Warm vs Accurate Sound

Hi, I am a fledgling acoustician. I am struggling with an apparent conflict of acoustic interests:- Warmth vs Accuracy in the Mix Room. As a recording engineer I have noted that very highly absorbent rooms, e.g. vocal booths, yield a very clear, uncoloured, perhaps even sparkly sound. I am thinking of acoustic guitar and vocals here. Conversely, reflective rooms are suited to fiddles, drums, etc. which benefit from the warmth added by the room. Many Control Rooms I have worked in were highly trapped. The sound from the speakers was in general, controlled and very clear. Too clear for my taste. Simply too much treble. In this situation it is very hard to make a mix that sounds normal in the outside world. I have treated my current control room extensively, actually as an IOA Diploma project. The room is small, 4.4 M long, concrete floor and walls, with a chimney breast in the middle. The room from hell! The treatment consisted of my own version of StudioTips Superchunks plus many HF MiniTraps and two LF MiniTrap panels. The attached Sketchup file has the ceiling cloud removed for visibility. This cloud consists of 4 HF MiniTraps. After treatment this room is now very similar to some of the better ones I have worked in, very dead, very clear sound. In practice it works very well. However to make this happen I have chosen Ribbon tweeter monitors and turned them down and applied a roll off. Room measurements show extremely short RT in the mid, strangely rising from 2-8K. I have rejected some very capable monitors, PMC IB1 and K and H 300, because of the sparkly nature of this room. I would much rather complete the job, get the room balanced. however I am stumped as to how? How to warm it up without losing the incredible imaging and mixing accuracy? Best Regards, Dan FitzGerald www.soundsound.ie

Just a couple of questions; In your sketchup file the room seems to be a bit unsymmetrical, especially the treatment of the room. Maybe this was unintentional but it looks like three superchunck's and some sort of panel absorbent in one corner? I'd go for tubetraps on the left and right hand, basstraps in the front and perhaps a heavy panel in the front. Diffusor in the rear and some sort of ceiling treatment, a cloud that reflects the sound from front to back. Are you generally mixing at a rather loud volume? The monitors you have seems a bit like an overkill in size for that space. The 2-8Khz sounds strange to me. My first thought was that the panels you buildt were covered with a cloth that doesn't breath enough and just reflects the highs. a :arrow:

The most important thing is how well your mixes translate to end user systems. The last thing user systems are is consistent. One system has a peak in a frequency range where another has a dip, etc. The goal with accurate monitor systems is that you can hear what is actually in the recording. A story by Bob Katz about CD players may provide some insight into the difference between consumer and professional applications. Bob was using a very high end audiophile CD player for quality control on his projects. He heard some digital errors on one of his project's releases when played on a consumer player. He took the CD to his mastering studio and played it on the high end audiophile CD player and no errors were heard. He checked on several other decks, and sure enough, the errors showed up. The high end audiophile player was correcting errors to make sound more pleasing, but less accurate than what was actually on the CD. He switched to a more accurate CD player. More pleasing does not necessarily mean better for professional audio. To put in other words, accurate is absolute, pleasing isn't. Accurately, and pleasing, Andre

Thank you for such immediate responses. I was actually editing my post a little in the interim. To clarify- The room is not symmetrical. Irish property prices dictate that many of us, even those working at a fairly high pro level are confined to such little jails :-( I have tried speakers in the acoves, as sort of 'Soffit' Didn't sound or measure well. Those are grey windows at the back, seemingly effective bass traps with soft fabric blinds. The fabric covering is soft craft felt. There are pictures at www.soundsound.ie There is a substantial cloud omitted in the Sketchup for visibility. This consists of four HF MiniTraps (soft fabric surfaced again). The floor is pretty decent carpet with that foam rubber underlay. I listen on a DigiDesign HD192, which to me sounds excellent, better than some high end CD players I have tried here. The current monitors are ADAM S3A. Passive Volume Control. The rising RT at HF is what really puzzles me. I have tweaked the ADAM's to fight this 'sparkle', it is not a ringing or flutter. I can now mix comfortably with I must say, an extremely good translation to the outside world. I should be happy eh? But there is a puzzle here. Where is this HF coming from? That is why I posted this. I am hoping some of you will have encountered this situation before. Best Regards, Dan

