@@Herfinnur if you can find an outdoor environment that isn't too noisy and doesn't bother neighbors, this makes a lot of sense. No walls = no reflections.
The mattresses booth. Air mattress on one side foam mattress on the other, bare wall in front, furry comforter on top, falling behind, but a couple feet from the ground. I always believed in the philosophy of difference over deadening. I felt it gave a much warmer, but lively sound than the "treated" booth at the studio I had access to.
Sound is energy. As the amount of sound increases, the amount of energy increases and that energy, if not absorbed, will bounce back into the room (and mic) causing unwanted results. Given that Billie's typical vocal energy (volume) range goes from a whisper to average speaking volume, holding a mic less than 5 inches from her mouth, she can get away with singing in a small untreated room (no meaningful sound reflections). If she's belting it out, you better believe she'll need some absorption/diffusion to deal with that increased energy reflecting off the walls, ceiling, floor, mirrors, windows, etc. and back into the mic.
Yep. That's exactly what I was thinking. I believe they recorded in that bedroom specifically for her first few albums. She's since started belting more, so I imagine they don't do that anymore. Plus, that bedroom was tiny and full of furniture. The bed alone takes up half the room.
But the ratio of direct sound vs reflections from the room will stay the same regardless of volume. If you record quieter and then gain it up/make it appropriately loud later, you're gonna increase the room sound just as much. Using compression further highlights the room reflections.
Then we need a billion reverb options to make it sound correct. I'm going to say an appropriate, good quality mic is the most important for vocals. Once recorded, we can add EQ, subtle delay, and endless options so that it all sounds better. And on and on it goes...
I agree I've gotten the best sound for vocals hanging up moving blankets as opposed to buying expensive acoustic treatment now I'm not saying not to buy it expensive acoustic treatment I'm just saying what worked for me in a medium sized room
Yes it work for me too. I have no budget to buy some acoustic treatment so i made some diy stuff and try everything to prevent sound bouncing back to my mic, and yes, blankets, towel, shirt, works for me. But dont compare with other expensive acoustic treatmen😂
@@perrykeshahwalker5321 I get to work in a multi million dollar building, and you know what we use to control reverb in our main recording room? Curtains on tracks that we can adjust to get more or less reverb as needed. There are only a couple rooms where we use actual acoustic paneling. One being the control room, and the other is a super dry room; not anechoic, but definitely dry. The human brain likes spacial cues, that's why reverb, delay, and even phasing effects like chorus sound so good!
Because acoustic treatment (Bass traps) is more-so meant to treat bass and subs. I'd be very concerned and kinda frightened actually if someone's singing centered around to 40hz 😂
Filling the majority of a room with a big chunk of dense foam (bed) stops a lot of reflections on its own, let alone the chaotic shapes present in a bedroom studio. Having beds and random crap in a bedroom studio IS acoustic treatment, and that is my hot take lol
I have a bedroom studio that is somewhat treated. I obviously have a bed, I made some absorption panels with OC 703, and I have diffusion on the first reflection points. My mixes translate pretty well. But I also have the Slate VSX as an additional reference, and I'm blown away with the results. It's an absolute steal for $300. It's great to have different monitoring options for reference.
Interesting video. A thought kept coming to me while watching. You can get a decent vocal recording in an untreated room with a little planning. But Billie Eilish isn't MIXING her albums in that bedroom. The room where they are MIXING the album has all the treatment, speaker placement, equalization, etc.
Carpet on the floor, acoustic ceiling tiles, furniture, bookshelves, etc all help to break up reflections. Simple things work pretty well. Bare walls, hardwood floors, hard ceilings all create issues.
I've gotten pretty great results with thick mattresses in the past, but you need a lot of them. Building your own broad band absorbers and bass traps is also pretty easy and cheap. Mixing just on headphones is possible, but much easier if you’re already an experienced engineer and learned on speakers first to know what information the headphones are gonna tell you and what they will misrepresent. Stereo imaging and ambience like reverbs and delays is different on headphones. They’ll always sound dryer and more isolated than a pair of speakers in a room.
Anyone serious about their music career should invest the time and effort into treating their room. Doesn't matter if you have $200 or $10,000 - do what you can if you take this seriously. If it's a hobby, treat it as such.
Save tens of thousands in acoustic treatment by using a dynamic mic instead of a condenser mic. Silversun Pickups used an SM7B handheld, in an untreated room, with playback coming through studio monitors and Brian slamming his hand on the wall to the rhythm of the vocal. In modern music, you can do a ton to cover up a bad or untreated room by using dynamic mics. For things like acoustic instruments that are more gentle, you probably want to have at least a halfway decent treated room, but even then, you can get away with a lot. Many big albums were recorded in poor technical conditions, with crappy mics, singers clipping the input. Several vocals from famous albums were recorded in very large untreated rooms, even with condenser mics in some cases. 3:52 should be "For all intents and purposes" rather than "intensive purposes".
When I first learned a few years ago that Billie Eilish and her brother made those songs in that bedroom, I was super excited for her. I'm not trying to be somebody with my music, but since I've been messing with a DAW for 22 years, I was like, yeahhh buddy! Good for them!
Best Acoustics for vocals was in my Case allways Something with Wood , like a absorber Coverd with Wood Even Wood alone has some nice Sound , i guess the Vibration of sound Waves touching Woods Surface makes it Sound good
Not a waste of time or money. Only foam is a total waste of time and money. Don’t buy that foam garbage. Definitely try to do as much acoustic treatment as possible!
