How You can Fix the Top 3 Issues for Small Room Recording/Mixing
Small rooms can be hard to work in. In light of my course Pro Recording in Small Rooms, I'm going to give you my top 3 issues of smaller rooms, and some tips to address them.
- Room Size and Low Frequencies - It's tough to judge low end in a small room. During recording you may have low frequencies build up in certain parts of the room.
- Walls = Reflections. A big drum sound is actually achieved in a medium size room...not a big room. The reason is the distance from the walls. As the walls get closer together, the reflections make it sound more exciting. In a small room, it's way too much, and you can get a clean direct sound at the mic.
- Hard to Treat. The room is part of the sound. Every room has an "EQ Curve" so to speak, and sound treatment helps dial in the vibe of a room. Small rooms have so many issues, that it ends up being covered head to toe in sound panels.
One of the best tips I've seen with regard to small rooms, is to treat the room with tons of absorption, and embrace the dead sound when recording drums. This allows you to treat the low end issues (Issue #1), and minimize the reflections (Issue #2).
For the EQ curve of the room, you can add some thin reflective material on top of the absorption. Low frequencies are treated, but the high frequencies are reflected and it gives the room a brighter sound.
This is just the start.
I spent three weeks filming a course and doing audio tests to prove these concepts.
My course, Pro Recording in Small Rooms is well worth the cost to help you make the best of a small room.
Band together with others inside the Pro Audio Mentorship.