Why Your Home Studio Needs Acoustic Treatment
Technology benefits from the "trickle-down effect" – a miracle which lowers the price of consumer goods and then that what was once affordable to only the very rich can be had by the common person for a fraction of the price.
This ways that, unlike even three or iv decades agone, the average music enthusiast tin can piece together a home studio capable of producing loftier-quality recordings, with less space taken upwardly and the sort of potential that could only exist dreamt of in the early years of music production. In fact, with little more than than a moderately-priced computer, a pair of monitor speakers, a DAW (digital audio workstation) and a couple of microphones, you tin record and mix in a spare room. Simply something is missing…
What's that audio?
A home studio volition never be a professional studio. The quondam is bound by size constraints, frequently less-than-ideal surroundings and the acoustic effects of conventional construction techniques. The latter – well, the latter doesn't endure from those problems considering it's purpose-built from the footing upwardly. But the biggest issue facing home studio owners is, fortunately, also the easiest to address. Information technology doesn't require moving or tearing downwardly walls. Rather, it involves treating the chosen room to make it as acoustically honest as possible.
Room construction – the dimensions and proportions of a space, the thickness of the walls, the insulation, and placement of windows – varies from one home to the next, and furnishings, wall coverings, carpeting, and floor material all add unique acoustic characteristics. But why should all this matter when you take your caput a few feet away from a pair of authentic monitor speakers?
Audio waves travel fast. Fast enough so that what you lot retrieve yous're hearing from your speakers has already been colored past the surrounding space. An untreated room has a frequency response – the style information technology reflects sound back – that is uneven. In curt, that means what your ears are telling your encephalon isn't true. It's like taking a photograph of a tree in a field and adjusting the brightness and dissimilarity, so applying a color filter. The outcome is a mural you still recognize, simply information technology isn't a truthful representation.
Unless yous brand music for your sole listening enjoyment in the one space it was recorded or mixed in, the end consequence of an untreated abode studio is that what sounds skilful in that location probably won't "translate" well in the real world where almost people listen to music. Your mixes will be colored by the excesses and insufficiency related to the unique audio-visual properties of your room.
Why treat your dwelling studio?
Full acoustic deadening is neither necessary nor desirable. A well-treated infinite is not covered from top to bottom in foam paneling – that's more akin to what yous'd find in an anechoic chamber. The goal of room handling, according to Andy Munro – a specialist in acoustic design – is to achieve a "neutral sound balance". That means that various frequencies are neither exaggerated nor deficient; it ways that your ears perceive the source cloth as it was meant to be heard.
Dimensional and budgetary constraints may limit the abode studio owner in what they can do. Withal, treating a room as optimally as possible will create a listening environs in which yous can learn what a good recording sounds similar. Yous'll be able to make better decisions which will be evident when your music is played in the outside globe.
The problem with bass
Of principal business concern to the home studio possessor are depression frequencies. Bass travels far, passing through walls and leaving well-nigh of the mid-range and treble behind. If a low-frequency sound moving ridge could be visualized, its cycles – the number of times the moving ridge repeats – would exist significantly longer than that of a higher frequency. The unique sonic characteristics of bass make information technology particularly problematic.
Left untreated, an average room allows bass to bounciness from the wall backside the listener, edifice up in the corners. The result can exist a significant dip – as much every bit xxx decibels. You lot might think your music sounds balanced and powerful, with a deep, driving rhythm that supports the unabridged song, only take information technology out of the studio, and suddenly it sounds dingy and boomy, with bass overpowering the other instruments. What happened?
The aforementioned dips – often referred to as "nulls" – contradistinct your perception of the bass in your music. You lot compensated for what you heard by adding more than depression-stop frequencies. Every bit presently as your music was played in a different environment, the effect of this compensation became axiomatic.
How to create a bass trap
The solution to bass nulls is placing a "bass trap" in each corner of your studio. These "traps" are fabricated from material of varying thickness, density, hardness, and softness, sometimes containing air gaps and covered in an acoustically transparent cloth which allows sound waves to pass through without reflecting them back into a room. When low frequencies hit a bass trap, they encounter resistance and irksome down. The reflection, dispersion, and aggregating which would be caused past hitting an untreated wall are reduced, resulting in a more than even, accurate representation of the sound.
How many bass traps does a home studio need? Twelve are ideal – i for each of the room'south eight corners, and an additional trap for each of the four vertical junctures between walls.
The trouble with treble
What about the higher mid-range and treble frequencies? There are 2 approaches that tin can exist taken. The principal is the placement of audio-visual panels, of similar construction to panel-shaped bass traps, at various points on the studio walls. When high frequencies hit an audio-visual panel, the audio is absorbed and converted into imperceptible estrus, instead of being bounced dorsum at you lot. Absorptive audio-visual panels are an important tool for reducing rapid echoes and the "ringing" event found in sparsely furnished rooms.
Another way to deal with troublesome high frequency reflections is through the use of "diffusors ". Different acoustic panels or bass traps, a diffusor breaks up audio using an array of three-dimensional patterned surfaces. They may have the advent of a random arrangement of shapes, but are really based on precise equations. Diffusors – which should be used only as an adjunct to, not a replacement for, panels – help improve your "sweet spot", the space where yous sit down between the speakers, leading to more accurate auditory perception.
Buy or DIY?
Whether yous brand your traps, panels, and diffusors yourself or buy them will depend upon if y'all have more than time than money, or vice versa. It'southward entirely possible to build everything you need and get a proficient outcome – there are many tutorials to exist institute online. The drawbacks are the fourth dimension involved in research, calculation and design, the acquisition of materials and, of course, the creation and installation of the stop product. You'll likewise need a few bones tools and a space in which to work. The benefit is the money saved.
Conversely, you can purchase everything you need, professionally made and finished. Yous'll salvage a great deal of time, needing just to install the room treatment products – and with purchasing them comes expert guidance from someone who is already well-versed in acoustics. The only downside is the cost, which ranges from moderately to significantly higher than doing it yourself.
In either case, your music – whether it's strictly recorded, electronically sequenced, mixed or any combination thereof – will improve. And then as well will your mood. You lot'll exist confident that what y'all hear in your studio will audio great everywhere else!
Source: https://www.lifehack.org/520630/why-your-home-studio-needs-acoustic-treatment
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