Recording - November 2015 - 33

sound waves moving throughout the room
interfere with one another, and depending
on the various phase relationships at play,
narrow peaks and nulls are created.
Acoustic treatment absorbs (or diffuses) these
excess, reflected sound waves, which means
there is less interference happening, which
reduces the size of the peaks and the nulls.
Treatment therefore prevents the interference
from happening in the first place, which is a
different strategy than attempting to counteract the effect by distorting the signal (in a
complimentary way) in the first place.
These room correction algorithms aren't
without merit, however. For instance, once a
room is properly treated, there are sometimes some stubborn, broad peaks at bass
frequencies. This is a perfect place for a
small (3 dB or so) EQ cut, inversely matched
to the frequency and bandwidth of the peak,
to clearly make things better without making
things worse elsewhere. My clients who
have been using strategies like this find that
they need to recalibrate their system after
installing treatment, and most of them find
they prefer to not use these algorithms at all.
13. A treated room is "good," and an
untreated room is "bad."
The most common manifestation of this
misconception is the question I get regularly:
how much will it cost to treat my room? By
which they usually mean, what's the least
amount I can spend to make my room
sound good? And there's the rub: what do
you mean by "sound good"?
Rooms aren't toggle switches with two settings: sucky and perfect. The fact is, there is
no such thing as a perfect room, and any
room can be improved. Sure, there are sweet
spots along the way, where you can get the
room really good, and further improvements
are a matter of diminishing returns. It's always
a matter of doing the best you can with the
available resources and budget.
I've heard untreated rooms that sound
really good for recording, with tons of character and vibe. I've heard treated rooms
that were lifeless and uninspiring. If you
have the budget to properly treat your room
with proven acoustic products, then great.
Or, if you like to learn things and have some
craftsmanship skill to make your own treatments, that can be really cool too.
This exploration of myths in acoustics is
an invitation to think more deeply about
some of the ideas many of us take for
granted. Hopefully this discussion will contribute to both clarity and inspiration in
your music recordings.
James Lindenschmidt (lindenschmidt@
recordingmag.com) is the General
Manager of RealTraps. He also runs Crafted
Recordings. Find out more online at
www.realtraps.com and at www.crafted
recordings.com. Special thanks to Ethan
Winer and Bruce Black for their valuable
insights.
RECORDING November 2015

33



http://www.gikacoustics.com http://www.realtraps.com http://www.craftedrecordings.com http://www.craftedrecordings.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - November 2015

Contents
Recording - November 2015 - Intro
Recording - November 2015 - Cover1
Recording - November 2015 - Cover2
Recording - November 2015 - 1
Recording - November 2015 - 2
Recording - November 2015 - 3
Recording - November 2015 - 4
Recording - November 2015 - 5
Recording - November 2015 - Contents
Recording - November 2015 - 7
Recording - November 2015 - 8
Recording - November 2015 - 9
Recording - November 2015 - 10
Recording - November 2015 - 11
Recording - November 2015 - 12
Recording - November 2015 - 13
Recording - November 2015 - 14
Recording - November 2015 - 15
Recording - November 2015 - 16
Recording - November 2015 - 17
Recording - November 2015 - 18
Recording - November 2015 - 19
Recording - November 2015 - 20
Recording - November 2015 - 21
Recording - November 2015 - 22
Recording - November 2015 - 23
Recording - November 2015 - 24
Recording - November 2015 - 25
Recording - November 2015 - 26
Recording - November 2015 - 27
Recording - November 2015 - 28
Recording - November 2015 - 29
Recording - November 2015 - 30
Recording - November 2015 - 31
Recording - November 2015 - 32
Recording - November 2015 - 33
Recording - November 2015 - 34
Recording - November 2015 - 35
Recording - November 2015 - 36
Recording - November 2015 - 37
Recording - November 2015 - 38
Recording - November 2015 - 39
Recording - November 2015 - 40
Recording - November 2015 - 41
Recording - November 2015 - 42
Recording - November 2015 - 43
Recording - November 2015 - 44
Recording - November 2015 - 45
Recording - November 2015 - 46
Recording - November 2015 - 47
Recording - November 2015 - 48
Recording - November 2015 - 49
Recording - November 2015 - 50
Recording - November 2015 - 51
Recording - November 2015 - 52
Recording - November 2015 - 53
Recording - November 2015 - 54
Recording - November 2015 - 55
Recording - November 2015 - 56
Recording - November 2015 - 57
Recording - November 2015 - 58
Recording - November 2015 - 59
Recording - November 2015 - 60
Recording - November 2015 - 61
Recording - November 2015 - 62
Recording - November 2015 - 63
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Recording - November 2015 - 65
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Recording - November 2015 - 67
Recording - November 2015 - 68
Recording - November 2015 - 69
Recording - November 2015 - 70
Recording - November 2015 - 71
Recording - November 2015 - 72
Recording - November 2015 - Cover3
Recording - November 2015 - Cover4
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