FEATURE ACOUSTICS AND ROOM TREATMENTS
Sound Investment
With the amount of choice when it comes to gear for a studio, from DAWS, plug-ins, and computers, to consoles, monitors, mics, and pres, it can be easy to forget about one of the most important factors: the room itself. Jory MacKay takes a look at the current market for acoustics and room treatments.
ACOUSTIC treatment has traditionally been regarded as somewhat of a ‘dark art’, yet do a quick Google search on the subject these days and you’ll be bombarded by ‘how- to’ guides and videos, in- depth forum topics, and a number of companies offering pre-made, DIY, and bespoke room treatment options. While big studio designers
and owners have known the advantages of having a room with proper acoustic treatment for decades, the importance of creating a sonically balanced space has
28 October 2013
as of late become a hot topic for home studio owners and hobbyists alike. Add in the democratisation of the recording industry and the number of producers and engineers who have moved into smaller, home-based studios and the acoustic treatment industry is experiencing somewhat of a boom, weathering an otherwise rocky economic climate in the studio market. The benefits are clear:
rooms with proper treatment provide a more accurate representation of a mix,
providing tight and even bass, a well-focused mid-range and a detailed top end. As much as the end goal is always to create something that sounds ‘good’, audio engineers spend countless hours trying to create a mix that is, above all, accurate.
Mixing in an untreated
room can create a biased outcome that may sound perfectly fine in your personal space but unbalanced when played back on a different system. Ultimately, we all want to create a track that will translate properly across
systems and sound the same whether it is being played back through studio monitors, headphones, or in a club or venue. Andy Munro, an award- winning acoustician who has been designing world-class studios with his company Munro Acoustics for more than 40 years, succinctly sums up the benefits of recording in a room with proper acoustic treatment: “Acoustics define any studio and what it is capable of producing in terms of quality and content. If musicians are to play
together and individually they must be able to hear themselves and each other and the sound must be captured in a way that can be recorded and mixed without unpleasant artifacts such as noise or distortion. “The main benefit is the
ability to capture natural sound with no digital processing at the initial recording stage. Natural dynamics and clear, undistorted sound can be converted cleanly to digital and then edited and processed but it will only
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