Spend your money on your mics, and outboard pre's but you don't need outboard stuff anymore if pushed. Plenty of people have made successful song recordings, albums in bedrooms, garages, motel rooms, barns. Matter of fact the recordings can sound more interesting than record-mill type facilities. Mixing room is another matter altogether. You definitely want bass traps at minimum but it's best to have absorber panels wherever possible.
I’ve been digging through my email and can’t find the original purchase.. I’m sorry it’s been at least 10 years since I bought it. There’s many on Amazon that look similar but the one I’ve got is very thick and feels like cotton rather than vinyl.. look for heavy blankets. I believe the one I have cost me about $50 but honestly any thick comforter with a few holes cut out for hanging would do just as well!
@@heychrisgreen I might know exactly what you're talking about as I owned a similar one some years back now that i remember, I'll update if i find it, thanks for the reply
So true about acoustic treatment and over doing it for tiny spaces.. Just finished my basement but carved out a 12x14 space for my drums, console, guitar cabs etc. By the time i did double 5x8 and staggered studs on outside walls and then 2 layers of drywall with sonopan and res channel for the ceiling, I was obsessing about treatment. My buddy came in and said listen, this is a home project studio. Your ceiling is now 7.5 or 7 in spots.. your walls are close. How much more are you going to invest in the room? So I settled on panels I made myself. 6 inch panels for a few corners, 3 inch throughout room, and a cloud with lights built in. End of the day, small spaces you just don't want the flutter. The rest, you learn your room through reference mixes or corrective software and using headphones. It is virtually impossible to get rid of pressure/bass in small rooms. You also kill your high end by doing that. My advice would be, do up a room you can afford and that inspires you. End of the day, i could have spent way more on double doors or rockwool everywhere but at a certain point, enough is enough. Be realistic about your goals and what you expect. Ultimately a good song and good performance matter more than anything else. Valentine's studio is also seriously lacking in mojo.. I wouldn't want that.
There is a trade off in home spaces between sound isolation and acoustic treatment. If you properly isolate a space to make is sound-proof: the dimensions of the room become an exact battle you're fighting with modes and reflection. If sound isolation isn't important: bass frequencies don't necessarily reflect and will often continue through the wall and either out of the house or until they reach the concrete foundation of a basement. My mix room is roughly 12' x 12' (give or take a few inches) and has a maybe 7' ceiling. On paper, it is a bad shape and too small to treat well. In reality, the back wall includes a bi-fold door and un-insulated wall where bass easily escapes. I built custom treatment for it (15" x 15" or bigger bass traps in all 4 wall/wall corners and 15" x 24" on the front ceiling/wall corner. 10" deep traps that handle first reflection absorption as well as some floor/wall bass trapping in the front half of the room. A cloud. A rear diffuser.). I also included some active bass traps and room-correction. Room measures +/- 2.5dB below 100Hz and +/- 1.5dB above 100Hz.
Chris, let me ask you this question: The room that you recorded this video in .. Is there any acoustic treatment in there? Dude, if acoustic treatment were not important, I can ASSURE you that the majority of successful music producers, sound engineers and so on (not people trying to sell their acoustic treatment products) would not say that acoustic treatment should be one of the FIRST things focused on when building any music studio; be it home or commercial. Also, yes, there are some benefits, and sometimes necessities to mixing on headphones, but the reality is, the benefits of mixing on studio monitor speakers, with even a half-decent treated space far outweigh what you are portraying in this video. ..... At least in my opinion, anyway. Ya'LL do the real research and test what works best for you, but this here video is bullshit, man. Straight up.
Try watching the video again… seriously 😅 I built my own acoustic panels, I hung a moving blanket across the window, I purchased the Halo reflection filter, and I have a section of carpet laid out on the floor. My room still sounds like a bedroom 😂 The point I make across the video is that you don’t need to endlessly chase your tail to have a “perfect room”. Even the professionals that build their dream studios don’t have “perfect” rooms. Use whatever you have at home (mattresses, blankets, pillows) but don’t convince yourself that you’ve solved the problems of acoustics 😳 Learning what makes your space quirky will go a lot farther than stuffing your room full of foam and egg cartons 😅
I've turned a bedroom closet into an acoustically treated vocal booth by covering all the walls, ceiling, and door with yellow mattress padding foam. It worked beautifully as a vocal booth. However, I found out later that mattress padding is made of flammable materials. It was a cheap solution for acoustic treatment, but it was definitely a fire hazard. For that reason, I would never do that again, knowing what I know today. I also found out that even some dedicated acoustic foam that you buy is also made with flammable materials!!! WOW!!! This stuff will be around electronic equipment, so it need to be fire resistant, NOT FLAMMABLE!!!!! That brings me to this question: Would hanging a moving blanket on the wall or using mattresses be a fire hazard (meaning flames would spread quickly in the event of a fire)? Is there a very affordable fire retardant material that can be used for cheaply constructing your own acoustic panels that would also be just as effective for their intended purpose? On a side note, that isolation filter around the microphone looks like a very good idea. There are also portable small affordable vocal booths that you can buy online made out of PVC pipes that come with an acoustic blanket. You can set it up in a small apartment and set and breakdown only takes a few minutes. I might consider getting me one of those. However, for mixing, the mixing room still needs to be treated in order to hear the sound accurately that's coming from the studio monitors.
