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Old 10-04-2014, 08:18 PM   #41
Judders
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Originally Posted by Lawrence View Post
Nah, I'd not bother.

Again, no decent pre-amps today sounds "bad" but you'd very likely hear the difference between a AudioBox preamp and a Earthworks pre-amp on certain sources in a good listening environment. With a distorted rock guitar you may not hear any difference at all, with some other sources like drum overheads or stereo acoustic guitar or vocals you might.

There's a reason why many studios typically have multiple different brands of outboard pre-amps instead of just buying 10 of the same model. If they all sounded the same and did the same thing you'd just buy 10-16 of the least expensive ones and be done with it.
The best studios have 1 type of preamp; the ones in their console.

Small studios sometimes have a selection to attract the Gearslutz vanity projects. Big studios don't care.

IMHO, YMMV etc..
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Old 10-04-2014, 08:21 PM   #42
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A simple trick is having strong mids in your amp setting/eq's. Guitar is a midrange instrument so it helps it blend in with the other instruments. Really handy trick for playing live too
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Old 10-05-2014, 01:02 PM   #43
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Originally Posted by clepsydrae View Post
Oh, right, there are certainly a million varieties. I was talking about something along these lines: http://audiodork.com/2011/09/20/building-bass-traps/

...basically just fiberglass and some cloth, so, very light. For panels (rather than corner traps) you can build a light wooden frame around them for durability and aesthetics. No heavier than a picture frame, really. Or skip the frame altogether. Here is one of many pages on the subject: http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2009/...-on-the-cheap/
For some reason those look really heavy...but I believe you. Is the only difference between the panel and the corner trap where you mount them? As in they are meant to perform the same absorption function?


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Originally Posted by clepsydrae View Post
I doubt some bass traps are going to do much, since it doesn't sound like the issues you're hearing are in the lows or low-mids anyway. And if you can't take them with when you leave, then the incentive goes down further. But they could help clean up the room and maybe that's just the ticket. Maybe panels on the walls would be more relevant to your issue.)
I'd like to think that I have pretty critical ears (even though I'm a complete newbie to the dark art of recording). I can tell when something is "boxy" or "boomy" or has too sharp a sharp knee or a linear response curve etc. Based on my experiments with positioning the amp in the room/EQ'ing the amp, I haven't had any issues with boomy bass, which surprised me to be honest because every small room I've had prior were riddled with the stereotypical unruliness that comes with small hollow chambers.

The whole back wall of my room is not a uniform flat wall; it's a closet and an alcove for the door. Maybe that bookshelf is acting as a crappy diffuser?:



But the opposing and side walls are the reflective points:



That door alcove is directly behind my desk. Not sure what kind of monitoring problems that causes, but I'm sure they're there. Sadly moving the desk/monitors to a remotely sensible place (equidistant from the side walls facing longways down a rectangular room, off the back wall) is completely out of the the question. I did a test when mixing, where I brought the bass up to a "good level" then listened to it on computer speakers in a different room. WAY too boomy. This means my room was reducing the perceived bass, if anything.

My typical protocol when setting up in a new room is to first walk around clapping my hands and listening to the different characteristics. When I clap my hands in this room, I hear an ever-so-faint high frequency flutter, but overall my room sounds very dead with all my furniture in it.

I got the idea from the blankets here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_O-3QAjmSI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRVge40mVz4
Wouldn't those act as absorbers for high frequencies? He says that they're much better at absorption than the standard moving blanket. I'm also played with the idea of hanging hooks from the shelf above my closet so that the blanket drapes right behind the mic. I don't think the landlord would care if I drilled heavy-duty hooks into that POS shelf...

These corner traps look nice: http://audiodork.com/2011/09/20/building-bass-traps/

But again I'd be stuck mounting them to the wall above my computer and my bed, which would make my somewhat paranoid (falling on my desk and breaking stuff).

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Originally Posted by clepsydrae View Post
I'm in agreement. I think the point is that as far as your signal chain is concerned, you're already getting a great signal on the way in, and that maybe you should look even earlier in the chain than that, to the room, the guitar, the amp, etc.
I'm thinking that a nice preamp won't fix a bad room, but a good room will fix a decent preamp, and make a nice preamp really shine. I'm thinking the most logical progression of improvement is to start with the room, especially considering the respective costs.

