Home Recording - Your Home Control
Room
14/07/09 01:23 Filed in:
Music
Production
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.
Tags: music, Home, Recording