have headphones on as well. You can adjust their mix in your headphones.

You will adjust everything later anyway.

Am I missing something?

[Audio~Geek]

It's nice to not be FORCED to wear headphones. Also having a different mix than the musicians. Being able to solo a track without interrupting the performance.

Making critical decisions about things like mic placement on a snare drum without having the snare drum blasting in the room is a big deal. And as said earlier, there's different acoustic needs.

For your own home studio where you're only recording yourself 1 track at a time it's probably not necessary.

Isolation is not just between the two rooms though, it's for sound escaping the room and outside sounds getting in. Trucks driving by, kids running around upstairs, things that can ruin a perfect take.