Your room is shit. Fix your room.

H13

Inspired
All I can do is laugh.

Or I'll cry.

So I'm a typical metalhead guitar player. I like big-ass distorted "I'M ANGRY AT MY DAD" chugs. They make me happy even if I am angry at my Dad which is rare because he's pretty fucking cool.

My chugs in my recordings have always been harsh and spikey in the top end to my ears. I've always done some pretty brutal EQ surgery around 1750hz in order to not make things stab me in the face.

(Hint: You should be smirking right about now)

I've been doing an audio course in a recording studio to make my mixes not shit. We got to play my mix on their setup and my jaw hit the floor. NOTHING sounded like it did in my room. I don't mean things were a bit different, I mean if you asked if that was me playing the guitar I wouldn't have been certain.

So I went home in a huff and with all my newfound knowledge I was gonna "Fix" my mix. Except that when I got home and hit "Play", everything sounded...fine? All the issues I could hear in the studio, I could NOT hear in my room.

Well fuck.

So the instructor leant me his headphones (AKG K702s). I went home, plugged them in and suddenly I could hear what I heard in the studio.

Namely, I could hear that 1750hz is pretty much where all of the upper mids of your guitar tone sit. That big-ass -8db cut is probably a bit extreme isn't it?

Long story short, it turns out that my room has an acoustic black hole at around 2000-ish hz. Either a whole heap of frequencies are disappearing, OR all the top end is bouncing around and clashing at around 1750-2k. Either way, what I thought was a problem actually wasn't a problem and instead I was creating a problem in order to try to fix a problem that didn't actually exist.

I've since found a wealth of other problems.

So treat your room. Or fix it. It's shit. It's making you think you sound amazing when you actually probably sound shit.
 
Yeah, I'm not in a position where I can do much with my room.

So I bought the AKGs.
 
I like to think that if you spend enough time with the same setup and take recording to the car, the iPad, iPhone or home theatre you'll generally hear whats working and whats not.
It's awful to think that a high percentage of people are listening to music almost always on a shit bluetooth speaker or an iPad.
 
Room treatment is very much needed if you record/mix. My whole house is tiled floors and hardwood walls, so the echo and frequency buildup was causing ear fatigue really bad. I did some research and ended up putting a placement rug in the room to help with the tile floor reflecting sounds. Then I put bass traps in every corner of the room, acoustic sound panels with 3D cut patterns in it to break up the sound waves from bouncing off the walls. I placed the panels from around shin high up to head high around the whole room including on the doors. Before treating my room, I could snap my fingers and it would echo for approximately 2 seconds which was insane! Now that it is treated, I can clap my hands loudly and there is no audible echo whatsoever! Upon playing in the room after treatment, I noticed my delays and reverbs had to be increased because they were minimal and did not stand out in a mix at all and were not as exaggerated as they sounded before when just playing guitar alone. I'm assuming the echoing in the room before made them sound more exaggerated. Next thing I noticed was that my guitar sounded less flubby, tighter more responsive tone with more punch and cut! My mixes now sound 8983483 times better than before and everything is crisp and full like it should be. Before the room was treated, I could only play for 30 mins or so before ear fatigue set in. Now I find myself playing for hours at a time when I get a chance, and my ears still feel fine afterwards. Room treatment is one of the most important things you can do IMO!
 
I took things to my own hands (as I always do) this year and made my own panels. I've fine tuned my room here at home to be as neutral as possible with a measure mic.

My room is the correct size and shape. It should be a rectangle with your sound setup in the middle of the short wall. Still there are so many things that affect how you hear things. The position of the monitors and sub is crucial. I've gone for extreme symmetry by measuring the distances.

Yes there are many things you can do to get a better representation of what you're hearing.
 
I always alternate between monitors and headphones (AKG k171) when I mix. Then when I'm getting close I like to alternate listening between it and other songs for reference.

A vs B is everything. You're done when your own mix stands up and holds it's own against well-known great-sounding recordings. When you A\B, you hear right away if it's lacking.
 
I know my room is messy but I wouldn't call it shit DAD. Actually I lucked out when I put my studio in the basement of the house I inherited my Father ( rest in peace ) had finished and carpeted and had a huge floor to ceiling bookcase built and it covers an entire wall opposite my monitors and speakers. Hundreds of books is probably more expensive than room treatment . That and oriental rugs I put down seem to do the trick. Now if I could do something about the humidity damn it gets damp down here.
 
I know my room is messy but I wouldn't call it shit DAD. Actually I lucked out when I put my studio in the basement of the house I inherited my Father ( rest in peace ) had finished and carpeted and had a huge floor to ceiling bookcase built and it covers an entire wall opposite my monitors and speakers. Hundreds of books is probably more expensive than room treatment . That and oriental rugs I put down seem to do the trick. Now if I could do something about the humidity damn it gets damp down here.
Get you a dehumidifier. They work wonders and are only a couple hundred bucks for a good one. I have one in my house because I live in the south, and even though my heating and cooling system has one built in, the extreme humidity here sucks. My dehumidifier made a world of difference in the air quality in the home. I keep the humidity around 45%. Most come with a bucket you can dump, and some come with a hookup for a water hose to run out of the room or to a floor drain etc. so it can constantly drain. A very good investment to have in ones home.

Here is one like I have and it works really well for my home:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/349-Frigida...238674?hash=item33b31b3c52:g:~SQAAOSwZ8ZW4Hhh
 
Room treatment is very much needed if you record/mix. My whole house is tiled floors and hardwood walls, so the echo and frequency buildup was causing ear fatigue really bad. I did some research and ended up putting a placement rug in the room to help with the tile floor reflecting sounds

Se in England we have houses built from bricks, carpets on the floor and all thats stuff :)
 
I ordered from Next Acoustics (formerly Auralex if not mistaken). I got 8 bass traps, and 48 of the 24"x12"x2" soundtrax panels. The difference was night and day. I think i spent somewhere around $300 or less.
 
My room is pretty good but there is a bad low C standing wave that gets my lamp vibrating pretty good when I turn it up.
 
All I can do is laugh.
Long story short, it turns out that my room has an acoustic black hole at around 2000-ish hz. Either a whole heap of frequencies are disappearing, OR all the top end is bouncing around and clashing at around 1750-2k. Either way, what I thought was a problem actually wasn't a problem and instead I was creating a problem in order to try to fix a problem that didn't actually exist.

Is your room really birdhouse or beehive ?
On Earth room's major resonant frequencies are much lesser than 1KHz because sound wave velocity in air is V = 331m/s and freqs are approximately n*L/V, where L is height/width/length of room, n = 1,2,3...
So for room 1m/1m/1m first 5 harmonics are 331, 662, 993,1324,1655 Hz. I doubt that your room is smaller
 
Yeah, I'm not in a position where I can do much with my room.

So I bought the AKGs.

My room isn't great either, but I have always heard one should not mix using a headset. If these cans are somehow able to change that, I might have to give them a try and see if my mixes can be improved (which I'm sure they can)
 
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