A cheap solution I came up with for vocals was moving blankets hung from clothes racks. You can basically build a modular, mobile vocal or instrument booth this way. You'll want the clothes racks to be strong enough to hold a couple heavy moving blankets. And you'll also want them to be tall enough that you're not just singing over the top of them. I think I managed to get all the moving blankets and clothes racks I needed for this setup for around $100. It's super convenient because you can put it anywhere in any room of the house. It does still help to pick the room that already sounds the best. I like to set up in my bedroom because there's a bed, tons of bookshelves, racks of clothes, etc. Even with all that, though, I was shocked at how much drier my vocals sounded with my makeshift setup.
Almost everything is a scam these days. That's all you need to know. Always assume everything is a scam. Chimaira recorded their "impossiblity of reason" album in a garage. I'm talking tracking and mixing in the early 2000's in pro tools. It sounds amazing.
I’m thinking about throwing out all “acoustic treatment” and just stick to headphones for mixing. Fibres from rockwool are not healthy and they are “leaking” trough fabric, no matter what
The primary roadblock that I’ve run into when researching this is that comforters, closets full of clothes, foam panels, mattress forts, etc do not dampen any bass - Just the high frequencies and some of the mids. Bass traps are basically the only resolution for that problem and I’m just not comfortable with paying hundreds of dollars for those. At a certain point I’ve just got to live my life and deal with whatever repercussions arise.
There are affordable ways to make your own bass traps using rockwool/mineral wool/fiberglass. Whether or not you actually need bass traps depends on what you're doing. For mixing using monitors? Probably. For recording vocals, probably not. Absorbing the highs and mids will likely be enough, in my experience. The noticeable echoes that make a vocal recording sound bad will not be in the lows.
If you have speakers or studio monitors you will certainly have lots of problems when mixing bass.. that’s why I’ve gone 100% headphones 😅 Most of the time I’m cutting a lot of low end from our vocals and acoustic instruments but I can see that low end always being a problem.. I believe most companies call anything thicker than 4 inches a bass trap.. you need mass and air gaps to soak it all up but I’ve rarely heard of home studios being successful at that 😬
Most people have never even been in a well treated room so y would anyone think that u have to have that to create something that people would like the sound of or bring out an emotional response
No it’s not. The right headphones will get you a damn near PERFECT mix and is much less expensive than monitors. I use the Neumann ndh 30 headphones which cost around $700 but works WONDERS
How is it that live performances by the biggest most famous musicians in the world, are recorded in every conceivable public venue - in sports stadiums (Wembley Stadium with 90,000 audience members,) churches (Aretha Franklin and a thousand different choirs), Central Park (Barbra Streisand), a public beach with 5 million audience members (Madonna), music festivals in the middle of big cities (most Jazz musicians), Las Vegas casinos where a thousand people are eating dinner and drinking (Frank Sinatra) - all these places where there is NO ACOUSTIC treatment of the environment - and they produce professional sounding hit recordings that sell millions of copies and billions of streams - and don't tell me that the sound problems are "fixed" after they've recorded it, because there were no computers when a lot of these recordings were made. And the sound wasn't "fixed" when the recording was transferred to CD, because I own the original vinyl LPs from the 1960s and 70s. So how do you account for that?
The musical PART and PERFORMANCE is like 90% of what makes any recording great. Gear, room, and production/mixing are icing on the cake. The sound of whatever space you're in doing it is all just part of what makes each project unique. Yea, sometimes you want super dead and controlled, but it's absolutely not the "paint color" you want for everything.
For Things that are Direct connected to devices without room yea its all Performance n music content But For vocals No , Room Not only works Like a pre Eq , combfilter could Ruin every great Take Belting over 3000 Tracks the Last 14 years teachd me that
Audio engineers always used to travel to locations with room responses they wanted to record with. Here's a thought; what if your brain can subconsciously recognize something that was recorded in a certain type of space, and connect certain feelings with it? Is that not why we add reverb? Weren't the first plate reverb just a way to overcome the fact that studios couldn't physically fit a cathedral in them? That's the recording side, now, for the mixing side you can use room EQ wizard and apply a corrective EQ at the mixing position to make sure you have the most accurate sound possible, or... You can start you mix on headphones, they are the cheapest and easiest way to get your panning perfect. You can throw a high pass and low pass filter on your master bus and get your midrange decent. Then bring your daw, on your laptop, in to your car to mix the low end. Then go back to headphones to make sure the high end doesn't hurt. Remember, get it right at the source, and everything after is much easier.
This is TERRIBLE advice lmao. The reverb needs to fill up space in the mix and must be included in the “Side” processing. Reverb sounds TERRIBLE when implemented in the dry signal, especially on an inexpensive microphone. Mixing bass in your car will ONLY lead to poor translation because you have no way of knowing how much is too little, which areas need to be attenuated, and how much is too much. To get a great mix, you simply need a MIXING headphone and a good headphone amp/dac to power it. I myself have the Neumann ndh 30 headphones and they get everything PERFECT without all the extra stuff you just listed.
@renzo4180 , if you have money getting the right equipment is great! I'm just saying that there are ways to get a good mix without needing to be rich. And as far as recording in a space being a bad idea, I'd suggest you go try it. Bring a stereo mic or just set up a couple mics that you can pan hard left and right. Also, do some experiments with having your artists do multiple takes to pan left and right to get more fill in the mix. And always remember, if it sounds right, it is right!
@@TheAT5000 I kinda pity other engineers because I have a friend who helps invest in the thousands of dollars worth of equipment. So the financial part wasn’t a huge burden for me, just took patience. This is why I recommend producers/artists to let me engineer their stuff rather than having to use cheap equipment and save forever.
