John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

And how many of those studios recorded you in the control room? Bigger is better for a live room does not equal combine tbe two

Is there no current studio design that allows the front of the room in the listening position to be neutral while the back of the room can be treated in such a way as to be ideal for tracking a guitar (diffusers, moveable treatments, wooden slats over fully absorptive walls etc)?

Not really, no. Only if you use variable acoustic treatment to change over between the two acoustic signatures. If one end of the room is not neutral, then the entire room is not neutral. In a control room, the rear end of the room should return a neutral, diffuse, attenuated, reverberant field to the front of the room, delayed by about 20ms or so, and at a level of about 20 dB below the direct sound. If the rear of the room is "treated in such a way as to be ideal for tracking a guitar", then it won't be returning that ambiance correctly.

It MIGHT be OK for tracking acoustic guitar if the room is very large, and thus has a longish overall decay time, but it won't be ideal.

Of course, it also depends on how you mic your guitar, and what sound you are looking for: If you are on of those guys that close-mics everything, with a highly directional mic practically on top of the strings, then room sounds doesn't matter much, and you could track in the CR with no problem. But most engineers I know, do want a good part of the room sound in their mic, to get some "air" and "depth" and "fullness" to the recording. Especially when you consider that the entire guitar emits all types of variations on the basic sound in all directions, and close mic'ing only gives you a very small, shallow, narrow subset of that, while mic'ing further back into the room picks up more of that from the guitar body itself, as well as reflections coming back from the various surfaces nearby in all directions. So if you are one of those guys that want's natural warmth, depth and "body" to the sound of your guitar recordings from the room itself, then trying to track in the control is probably not a good plan. But neither is tracking in a cathedral!

One question: Are you only ever going to record acoustic guitar, and nothing else? Never? Or are you also going to record other things occasionally, such as vocals and other instruments?


- Stuart -

JasonFoi wrote:And how many of those studios recorded you in the control room? Bigger is better for a live room does not equal combine tbe two

Once and yes it was not ideal but I thought that a control room could be designed for both purposes if the engineer was the only musician and only needed to record one instrument and could use cans.

Soundman2020 wrote:

If the rear of the room is "treated in such a way as to be ideal for tracking a guitar", then it won't be returning that ambiance correctly.


- Stuart -

Ok I do understand. So what is "ideal" for tracking guitar?

I do record vocals but I have always been happy with the sound of dry vocals and using gobos in pretty much all my past studios. The real challenge for me has always been the guitar because it really makes a difference what quality your room is. I like miking the guitar from a medium distance of a foot or a bit more away so there is definitely some room sound in the recording.

Ok I do understand. So what is "ideal" for tracking guitar?

The back of a control room is typically very absorbent. A room in which you would track a guitar, would be somewhat lively. I believe that is what he was referring to.

Greg