MAXIMUM HOME RECORDING - YOUR CONTROL ROOM

The Control Room

A basic home recording setup usually consists of a computer system, some sort of computer interface and speakers. A pair of speakers that are connected to an external amplifier that runs off your computer is the ideal situation. There are also a wide array of powered speakers on the market that will work for this application. Ideally you want the left and right speaker and your head to form an equilateral triangle with the tweeter on the speaker at ear level.

An easy way to measure this it to measure the distance between the speakers and then sit that far back from them. Start with the speakers facing straight ahead, and then as you listen to something that is well recorded tow in the speakers until the singer or lead instrument is well focused between the two speakers. This will give you the ideal tow in, once you have this set don’t move the speakers! If there are bass and treble controls on your amplifier or speakers you will want to switch them off or put them in the center or detent position so they have as little effect on the overall sound as possible.

Next you must determine if mixes done in this room will translate. In other words, is the sound you hear from your speakers in this particular room accurate? Does the room have a bright or dark sound to it? If you are lucky you have a fairly well balanced sounding room, but how do you tell?

Scoping Your Room

Scoping a room involves playing pink noise through your system and using a spectrum analyzer to ensure that your are getting a flat response. The characteristics of your room may cause sounds in it to be bright, dark, muddy or boomy. The odds are that this room in your house was not designed for sound. You do however want your mixes to translate well and sound good on stereo systems in other places and so we use the process of scoping the control room to ensure this.

What you need to do is create some pink noise and play it through your speakers. Don’t use white noise because it has more 1KHZ than other frequencies. Pink Noise has all frequencies from 20Hz to 20KHz in equal amounts. Next you will connect a microphone to your system and place it where your head will be when you are sitting at your system. Basically you have the pink noise recorded and the mic is setup as if you are going to record it. Next you will find the spectrum analyzer plugin and apply it to the track you are using to “record the microphone (Most computer recording software packages have them). Next you will look at the analyzer to determine what frequencies you need to boost and which you have to cut. You will then use a graphic equalizer plugin setup on the overall stereo master tracks to adjust the sound until you have as even as possible a balance of Lows, mids and highs. Once you have this setting you will save it as a preset and call it up whenever you begin a new mixing session. You always want it to be the last thing on the Master Stereo channels and this should be the first thing you do before anything else. This will save you valuable time in the future.