Hi Chris, really like your video. Common sense is worth a lot, but also needs to make you aware. Example, if you have a big peak at 20 Hz in your room but you only mix a capella voices, then don spend one second trying to solve that 20Hz, just use a high pass filter in your mixes from where human voices as the lowest (around 80Hz maybe??) and your done, solved without spending one penny. Also, if you have a shit sounding room, but you like the end result of your music that way, you're done, no acoustic treatment needed. You can learn to mix around the issues that cause the shit room. Use a headphone ads you suggest is a very good solution (300 bucks will do te job), but they MUST wear comfortable as priority 1. Most people mix various types of music, so you need a more overall good sounding room. That's all common sense. In that way, you are right. Acoustics is VERY VERY difficult, so common sense tells you need lots of knowledge on details. It is NOT just slam some stuff to the wall to figure out tat was a waist of money and effort. WHAT is the real problem in your room, do you want to fix that (if not do you understand the consequences), and HOW can you fix it. First and most relevant common sense is, a really flat response in any room is impossible to achieve and is not required, any type of music has its own response graph character and 99% of the people don't hear those details anyway. On the other hand it may get you into trouble as it is the opposit of what you need. It would help to have a flat(ish) room response as you will always hear what you need to change more easy. So set your realistic goals for your room and your budget, if you don't like the effort, go play football as only effort brings succces. 1 - Everything that is not OK above 150 Hz (around) is relatively easy to fix. Build your own panels (ton's of video's here), use the mirror trick from your listening position to place them, but DON"t overkill it. A dead room (to many panels) is just another version of acoustic nightmare, your brains can't handle dead rooms. So start with that. 2 - Everything that is not OK below 150 Hz is difficult to fix, does NOT have to be really flat as it just CAN NOT be flat (understand what you look for). First, experiment with speaker placement (Symmetrical to the room) as it just takes time but no money, in a structured way. Look for where your room sounds best (as flat as possible) by moving the speakers around and for each speaker position move your listening position on the symmetrical axis (line) between the speakers. Peaks and dips bigger than 5 dB may need treatment. NEVER place your speakers IN the corner, stay away from that place. Avoid sitting at the exact middle of the room, stay out of the circle about 20 - 30% from the center. 3 - Next, use 1 (or 2) subs and move them around till you get the best out of it. At this point, you have just spend TIME but no money. Just placing a sub somewhere will cause a random positive and / or negative affect. The more energy you bring in at low frequencies will almost by default add to the problem, or you are just lucky. Stay away from the corners and most often you come out best not placing them at the same (mirrored) spot i.e under your top speakers. 4 - Now here comes the really really difficult part, treat those bad low frequency issues that are left after speaker placement and using the subs. THAT requires knowledge and you need a lot of treatment as you need to tame a lot of energy. SO just a simple acoustic panel in a corner works but has no measurable (let alone audible) effect. Start to use a cloud of 25 cm (10") distanced at 25 cm from the ceiling on a big part of the room. Use the air gap as it is just half the price (damping material cost) of a fully filled space with damping material with same results. It also solves most of the reflections in the vertical space (no damping on the floor as that is impractical). NOT expensive as you can build it your self, make is as light as possible (use poplar ply wood 18 mm or ¾ " thickness) to secure the mounting is easy to do (and prevent from the whole cloud to fall on top of you... and your gear). 5 - As a last part of the solution, treat all your corners with the same but square shaped 25 cm damping and 25 cm air bass-trap (very easy to build column). The above solution solves 80% of all your issues, then live with the rest. As with all solutions, the first 80% is doable and inexpensive, the last 20% is increasingly difficult (knowledge and required technology) and getting a waist of money like you said, as you probably want hear it really and you don't need it in the first place. - The best alternative solution to cope with this last 20% is "listen and learn". Create a mix, listen to it the next day as your ears are fresh at home, in the car, outside and decide what you don't like about it. Go back and fix those in the next version of the mix (write it down!!!) and listen again the next day in the same way. Solved it? then these changes are your golden rules to fix your room (virtually). Not solved, repeat until you like it and learn from it. Getting tired of it after 2 attempts, go find another hobby / profession. The above will set you back around 300 to 500 euro's for a decent size bed-room if you build it all yourself and look for the cheapest offer on materials. Start with above 150 Hz to kill those reflections and makes you able to focus on what you want to hear (dive into the mix so to say and look for more and more details). If you are happy with that, attack to difficult part, the low end. By the way, DSP is not the real tool to tame peaks in low frequency, as you don't kill the effect of a standing wave but just the level of it, making you music start to sound thin. - What NOT to use: Foam panels (only high free's), matras (health and fire issues), egg creates (number one useless), blankets (only tame just a bit high free's as sound just walks trough) to name to most used. My 5 cents worth on acoustics in a nutshel.
Thanks for watching! 🙂What’s the best acoustic treatment solution you’ve ever implemented?
Going out into the woods for recording
@@Herfinnur if you can find an outdoor environment that isn't too noisy and doesn't bother neighbors, this makes a lot of sense. No walls = no reflections.
The mattresses booth. Air mattress on one side foam mattress on the other, bare wall in front, furry comforter on top, falling behind, but a couple feet from the ground. I always believed in the philosophy of difference over deadening. I felt it gave a much warmer, but lively sound than the "treated" booth at the studio I had access to.
Once we stood up a sofabed, made a fort.
Sound is energy. As the amount of sound increases, the amount of energy increases and that energy, if not absorbed, will bounce back into the room (and mic) causing unwanted results. Given that Billie's typical vocal energy (volume) range goes from a whisper to average speaking volume, holding a mic less than 5 inches from her mouth, she can get away with singing in a small untreated room (no meaningful sound reflections). If she's belting it out, you better believe she'll need some absorption/diffusion to deal with that increased energy reflecting off the walls, ceiling, floor, mirrors, windows, etc. and back into the mic.
