The single most important thing about recording (other than the music and the musicians) is the space in which the recording takes place. A properly tuned room can create a great recording even if the recording equipment is sub par. It doesn't work the other way around though. Great gear can't make a great recording if the room has terrible standing waves and boomy low frequencies, and/or a plethora of other bad things like too much of a bad room reverb for example.  In my opinion, more money should probably be invested into the sonic tuning of recording spaces (and mixing spaces) than on the gear used to record in those spaces if the goals are better sounding finished products and faster mixing.  But, don't guess at it!  Believe me - I made that mistake more than once.   If you're curious about the science behind designing acoustic spaces, Me too!  Read on to learn a bit about the science we're using at LBA.

To cut to the chase, Room EQ Wizard, AKA REW, has been the primary tool to determine what is wrong with the rooms in the studio.  To be honest, I already knew what was wrong with certain rooms just from experience.  If you're always EQ'ing the same frequencies out from multiple things recorded in the same location over time, it's probably an issue with the space you're recording in.  Not everyone is aware of this, but EQ is not the best solution.  That's right, using an equalizer in mixing or recording to fix a bad room node or to tame an unwanted high frequency reflection is not the best solution.  Okay, OK, when you EQ a sound, you're not intentionally EQ'ing out the room sound, but whether or not you're aware, chances are it's a big part of your EQ work if you don't have tuned rooms. 

So far, Paul and I have only tuned the Control Room here at LBA.  The Control Room is the most important room, so that one was dealt with first.  We're currently working on the Isolation Booth/Iso Booth, AKA "Vocal Booth".   The control room was actually much easier and less expensive because all we had to do was apply an actual and permanent analog EQ just in front of the audio signal going to the speakers.  REW was used to measure the frequency response of the room in addition to the decay time of every frequency.  EQ can fix the frequency response, but the decay time will require acoustic materials if you don't already have them in place.  The control room at LBA has been acoustically tuned before, so this was just a fine tuning. The mix position has a very flat frequency response and decay time across the audio spectrum, making it an excellent place to make critical listening decisions.  The Iso Booth is a totally different story.  

In my opinion, the Iso Booth has always been the worse sounding room at LBA.  Really, that should be no surprise to any pro because we understand smaller rooms inherently sound worse than larger rooms.  A closet is probably the absolute worse case scenario for recording.  This Iso Booth is about the size of bathroom with a 10' ceiling (and very irregularly shaped) , so it's not that bad.  Earlier this year I made some acoustic improvements to the Iso booth (floating floor), but it wasn't as significant as what's going on right now.  After running REW, we were able to see what I was hearing for all these years.  We did some experiments, referencing new REW measurements each time, in order to zero in on what materials used in what locations would give the results we were looking for. 

If you've been in our Iso Booth before, you've seen the Auralex studio foam on the walls and you might even recall the sound of that room.  We ripped out almost all the Auralex from that room and placed most of what was removed onto a single wall.  The tightest corner in the room (no right angled walls) is where the bass buildup is greatest.  Bass frequencies always build up in corners, so this is where you place bass traps.  It's not a sub-bass build up, which makes this easier to deal with.  The node is at about +12dB @ 110Hz if I remember correctly.  My short-term memory isn't the best, but it's close enough for this post.   There's also some uncool sounding high frequency standing waves in a couple locations, and some poopy sounding high frequency reflections.  Over the past 4 days I purchased about $1000 worth of acoustic materials to tune the Iso Booth.  I don't expect this to turn out to be as good or better than the control room, but I will be very happy if it turns out to sound at least 30% better than it used to.  This room has been used for countless recordings of various sources over the years.  It's sound has improved a lot during that span and recently wasn't very bad at all.  I'm just pushing the boundaries of what can be done because I'm fully aware of the fact that the room sound is one of the most important aspects of any recording with microphones and I want the best.  

After this room is complete, we're going for the Hall, which is where drums and horns often get recorded at LBA.   That room has never been tuned, but the reverb is so awesome it makes up for a lot.  I find myself needing to apply a ton of EQ on things recorded in that space, so that one is definitely up next.         

If it hasn't been mentioned before, the studio expanded a lot between 2022 to now in both equipment and qualified help.  LBA is now a 40-channel studio with the capability of recording through upgraded AD/DA converters up to 192kHz 32Bit WAV.  We can also record, mix down, and even Master to analog tape.  A commanding AMEK Big 44 digitally controlled analog console is the centerpiece to the control room.  Legendary brands such as Fairchild and Altec adorn the racks of equipment.  The Mic locker has filled with a large variety of new additions including a stereo pair of AKG C414B XLII microphones and a great sounding Beyerdynamic M 102 TG dynamic mic.  The list goes on, but just last week we made some big acoustic upgrades to the space.  Honestly, a lot of acoustic upgrades have taken place over the past year or two, but this latest one takes the cake.

Last week we ran a program called, Room EQ Wizard in a couple rooms - notably the control room.  This program, combined with several other pieces of equipment, including a calibrated reference microphone/measurement mic.  Room EQ Wizard was able to provide us with a 3 dimensional graph of the frequency response of the rooms along with reverb times for each frequency.  Additional information, like phase response of the room at various frequencies was also provided.  This made it possible for us to fine tune the speakers to cancel out the room sound through the use of analog equalization.  The result is dramatic.  The mix position in the control room is practically unbelievable in terms of how clearly defined every element in a song sits within the mix.  The stereo field seems almost holographic to my ears.  I can only think of maybe 2 other times in my life where I was that impressed by a sound system and one of those times involved $200,000 speakers that I could only dream of.  One of the coolest things about this newly eq'd listening setup is that it can be bypassed with a switch.  That's how we know for a fact it's much better now.  The stereo field is immensely expanded in all dimensions.  3D is an understatement.  In the past I could hear depth of field in the music, but it usually was situated toward the center of the mix, whereas now it's everywhere.  I can hear in the before how the room sound was muddying up the depth of field in the distant L/R sides.  It sounds like I'm now hearing 30% more information.  That's why I'm so excited and why I'm writing this now.  It means mixing will be better, easier, and faster than ever before at LBA.  That means a lower price for mixing services in the future.