Yes, it was a very good article. I agree with Alan in that this is not an exact science. There are lots of questions he posed that each of us might answer differently.

I have heard a few treated rooms, some I've liked the sound, but others have sounded overly 'dead' (absorptive panels all around). My theater room so far is untreated and I have been hesitant to add treatments because I enjoy everything I hear. The room however has minimal highly reflective surfaces, and lots of chairs, full carpet, and no rear wall. For the conditions in my room, I think that treating the 1st reflection points only is probably a good compromise, and will not overly dampen the spaciousness diffuse effect from the surrounds. This is most likely what I will do at some point.

Just popped up while reading your post, Amie!

Just to add a bit more discussion to Alan's excellent article, here's an except from a magazine article I wrote many years ago regarding "wet v. dry" recording....as it relates to recording audio in a church...

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The clarity vs. natural sound struggle

Unfortunately for event videographers, a church is one of the toughest locations to try to capture good sound. Close your eyes and listen to the sounds in a cathedral. Due to the typical expansiveness and the many hard, sound-reflective surfaces, the chances are very good that you will hear a very reverberant, “echoey” sound. Reverb is a term for a natural phenomenon whereby sounds reflect around a room and therefore arrive at your ears from different directions. Your brain has the ability to decipher the direction of these multiple sound sources due to your two ears receiving the sound at very slightly delayed times. Unfortunately, a video camera does not have the brain to do this! This is why you might hear a speaking voice on the alter as perfectly acceptable from the center of the church, yet a sound recorded from that same spot to be much less intelligible when played back in your edit suite. Reverb has a tendency to produce a fuller, richer sound for music, yet causes less intelligibility in voices.

Recording clear, intelligible audio requires the microphone to be placed as close as possible to the sound source. If you consider your desired sound source to be the appropriate “signal”, and people coughing, church kneelers slamming down as guests are seated and passing traffic to be “noise”, what you are doing with your mic placement is, in a very real way, controlling your signal to noise ratio. The choice of microphones for various situations and sound sources in a church is worthy of an article in itself, but the general rule of getting the mic close to the source always applies. Despite it being a necessity, many times close-miking causes the sound to be unnatural, losing that reverberant sound that you would expect to hear in that particular environment. Close-miking not only reduces the extraneous noise of guests and air conditioners and nearby traffic, it also reduces the amount of room reflections (reverb) that you hear. Remember that in your final production, what your eyes see and what your ears hear should “match”.

Our studio’s goal is to keep the intelligibility and cleanliness of close-miking, but at the same time, produce a “natural” sound that contains the reverb we expect to hear in this environment. As a former audiophile I struggled to record exceptional audio in churches for wedding ceremonies, starting years ago with a single wireless placed on the groom and now typically using 5 to 6 microphones on many occasions. In the past, I would place a microphone near readers, soloists and musicians and yet never be satisfied with the sound quality for aesthetic reasons. We would have intelligibility, but a very “dry, sterile” sound.

In some churches I have received permission to tap into their PA system, negating the need to place my own mics next to the churches’ existing ones. This can be done via a headphone jack output on the PA’s preamp, amp, or mixer. I use a 1/4” to XLR impedance-matching transformer, and run standard XLR low-impedance cable to my camera’s input. (Be sure to experiment with this ahead of time, using the headphone-level control on the PA system to give you a proper level output that your camera can handle!) Although this can save you the time of having to duplicate the church’s mics at each location, the sound quality is even more lifeless, as you capture even less of the reverb that’s present in the church.


Audio magic in a box

Adding an audio processor to your editing rack can enable you to close-mic your sound sources for the cleanest possible recordings on location, yet add a little bit of reverb in post production to make the sound much more realistic. You end up with the best of both worlds: clear intelligibility, yet a beautifully rich, full sound.

Videographers think nothing of comparing special effects devices (and spending thousands of dollars) to tweak their picture quality and add fancy transitions to their arsenal, but rarely consider adding audio post-production equipment. This is where the Multi Effects Audio Processor can come into play. An audio processor can add reverb, digital delay, chorus, flangers, phasers, tremolos, pitch shifters, equalizers, noise gates, compression and much more to your signal just as a video mixer can add basic wipes, dissolves or many 3-D effects to your picture. And, just like many video productions are often done best with simple cuts, dissolves, and fades, your audio processor can be very effective when used sparingly. Because you have the ability to add special effects doesn’t mean you always should! With an audio processor, less is definitely more and you can quickly get into trouble by overusing it. For our purposes, we very rarely add anything more than a little reverb to our audio signal. This is known as “wetting” the sound; the unaltered audio is termed “dry”. We use a fair amount of reverb for the musicians, only a little for the officiator and readers, and usually none at all for the vows. You expect to hear that “big echoey” sound for a trumpet, and a “sweet, full” sound for a string quartet, but reverb is not appropriate for a couple whispering their vows if accuracy is your goal.