Yep. That's exactly what I was thinking. I believe they recorded in that bedroom specifically for her first few albums. She's since started belting more, so I imagine they don't do that anymore. Plus, that bedroom was tiny and full of furniture. The bed alone takes up half the room.
That’s why I’ve decided to sing like Billie Elish from now on 😁
But the ratio of direct sound vs reflections from the room will stay the same regardless of volume.
If you record quieter and then gain it up/make it appropriately loud later, you're gonna increase the room sound just as much.
Using compression further highlights the room reflections.
yuup i was gonna say that exact same thing lol
Then we need a billion reverb options to make it sound correct. I'm going to say an appropriate, good quality mic is the most important for vocals. Once recorded, we can add EQ, subtle delay, and endless options so that it all sounds better. And on and on it goes...
I agree I've gotten the best sound for vocals hanging up moving blankets as opposed to buying expensive acoustic treatment now I'm not saying not to buy it expensive acoustic treatment I'm just saying what worked for me in a medium sized room
Yes it work for me too. I have no budget to buy some acoustic treatment so i made some diy stuff and try everything to prevent sound bouncing back to my mic, and yes, blankets, towel, shirt, works for me. But dont compare with other expensive acoustic treatmen😂
@@perrykeshahwalker5321 I get to work in a multi million dollar building, and you know what we use to control reverb in our main recording room? Curtains on tracks that we can adjust to get more or less reverb as needed.
There are only a couple rooms where we use actual acoustic paneling. One being the control room, and the other is a super dry room; not anechoic, but definitely dry.
The human brain likes spacial cues, that's why reverb, delay, and even phasing effects like chorus sound so good!
Because acoustic treatment (Bass traps) is more-so meant to treat bass and subs. I'd be very concerned and kinda frightened actually if someone's singing centered around to 40hz 😂
Filling the majority of a room with a big chunk of dense foam (bed) stops a lot of reflections on its own, let alone the chaotic shapes present in a bedroom studio. Having beds and random crap in a bedroom studio IS acoustic treatment, and that is my hot take lol
I have a bedroom studio that is somewhat treated. I obviously have a bed, I made some absorption panels with OC 703, and I have diffusion on the first reflection points. My mixes translate pretty well. But I also have the Slate VSX as an additional reference, and I'm blown away with the results. It's an absolute steal for $300. It's great to have different monitoring options for reference.
Interesting video. A thought kept coming to me while watching.
You can get a decent vocal recording in an untreated room with a little planning. But Billie Eilish isn't MIXING her albums in that bedroom.
The room where they are MIXING the album has all the treatment, speaker placement, equalization, etc.
Carpet on the floor, acoustic ceiling tiles, furniture, bookshelves, etc all help to break up reflections. Simple things work pretty well. Bare walls, hardwood floors, hard ceilings all create issues.
I've gotten pretty great results with thick mattresses in the past, but you need a lot of them.
Building your own broad band absorbers and bass traps is also pretty easy and cheap.
Mixing just on headphones is possible, but much easier if you’re already an experienced engineer and learned on speakers first to know what information the headphones are gonna tell you and what they will misrepresent.
Stereo imaging and ambience like reverbs and delays is different on headphones.
They’ll always sound dryer and more isolated than a pair of speakers in a room.
5:40 the halo in particular is good because it doesn't only block the top, back, and side, but is designed to direct reflections to the mic.
Anyone serious about their music career should invest the time and effort into treating their room.
Doesn't matter if you have $200 or $10,000 - do what you can if you take this seriously.
If it's a hobby, treat it as such.
Save tens of thousands in acoustic treatment by using a dynamic mic instead of a condenser mic. Silversun Pickups used an SM7B handheld, in an untreated room, with playback coming through studio monitors and Brian slamming his hand on the wall to the rhythm of the vocal. In modern music, you can do a ton to cover up a bad or untreated room by using dynamic mics. For things like acoustic instruments that are more gentle, you probably want to have at least a halfway decent treated room, but even then, you can get away with a lot. Many big albums were recorded in poor technical conditions, with crappy mics, singers clipping the input. Several vocals from famous albums were recorded in very large untreated rooms, even with condenser mics in some cases.
3:52 should be "For all intents and purposes" rather than "intensive purposes".
When I first learned a few years ago that Billie Eilish and her brother made those songs in that bedroom, I was super excited for her. I'm not trying to be somebody with my music, but since I've been messing with a DAW for 22 years, I was like, yeahhh buddy! Good for them!
Mumbling her whispers into a close mic
@@EmperorKamikazeBut it paid out well
@@FlatTire ya!
Can you send a link to moving blankets like in your room? :)
Best Acoustics for vocals was in my Case allways Something with Wood , like a absorber Coverd with Wood
Even Wood alone has some nice Sound , i guess the Vibration of sound Waves touching Woods Surface makes it Sound good
Not a waste of time or money. Only foam is a total waste of time and money. Don’t buy that foam garbage. Definitely try to do as much acoustic treatment as possible!
Spend your money on your mics, and outboard pre's but you don't need outboard stuff anymore if pushed. Plenty of people have made successful song recordings, albums in bedrooms, garages, motel rooms, barns. Matter of fact the recordings can sound more interesting than record-mill type facilities. Mixing room is another matter altogether. You definitely want bass traps at minimum but it's best to have absorber panels wherever possible.
