Is there really a huge difference between a great room and a decent one?

[allplaydead]

I'm starting to record drums live now, and I was wondering is there is a large, noticeable difference in how different rooms sound within the mix? Would a decent room(some treatment, carpet. etc) be significantly worse sounding than a pro studio room for drums and vocals?

What would ideal conditions be?

 

[bryan_kilco]

I guess it all depends on the sound you're after. I don't have experience recording in good treated rooms, so I'll let others chime in.

Many people use a "room mic" which captures the reverberations throughout the room and blend it in for a BIGGER drum sound.

 

[mburton21]

Yes.

Any room treatment is a vast improvement over none, and likewise for a pro studio (well ones that actually invested in treatment, I know of some "pro" studios where they really didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground) over a moderately treated room.

 

[jval]

Yes

 

[pipaguapique]

oh yeah.

it will make your gear sound it's best.

 

[darthjujuu]

it makes ALL the difference. a firepod in a world class room will DESTROY all the best gear in the world if it were used in ... well, in my room... BUT you can still deaden the ever living shit out of a shitty room. it won't sound breath-taking, but it won't have horrible reflections mangling everything. and when i say mangle, i mean it. i've been dealing with tracking drums in tiny cube rooms forever, it sucks. real bad.

 

[professorlamp]

i've been dealing with tracking drums in tiny cube rooms forever, it sucks. real bad.

You're not the only one

 

[Star Ark]

whatever suits the needs of the music

Bob Rock had wooden baffles constructed to hang from the tracking room walls for the black album. I'm sure that studio was already incredible to make music, but even then it had to be changed to suit his needs. So I guess a great room is great for some things but not everything. I wonder if that studio kept the wooden baffles, or if it was only ever useful to create the black album drum sound?

I've being recording for about 10 years in 4 different rooms and every one has been significantly different, even though 3 of those rooms have used the exact same room treatment. I use the sm7b for guitar cabs which is supposed to block out the room sound and i still hear a big difference. The room is everything if you use mics.

 

[ahjteam]

I could say it like this:

- In our school (in Finland) we only have a Digidesign Control 24 (it has the built in Focusrite 16 preamps + 8 presonus preamps), but a really good sounding, high, big, quiet, acoustically treated and musical sounding performance room.
- in this school (in Minnesota) they have SSL Duality (has 48 SSL preamps and channelstrips), but the performance room is like 3 meters high, half the size, dead sounding room with glass and hard walls with a really loud air conditioner that can't be turned off, which pretty much renders all room micing unusable except on drums, and the advantage of having an SSL in there for tracking has been made obsolete with just the aircon alone.

Before this experience I didn't realize that the room makes such a huge difference.

 

[::XeS::]

You can get a good sounding tracks in a decent room, but with lot of post-processing...but with a well treated room you get a good sound easily

 

[Emdprodukt]

I have a really really small room (2,7m x 7,5m) and compared my room mic recordings with those from pro-recordings. You know what? I love my small room. Works really well with lot's of absorbers.

 

[jipchen]

I have a really really small room (2,7m x 7,5m) and compared my room mic recordings with those from pro-recordings. You know what? I love my small room. Works really well with lot's of absorbers.

7,5m? You call that small?

My room is 3,0 x 3,65 meters That's small!

 

[Emdprodukt]

2,70m? it's a fucking tube. You can barely fit a bigger drumkit in there

 

[Berni_AE]

Havig a big sounding room will hellp you cymbals sound ALOT better.
To me a major problem is the height of the room .

 

[Sonic75]

A great sounding room is the first thing that a recording studio must have.

 

[colonel kurtz]

...yes

in the words of forrest gump, "that's all i have to say about that"

 

[Emdprodukt]

yeah but I've heard mixes out of a 1 million bucks room that sound like crap. For those who have no access to a great room.... everything is possible. my room is far from "good" and I can pull of mixes that aren't total shit.