Reading your first post and looking at the picture on your website (very nice BTW), am I correct in that you have Minitraps at the early reflection points? If so, you have minimal absorption high frequencies, resulting the room being brighter. Andre

Hi Andre, nope, they are HF MiniTraps. The two MiniTraps are in the back alcove. There was not enough depth there for another SuperChunk. The couch is non reflective also. By the way the frequency response at the mix position is plus or minus 4.5dB or so with a downward tilt towards HF which is my preference and used to be recommended. The rising RT at HF is the real puzzle. It should tax a few minds out there. It certainly is taxing mine! DD

Can you do a high frequency waterfall plot and post the results here? Andre

Hi Andre, I have impulse responses for both speakers, taken at various listening locations in the room. However there is no single Waterfall or EDT graph which tells the full story. All of them together show the trends but would be too much for here. If you are interested I can send you the FuzzMeasure files or JPGs by email or ftp. I can simply give you some numbers though:- EDT measurements are typically 0! to 80mS at 250 and 500Hz. 2K around 100mS. 4K-130mS. 8K- 150mS. The EDT T20 and T30 plots are very varied, with lots of zero RT! I can only assume the software is struggling to cope with a place that is non-Sabine in almost every way. Nevertheless the trend is clear and ties in with what I hear. Best Regards, DD

Email me. [removed] Andre

I think it best to pursue Andre's willingness to help with the actual problem privately. However I wish to leave this thread with a reference back to my original premise. Is it best to monitor sound in a highly accurate space. If so, how does one deal with the fact that the vast majority of listeners are in spaces very different from this. I have found the majority of attempts at a scientifically pure space, frankly unpleasant to listen in. In such spaces I would of course eq out all harshness and instinctively make it sound 'nice'. In the real world this turns out to be dull. I will bring this topic up again in a more focussed manner, perhaps titled 'Translation'. P.S. In older reference books I find many references to 'tailoring' the HF response of the monitor room/speakers. There have been suggest HF roll offs such as -3dB per Octave from 4K up plus others. I do not see much talk about these roll offs these days. There are many room eq software offerings now. I have seen no mention of the roll off in any of the literature. What has changed? Back soon, DD

Well, the solution is in your head. Just having a good room and good monitors isn't enough. One have to listen and learn how they sound compared to other environments and speakers. A good practice is to mix something, burn it and play it back in different systems and rooms/environments. A good mix is an average of the target playback-systems/environments. The lesser number of targets the more precise the average will be (e.g. headphone only target -> binaural only mix), the more targets the more compromises and less precise average. My 2c.

hi, Your first post is very confusing. Am I right in thinking that your saying the following 1) absorbent rooms, e.g. vocal booths = sparkly sound 2) reflective rooms are suited to fiddles = benefit from the warmth added by the room 3) Those are grey windows at the back, seemingly effective bass traps with soft fabric blinds. Or am I reading it wrong? What is the dimention of your room? Whats your ceiling made of? Also at every area that is a white cement wall, will create reflections. d

Hi Anders, I agree with you of course. One of my yardsticks in the past was Alex Sadkin who did those Grace Jones albums. His mixes sounded very very similar every where one heard them. Genius. Over many years my mix policy was to use 3 listening environment. e.g. 1 Studio, 2 another room in the studio with 'domestic' hi-fi, 3 the car and so on. This works very well if you take the time to check in all three, review the mix, check again, review again and so on. 100% accurate but very slow. So now I am seeking the Holy Grail! I want a room- 1 which is a pleasure to listen in. 2 is without colourations, i.e. accurate, so that eq and other mix decisions are quick and surefooted. 3 that delivers a finished mix which sounds amazing ;-) and then miraculously turns out very similar in the outside world. Why not? I am very close to this right now. My current room although clearly flawed is reasonably successful on the above three points. Hi d, Sorry if the first post is confusing. You need to read through the full thread and view the Sketchup to get the full picture.