Great video! if you could link the specific moving blanket, that'd be great :)
I’ve been digging through my email and can’t find the original purchase.. I’m sorry it’s been at least 10 years since I bought it. There’s many on Amazon that look similar but the one I’ve got is very thick and feels like cotton rather than vinyl.. look for heavy blankets. I believe the one I have cost me about $50 but honestly any thick comforter with a few holes cut out for hanging would do just as well!
@@heychrisgreen I might know exactly what you're talking about as I owned a similar one some years back now that i remember, I'll update if i find it, thanks for the reply
So true about acoustic treatment and over doing it for tiny spaces.. Just finished my basement but carved out a 12x14 space for my drums, console, guitar cabs etc. By the time i did double 5x8 and staggered studs on outside walls and then 2 layers of drywall with sonopan and res channel for the ceiling, I was obsessing about treatment. My buddy came in and said listen, this is a home project studio. Your ceiling is now 7.5 or 7 in spots.. your walls are close. How much more are you going to invest in the room? So I settled on panels I made myself. 6 inch panels for a few corners, 3 inch throughout room, and a cloud with lights built in. End of the day, small spaces you just don't want the flutter. The rest, you learn your room through reference mixes or corrective software and using headphones. It is virtually impossible to get rid of pressure/bass in small rooms. You also kill your high end by doing that. My advice would be, do up a room you can afford and that inspires you. End of the day, i could have spent way more on double doors or rockwool everywhere but at a certain point, enough is enough. Be realistic about your goals and what you expect. Ultimately a good song and good performance matter more than anything else. Valentine's studio is also seriously lacking in mojo.. I wouldn't want that.
There is a trade off in home spaces between sound isolation and acoustic treatment.
If you properly isolate a space to make is sound-proof: the dimensions of the room become an exact battle you're fighting with modes and reflection.
If sound isolation isn't important: bass frequencies don't necessarily reflect and will often continue through the wall and either out of the house or until they reach the concrete foundation of a basement.
My mix room is roughly 12' x 12' (give or take a few inches) and has a maybe 7' ceiling. On paper, it is a bad shape and too small to treat well.
In reality, the back wall includes a bi-fold door and un-insulated wall where bass easily escapes.
I built custom treatment for it (15" x 15" or bigger bass traps in all 4 wall/wall corners and 15" x 24" on the front ceiling/wall corner. 10" deep traps that handle first reflection absorption as well as some floor/wall bass trapping in the front half of the room. A cloud. A rear diffuser.). I also included some active bass traps and room-correction.
Room measures +/- 2.5dB below 100Hz and +/- 1.5dB above 100Hz.
Chris, let me ask you this question: The room that you recorded this video in ..
Is there any acoustic treatment in there? Dude, if acoustic treatment were not important, I can ASSURE you that the majority of successful music producers, sound engineers and so on (not people trying to sell their acoustic treatment products) would not say that acoustic treatment should be one of the FIRST things focused on when building any music studio; be it home or commercial. Also, yes, there are some benefits, and sometimes necessities to mixing on headphones, but the reality is, the benefits of mixing on studio monitor speakers, with even a half-decent treated space far outweigh what you are portraying in this video. ..... At least in my opinion, anyway. Ya'LL do the real research and test what works best for you, but this here video is bullshit, man. Straight up.
Try watching the video again… seriously 😅 I built my own acoustic panels, I hung a moving blanket across the window, I purchased the Halo reflection filter, and I have a section of carpet laid out on the floor. My room still sounds like a bedroom 😂 The point I make across the video is that you don’t need to endlessly chase your tail to have a “perfect room”. Even the professionals that build their dream studios don’t have “perfect” rooms.
Use whatever you have at home (mattresses, blankets, pillows) but don’t convince yourself that you’ve solved the problems of acoustics 😳
Learning what makes your space quirky will go a lot farther than stuffing your room full of foam and egg cartons 😅
I've turned a bedroom closet into an acoustically treated vocal booth by covering all the walls, ceiling, and door with yellow mattress padding foam. It worked beautifully as a vocal booth. However, I found out later that mattress padding is made of flammable materials. It was a cheap solution for acoustic treatment, but it was definitely a fire hazard. For that reason, I would never do that again, knowing what I know today. I also found out that even some dedicated acoustic foam that you buy is also made with flammable materials!!! WOW!!! This stuff will be around electronic equipment, so it need to be fire resistant, NOT FLAMMABLE!!!!!
That brings me to this question: Would hanging a moving blanket on the wall or using mattresses be a fire hazard (meaning flames would spread quickly in the event of a fire)?
Is there a very affordable fire retardant material that can be used for cheaply constructing your own acoustic panels that would also be just as effective for their intended purpose?
On a side note, that isolation filter around the microphone looks like a very good idea. There are also portable small affordable vocal booths that you can buy online made out of PVC pipes that come with an acoustic blanket. You can set it up in a small apartment and set and breakdown only takes a few minutes. I might consider getting me one of those. However, for mixing, the mixing room still needs to be treated in order to hear the sound accurately that's coming from the studio monitors.
The content is great... But your mousepad is AMAZING!
A cheap solution I came up with for vocals was moving blankets hung from clothes racks. You can basically build a modular, mobile vocal or instrument booth this way. You'll want the clothes racks to be strong enough to hold a couple heavy moving blankets. And you'll also want them to be tall enough that you're not just singing over the top of them. I think I managed to get all the moving blankets and clothes racks I needed for this setup for around $100. It's super convenient because you can put it anywhere in any room of the house. It does still help to pick the room that already sounds the best. I like to set up in my bedroom because there's a bed, tons of bookshelves, racks of clothes, etc. Even with all that, though, I was shocked at how much drier my vocals sounded with my makeshift setup.
