Remember how I said in the last post that all rooms have acoustics? Its never more prominent in recording because here we are listening to back to the sound, over, and over...and over again. When you're playing live, you can sometimes get away with playing against your acoustics. In recording its imperative that you use them to your advantage OR do something to change them. But more on that later. First things first though.
Take a look at these two images.Quite clearly what we can see is a very very well acoustically managed room and well, a rather upmarket looking hotel toilet block. Lets start in the toilet. If you've ever noticed it, toilets have an extremely harsh acoustic. They're echo-y and aside from the smell probably not the best place to record. Or are they? There's a couple of famous examples of sections of recordings being made in a toilet. Indeed there is a clip of Muse recording finger clicks for their song Time Is Running Out in the bathroom. The bathroom gives off a certain acoustic that might work well occasionally, but not all the time.
Im using it as a very extreme example. But its possible that if you're making your own little studio (or maybe even building a huge multimillion pound one) that the acoustics of your recording room are very harsh. Take a look now at the picture on the left. Look at all the carpet, all the stuff on the walls, all the wood on the ceiling. What these properties do is absorb sound - unlike your bathroom walls which are going to reflect it back. This acoustic treatment is going to benefit the recording hugely. What it does is it allows your sound engineer to capture the perfect sound of just the instrument. He/she doesn't have to compromise the quality of the recording by taking into account a slightly dodgy acoustic. This is why when you see professional recording studios they're covered in insulation and acoustic treatment (its not just to keep the neighbours happy)
So how can you test your room and how should you treat it? Well the chances are you can't afford a huge amount of treatment. A few decent acoustic panels is going to cost you at least a couple of hundred pounds. But putting them in the right place can benefit you hugely. First off you want to do some clapping. This short sound will allow you to hear if your room is reverberating much. If its not, don't bother with any acoustic panels. If you've got some carpet lying around, put it up against any walls that are near the instrument you're recording. If your room happens to be terrible but you can't afford much, carpet is a great place to start. However, if you do have some money proper acoustic treatment works wonders. I can't explain it all in great detail but this here article is fantastic.
Your only other option for this sort of problem is moving rooms! I know when we record at our school we try not to record actually in the studio because the walls are horrible.
Happy acoustic-ing people! Any questions, leave a comment and we'll get back to you.
Peace, Linus
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