Ultimate Acoustics...Mountain-Top?

Hello everyone.. I have been searching high and low for a great sounding room for drums.. I tried various rooms in various homes, in rehearsal spaces, yesterday I walked around, a one-man-marching band with a snare in hand banging and listening as I walked through a factory.. I have listened to many spaces and none of them offer me what I want as far as a good acoustic space. I can't afford a studio room, and I can't afford a whole lot in the form of acoustic materials. So I was thinking... since most acoustic panels seem to serve the purpose of absorbing sound (so it doesnt reflect), or diffusing sound (so it scatters), why not record in a room with as few reflective surfaces as physically possible... in fact, a room with no walls... or... a mountain top! On the top of a mountain, you only have the ground to worry about- youve got several thousand miles of airspace above you- no reflections there... depending on how high you are, the only reflections will be from neighboring mountains, probably hundreds of feet away.. If you find the right mountain, and you bring a laptop.. wouldn't the acoustics rock? (no pun intended)

Well I don't know if this is a joke or not, but how do you plan on keeping the ambient sounds/noise of nature out of your recordings?

Cool. Or maybe if you record in space you would have no reflections at all...(as long as you're far enough from your space ship.) Right?

Well, at least if you record in space, you would have a low noise floor.

" depending on how high you are," /quote um hum...

You guys need to share whatever it is you are smoking. /Gash

For a bunch of people working in a field based on art, you guys are not very creative or open minded... Has the tradition of using a studio made you afraid of a little open air? Maybe I don't want the ambiance of birds and rustling trees to be omitted from my recording? I record local bands for free because I love the music and this is a hobby for me- so I don't have a budget to rent a room. I also don't have the money to invest much in acoustic paneling, so what better alternative to making all of my walls non-reflective than simply recording in a place with as few walls as possible? Hence- Top of a Mountain. I'll be taking my Macbook Pro/Ensemble, and my SCA DIY Preamps and Mics up to the mountain and will be powering them with some UPS Batteries used to power desktop machines in the event of an outage... Should get me about ~45 minutes of recording time, so maybe get a song or two done and have to go back for a recharge, but having the band literally be able to tell their fans that this album was recorded on top of the world? I am stoked. By the way- I've been drunk a few times, but i've decided that drugs (including alcohol) are not my thing.

And being "Engineers" I would have thought that most of you would have known that it is impossible to record sound in space, as there is no air (or other medium) for the mechanical sound waves to travel through... :wink:

I'm pretty sure that people are uncertain as to whether your question was super serious or just a brief joke. Either which is fine, but sometimes it is hard to know the difference. Personally I found it amusing. If you wish to record a band at the top of a mountain I don't think anyone here will discourage you. Go for it. /Gash P.s. I still wanna know what the rest of you are smoking though!

darkecho wrote:

And being "Engineers" I would have thought that most of you would have known that it is impossible to record sound in space, as there is no air (or other medium) for the mechanical sound waves to travel through...

Hence the reply about space having the "low noise floor"...which was also a joke. Nature foley in recordings isn't new, and I've heard it done beautifully many times. Pink Floyd using Birds/Nature Sounds to great effect with Grantchester Meadows in the '60's comes to mind immediately. As Gash said, no one here will discourage you from doing it. It can be a cool effect, but I doubt you would want it on everything you record! I thought that it was either a joke, or that you may have been so excited about the concept itself that you may have forgotten to analyze it on a practical and realistic level. Believe me I've been there! In my search of an oxygen supply solution to my airtight studio I actually looked in to the possibility of putting a shitload of plants in the room....then that practical/realistic thing kicked in....oh and that scientific thing too. Trust me, people here are creative. You have to be when it comes to the dark art of studio voodoo. You will have a hard time finding a group of people that can make something out of nothing better then the guys around here.

I'm just giving you all a hard time. :D Yes. I understand the limitations of this idea, I was just curious if any of you had tried it/had any reasons why it wouldnt work/didnt work for you.. I think I've got all the bases covered.. I want a great drum sound but like I said- I only have access to crappy bedrooms. No walls > untreated walls, right? hah

I think it could work very well, assuming the weather cooperates. There is often wind on the top of mountains (at least here in Maine, the only place on the east coast of the US where mountains run right up to the Atlantic Ocean). If the wind cooperates, you should get great results. The drums will be much louder than background noise, probably about as great a difference as tracking drums in an average home studio room with AC (unless it is very well implemented AC). The acoustics will be interesting.... should be very clear with no reflections (except from the ground).

If you want to know how it will sound it is easy,,, just get some drum samples, the driest possible, go to your sequencer and make a simple beat. Bad acoustics is something we must avoid but a room with good acoustics is way better than free field behavior. It sounds sterile. Also you will have possible wind problems, birds make a lot of noise, possible airplanes... and even echoes problems due to the hard surface of the mountains and peaks/valleys topography Just to give an idea since I also do environmental measurements of outside noise.. A quiet environment in the countryside is usually around 30-35 dB(A). In a professional studio, the background noise is way below that value.

For a bunch of people working in a field based on art" /quote I work in an industry that keeps weather out of the home or commercial environment that people live and or work in. So if you guys need a dry place to store your gear or keep your supply's fresh, we can talk :) "And being "Engineers"" Not one of those no matter how you say it. Apart from wind and ground/body reflections you may have to put up with moisture as well...sometimes heavy. So be prepared.

I think andrebrito hit the pertinent part. Don't assume that because reflections can cause problems that a) all reflections are bad, and b) eliminating all reflections will be the ultimate sound. Unless of course that is the sound that pleases you - dry and isolated. But generally, humans seem to like to hear a certain amount of reflection. Otherwise all hit records would be recorded in an anechoic chamber. But I do like someone who thinks outside the box. You're right that we get too used to the conventional ways of doing things. Besides, those late reflections off of the neighboring mountains has got to have a cool sound!