Forgot to add that you can go the extra mile and put a moving blanket over the top of the setup as well, creating a kind of blanket fort.
I’m building mine out of PVC and modular for disassembly,about 6’x6’ concave shell,gobos and towels on desk.
Almost everything is a scam these days. That's all you need to know. Always assume everything is a scam. Chimaira recorded their "impossiblity of reason" album in a garage. I'm talking tracking and mixing in the early 2000's in pro tools. It sounds amazing.
Gems!!! 🥶🥶🥶
Thanks for watching!
I’m thinking about throwing out all “acoustic treatment” and just stick to headphones for mixing.
Fibres from rockwool are not healthy and they are “leaking” trough fabric, no matter what
The primary roadblock that I’ve run into when researching this is that comforters, closets full of clothes, foam panels, mattress forts, etc do not dampen any bass - Just the high frequencies and some of the mids. Bass traps are basically the only resolution for that problem and I’m just not comfortable with paying hundreds of dollars for those. At a certain point I’ve just got to live my life and deal with whatever repercussions arise.
There are affordable ways to make your own bass traps using rockwool/mineral wool/fiberglass. Whether or not you actually need bass traps depends on what you're doing. For mixing using monitors? Probably. For recording vocals, probably not. Absorbing the highs and mids will likely be enough, in my experience. The noticeable echoes that make a vocal recording sound bad will not be in the lows.
If you have speakers or studio monitors you will certainly have lots of problems when mixing bass.. that’s why I’ve gone 100% headphones 😅 Most of the time I’m cutting a lot of low end from our vocals and acoustic instruments but I can see that low end always being a problem.. I believe most companies call anything thicker than 4 inches a bass trap.. you need mass and air gaps to soak it all up but I’ve rarely heard of home studios being successful at that 😬
what's the brand for the vocal reflection
Aston Halo Reflection Filter
amzn.to/3BupUI0
(Amazon affiliate link)
Most people have never even been in a well treated room so y would anyone think that u have to have that to create something that people would like the sound of or bring out an emotional response
Explains why her vocal mix is less bright compared to most pop tracks
Two microphone stands, made into a “T” shape. Hang a blanket/duvet over them and you’ve got a vocal booth 👍
Great idea! 😁
Not having any monitors, and only headphones is diabolical 😅
No it’s not. The right headphones will get you a damn near PERFECT mix and is much less expensive than monitors. I use the Neumann ndh 30 headphones which cost around $700 but works WONDERS
How is it that live performances by the biggest most famous musicians in the world, are recorded in every conceivable public venue - in sports stadiums (Wembley Stadium with 90,000 audience members,) churches (Aretha Franklin and a thousand different choirs), Central Park (Barbra Streisand), a public beach with 5 million audience members (Madonna), music festivals in the middle of big cities (most Jazz musicians), Las Vegas casinos where a thousand people are eating dinner and drinking (Frank Sinatra) - all these places where there is NO ACOUSTIC treatment of the environment - and they produce professional sounding hit recordings that sell millions of copies and billions of streams - and don't tell me that the sound problems are "fixed" after they've recorded it, because there were no computers when a lot of these recordings were made. And the sound wasn't "fixed" when the recording was transferred to CD, because I own the original vinyl LPs from the 1960s and 70s. So how do you account for that?
Room Size , Sound Checks and the best Engineers the World has to offer , make that Happen
The musical PART and PERFORMANCE is like 90% of what makes any recording great. Gear, room, and production/mixing are icing on the cake. The sound of whatever space you're in doing it is all just part of what makes each project unique. Yea, sometimes you want super dead and controlled, but it's absolutely not the "paint color" you want for everything.
For Things that are Direct connected to devices without room yea its all Performance n music content
But For vocals No , Room Not only works Like a pre Eq , combfilter could Ruin every great Take
Belting over 3000 Tracks the Last 14 years teachd me that
Audio engineers always used to travel to locations with room responses they wanted to record with.
Here's a thought; what if your brain can subconsciously recognize something that was recorded in a certain type of space, and connect certain feelings with it? Is that not why we add reverb? Weren't the first plate reverb just a way to overcome the fact that studios couldn't physically fit a cathedral in them?
That's the recording side, now, for the mixing side you can use room EQ wizard and apply a corrective EQ at the mixing position to make sure you have the most accurate sound possible, or...
You can start you mix on headphones, they are the cheapest and easiest way to get your panning perfect.
You can throw a high pass and low pass filter on your master bus and get your midrange decent.
Then bring your daw, on your laptop, in to your car to mix the low end.
Then go back to headphones to make sure the high end doesn't hurt.
Remember, get it right at the source, and everything after is much easier.
you can't change room reverb when it's recorded in the sound
This is TERRIBLE advice lmao. The reverb needs to fill up space in the mix and must be included in the “Side” processing. Reverb sounds TERRIBLE when implemented in the dry signal, especially on an inexpensive microphone. Mixing bass in your car will ONLY lead to poor translation because you have no way of knowing how much is too little, which areas need to be attenuated, and how much is too much.
To get a great mix, you simply need a MIXING headphone and a good headphone amp/dac to power it.
I myself have the Neumann ndh 30 headphones and they get everything PERFECT without all the extra stuff you just listed.
@renzo4180 , if you have money getting the right equipment is great!