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Originally Posted by clepsydrae View Post
Of course you can also have the opposite experience ("oh, the reason it always seemed so damn hard to get that tone was because I just had crappy gear this whole time") but in my experience it's much more rare.
In the spirit of being a broke college kid (and a firm believer that technique is the unsung king of gear-inclined art forms), I don't like buying new gear unless I'm absolutely backed into a corner. I have shown up to paid video gigs with a $400 camera, cheap vintage lens, and a tripod that costs more than my car, and each time I have had no problem producing stunning results even though I get weird looks for not using "professional gear" (which isn't that much nicer, and is sometimes worse, unless you're spending tens of thousands of dollars more). Having said that, there have been a few moments where, despite my hesitance, buying a nicer piece of gear was precisely the solution. That ungodly expensive tripod for instance, or my recently departed M-Audio Fasttrack Pro, which had such shit preamps that I ignored the "it's good enough for someone starting out such as yourself" suggestions and upgraded to the Focusrite, which I don't regret for a second.

Last edited by Slandis; 10-05-2014 at 01:14 PM.
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Old 10-05-2014, 01:39 PM   #44
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Originally Posted by Slandis View Post
For some reason those look really heavy...but I believe you.
You got me curious, so I ran the numbers... they are heavier than I thought, but maybe not bad. OC-703 is 3 pounds / cubic foot... so 6 sheets of 2"-thick OC-703 cut into square triangles is 4 feet high and 2 feet on the sides, and it's 8 cubic feet or ~24 pounds. That's for a four-foot high monster bass trap.

A 4x2x4" panel would be 8 pounds (+cloth covering, +wood if used), or about as heavy as my hollow-body bass guitar. Spread out across four mounts, that's very light, but heavier than the picture frame I described.

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Is the only difference between the panel and the corner trap where you mount them? As in they are meant to perform the same absorption function?
They are both "broadband absorbers", meaning they remove energy across the spectrum (as opposed to tuned panels meant to remove certain frequencies), but the particulars about how much they remove where is a complicated issue that you'd be better off researching on the 'net. E.g. you get a lot better performance from the panels by mounting them a few inches off the wall, etc. Generally, though, the hefty corner bass traps are intended to even out more in the low frequencies, and the panels are more for the rest of the spectrum.

Personally I haven't been turned on to blankets in general just because they only deal with the upper frequencies, but if that's what you're aiming for, then they do seem pretty convenient and flexible.

Quote:
But the opposing and side walls are the reflective points
And the ceiling, of course.

Quote:
I did a test when mixing, where I brought the bass up to a "good level" then listened to it on computer speakers in a different room. WAY too boomy. This means my room was reducing the perceived bass, if anything.
Or the monitors you listen on just aren't reproducing the bass enough (and small monitors like that just can't) but they don't crap out when you turn the bass up like cheaper computer speakers would.

Quote:
I'm thinking that a nice preamp won't fix a bad room, but a good room will fix a decent preamp, and make a nice preamp really shine. I'm thinking the most logical progression of improvement is to start with the room, especially considering the respective costs.
Let us know how it goes. If I were you I'd post a few raw guitar recordings and solicit feedback from the electric experts on these forums, but I'm sure building some broadband absorption will be a good thing in the long run, even if it doesn't solve the immediate issues. I just suspect that the nuance you're seeking might have more to do with that stuff, rather than the room, but who can say.
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Old 10-06-2014, 11:56 AM   #45
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Kinda hard to tell for sure from those perspectives, but it looks like you could turn the bed and put it under the window, or at worst in front of the bookshelf. Then slide the desk to the middle of the wall it's on. Yeah, completely ergonomically fucked, but if I'm seeing it correctly, it would have the amp kind of shooting into the bed itself, and a lot of the reflections from the room would have to go through the bed to hit the mic. It'll help with higher frequencies anyway. Your monitors will then also be shooting into the bed and closet. If you really wanted to, you could shove a couple panels into the back of the closet. Would probably be nice to do something about the ceiling itself, but I'd point you again to the wall/ceiling corners. Put a pile of insulation on that shelf above the closet. You could also pile some on top of that bookshelf. Heck, stick some under the bed! Non-permanent treatments will likely be useful as materials in your next room, too.
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Old 10-08-2014, 08:41 AM   #46
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Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
Put a pile of insulation on that shelf above the closet. You could also pile some on top of that bookshelf. Heck, stick some under the bed! Non-permanent treatments will likely be useful as materials in your next room, too.
Unfortunately, I have stuff (luggage bags etc.) stuffed on the shelf and under my bed. I think I'm going to pick up a heavy duty blanket and hang it directly behind the mic to dampen reflections.
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