6. Studio acoustics
If you want to create proficient recordings, you won't get around thinking about the acoustics of your home recording studio. Notwithstanding the great equipment available from many manufacturers, the true secret of producing top-notch sound quality is the acoustics of your studio. In our dedicated studio acoustics guide, we give plenty of advice about typical acoustics problems, show you how to solve them by using the correct technology, and guide you through a complete optimisation case study.
As part of this home recording online guide, we will therefore restrict ourselves to giving you a few small pointers regarding what you should keep in mind.
Acoustically small rooms
Living quarters and basement rooms, which are typically the kinds of room you'll be using as your home recording studio, are small acoustically speaking, and therefore always problematic. As a rule, the smaller a room is, the worse are its acoustics. Practically all problems in such spaces are due to reflection, which must therefore be kept in check. This is best done by using absorbers, which effectively suppress unwanted reflection. Diffusers are another aid; they scatter strong individual reflections and thereby attenuate the interference.
You should keep the following sources of interference in mind particularly:
- room resonances (droning and humming sounds with low frequencies)
- excessive reverberation (for home recording, the room's sound should be dry)
- flutter echoes (clapping your hands results in a metallic boing! sound)
- coloration (the tone instruments and voice sound receives an unnatural timbre on playback)
If you notice one or more of these phenomena in your room, you should optimise the acoustics to improve your recording quality.
Musikhaus Thomann offers a wide variety of acoustic modules, both absorbers and diffusors, in its webstore - these will help you get your room's acoustics in shape.