I'm just saying that there are ways to get a good mix without needing to be rich.
And as far as recording in a space being a bad idea, I'd suggest you go try it. Bring a stereo mic or just set up a couple mics that you can pan hard left and right.
Also, do some experiments with having your artists do multiple takes to pan left and right to get more fill in the mix.
And always remember, if it sounds right, it is right!
@@TheAT5000 I kinda pity other engineers because I have a friend who helps invest in the thousands of dollars worth of equipment. So the financial part wasn’t a huge burden for me, just took patience. This is why I recommend producers/artists to let me engineer their stuff rather than having to use cheap equipment and save forever.
@@renzo4180 I've never been able to stand mixing or producing on headphones honestly.
that mouse pad is cool
Thanks! 😁
Hi Chris, really like your video. Common sense is worth a lot, but also needs to make you aware. Example, if you have a big peak at 20 Hz in your room but you only mix a capella voices, then don spend one second trying to solve that 20Hz, just use a high pass filter in your mixes from where human voices as the lowest (around 80Hz maybe??) and your done, solved without spending one penny. Also, if you have a shit sounding room, but you like the end result of your music that way, you're done, no acoustic treatment needed. You can learn to mix around the issues that cause the shit room. Use a headphone ads you suggest is a very good solution (300 bucks will do te job), but they MUST wear comfortable as priority 1. Most people mix various types of music, so you need a more overall good sounding room. That's all common sense. In that way, you are right.
Acoustics is VERY VERY difficult, so common sense tells you need lots of knowledge on details. It is NOT just slam some stuff to the wall to figure out tat was a waist of money and effort.
WHAT is the real problem in your room, do you want to fix that (if not do you understand the consequences), and HOW can you fix it. First and most relevant common sense is, a really flat response in any room is impossible to achieve and is not required, any type of music has its own response graph character and 99% of the people don't hear those details anyway. On the other hand it may get you into trouble as it is the opposit of what you need. It would help to have a flat(ish) room response as you will always hear what you need to change more easy. So set your realistic goals for your room and your budget, if you don't like the effort, go play football as only effort brings succces.
1 - Everything that is not OK above 150 Hz (around) is relatively easy to fix. Build your own panels (ton's of video's here), use the mirror trick from your listening position to place them, but DON"t overkill it. A dead room (to many panels) is just another version of acoustic nightmare, your brains can't handle dead rooms. So start with that.
2 - Everything that is not OK below 150 Hz is difficult to fix, does NOT have to be really flat as it just CAN NOT be flat (understand what you look for). First, experiment with speaker placement (Symmetrical to the room) as it just takes time but no money, in a structured way. Look for where your room sounds best (as flat as possible) by moving the speakers around and for each speaker position move your listening position on the symmetrical axis (line) between the speakers. Peaks and dips bigger than 5 dB may need treatment. NEVER place your speakers IN the corner, stay away from that place. Avoid sitting at the exact middle of the room, stay out of the circle about 20 - 30% from the center.
3 - Next, use 1 (or 2) subs and move them around till you get the best out of it. At this point, you have just spend TIME but no money. Just placing a sub somewhere will cause a random positive and / or negative affect. The more energy you bring in at low frequencies will almost by default add to the problem, or you are just lucky. Stay away from the corners and most often you come out best not placing them at the same (mirrored) spot i.e under your top speakers.
4 - Now here comes the really really difficult part, treat those bad low frequency issues that are left after speaker placement and using the subs. THAT requires knowledge and you need a lot of treatment as you need to tame a lot of energy. SO just a simple acoustic panel in a corner works but has no measurable (let alone audible) effect. Start to use a cloud of 25 cm (10") distanced at 25 cm from the ceiling on a big part of the room. Use the air gap as it is just half the price (damping material cost) of a fully filled space with damping material with same results. It also solves most of the reflections in the vertical space (no damping on the floor as that is impractical). NOT expensive as you can build it your self, make is as light as possible (use poplar ply wood 18 mm or ¾ " thickness) to secure the mounting is easy to do (and prevent from the whole cloud to fall on top of you... and your gear).
5 - As a last part of the solution, treat all your corners with the same but square shaped 25 cm damping and 25 cm air bass-trap (very easy to build column).
The above solution solves 80% of all your issues, then live with the rest. As with all solutions, the first 80% is doable and inexpensive, the last 20% is increasingly difficult (knowledge and required technology) and getting a waist of money like you said, as you probably want hear it really and you don't need it in the first place.
- The best alternative solution to cope with this last 20% is "listen and learn". Create a mix, listen to it the next day as your ears are fresh at home, in the car, outside and decide what you don't like about it. Go back and fix those in the next version of the mix (write it down!!!) and listen again the next day in the same way. Solved it? then these changes are your golden rules to fix your room (virtually). Not solved, repeat until you like it and learn from it. Getting tired of it after 2 attempts, go find another hobby / profession.
The above will set you back around 300 to 500 euro's for a decent size bed-room if you build it all yourself and look for the cheapest offer on materials. Start with above 150 Hz to kill those reflections and makes you able to focus on what you want to hear (dive into the mix so to say and look for more and more details). If you are happy with that, attack to difficult part, the low end. By the way, DSP is not the real tool to tame peaks in low frequency, as you don't kill the effect of a standing wave but just the level of it, making you music start to sound thin.
- What NOT to use: Foam panels (only high free's), matras (health and fire issues), egg creates (number one useless), blankets (only tame just a bit high free's as sound just walks trough) to name to most used.
My 5 cents worth on acoustics in a nutshel.