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Thank you very much for the very interesting article.

I'm very hesitant to add artificial sound treatments in my "bright" room because I am very happy with the imaging, soundstage and expansiveness of the sound. I was not happy with it however before I added my present furnishings (as sparse as they may be) because it was very reverberant.

I have to admit however that when I experimented with "corner treatments" (consisting of blankets, carpet roll, etc), I noticed an improvement in the "tightness" and volume of bass without any audible influence on all of the other factors that I mentioned above.

I've also found that speaker toe-in makes a remarkable difference in my room. If they are not toed in, I still get decent imaging but the soundstage becomes flat even on an exceptional recording like Mark Knopfler's The Ragpicker's Dream. The highs also become less distinct.

I'd have to conclude from this that toe-in and corner treatments are very worthwhile avenues to explore for improved acoustics. Also, experiment with furnishings and surface coverings before moving to more "formal" acoustic treatments.

I have no experience yet, but one of these days I'll try it out. Originally I thought I'd get Rives Audio to design my home theater when I move it to the basement. I'm kind of back and forth on that idea anymore. I want to get the most out of my components, but they've said that a gorgeously graphed frequence response doesn't necessarily translate to a good-sounding room. That kind of statement scares me, so I think I'll make my initial experience with room treatment a bit less involved. I'm thinking I'll go for corner bass traps and treating the first reflection points. If that turns out to do something for me, maybe then I'll be comfortable enough with the concept to have professionals help me take it further.

This may be Axiom's gentle way of probing the customer base to find out if providing in-room treatments is worth a business venture, but it is just a guess.

I had the same thought. I'd say to Axiom bring it on! But bring on something that has a different value story and not the same old "foam in the corners" approach. Now what that something is, only a research scientist knows .

I am amazed at all of the adjacent markets that Axiom can grow into in this business.

I'm kind of excited about them getting into amps and preamps, so yeah, bring on the other markets, too. I'd be interested in seeing their idea of a completely integrated solution.

Hi Chesseroo,

No, not at all. If pressed, both Ian Colquhoun and I would admit to a bias towards not treating rooms, other than our standard line of "a typical domestic mix of carpet or rugs, upholstered furniture, some window coverings, and shelving or bookcases and the like to break up excessive reflections" --in other words, a mixture of both reflective and absorbent surfaces.

Of course, there are exceptions to these general guidelines, but both of us have experienced so-called professionally "treated" rooms that were overly dead and absorbent and quite unpleasant as listening spaces.

My article was really meant to stimulate discussion about various approaches to the recording and playback environments.

Regards,

Hi Mark,

Excellent article from you about recording in reverberant spaces and everything you say still applies. Thanks for the post.

Regards,

My current room is absolutely horrible on paper but most people still say this is the best system they have ever heard. My room is almost perfectly square, It's basement so one wall is concrete, hard laminate flooring, we still have not picked out a rug for in front of the couch, still have no curtains on the two windows, only one small bookshelf and very few wall decorations. Worst of all it still doesn't have a beer fridge.

However, coming from a crappy HTIB system, it still amazes me. However, now that I am more educated and starting to understand what my ears are telling me, I am aware of a real weakness in mid level bass from the subwoofer. (I even bought an inexpensive meter to confirm and play around with.) It's getting canceled out in most parts of the room, including where we sit. I can bring it back, somewhat, by turning the EP500 trim to Full but then the louder bottom end bass becomes very rattly and draws your eyes directly to the subwoofer.

In short, I'm a far cry from commenting on a 'treated' room because I still have to put in a lot of basic, natural treatments that are definitely missing. After that, I won't be adding any expensive, dedicated treatments as this room as is a temporary space until I get the 'planned' HT room finished that will be much more conducive to better sound.

The great part is I'm in no rush because I'm only just starting to appreciate what I am missing. This gives me time to learn and plan ahead so keep talkin!!!

I am planning on purchasing a bunch of Auralex products, some for absorbtion some for diffusion, namely their AudioTile Shockwave, TruePanels and SpaceArray diffusors.. I'm hoping that will address my issues, ie: lack of bass output in most areas, echos / ringing, quick high frequency rolloff..as measured with a RTA.. I have done over 5 months of researching and some "professional" measurements..previous post are in here..I have not ordered it yet..but the total package will cost me $3,500 CA.. sure hope I can tell a significant difference in overall sound quality..:-) I will post some pics once completed.. ETA is late August.

Cheers,

Steph

I would also consider GIK Acoustics, Real Traps, or heck DIY and use Owens Corning 703. Your going to spend a lot for Auralex and back when I studied this stuff and looked at lab results, it was not even close on absorbtion ratings.

Seems like a lot of money to me for foam.