British artist Douglas MacGregor has begun a quest to find perfect acoustics.
Taking over countless abandoned buildings across Germany including a post war hospital, army barracks and once grandiose Riviera Grünau Dance Halls, MacGregor explained to the Telegraph.
If you have a studio performance sometimes they are very dry and there is not much life to them. What I was looking to do was to try and make something that wasn’t a live performance, but a recording with some life in it
Douglas MacGregor
Considering Douglas MacGregor’s dedication to great sound, I have put together this article to better understand the techniques of fine tuning room acoustics and how to achieve a great sound when recording in the home.
Whilst we may not all be able to explore the discarded wasteland buildings littered across Germany, musicians can improve their home recordings through various ways.
Make sure the room is suitable
Expensive, professional, commercial studios build a room from scratch and achieve incredible results through the thousands of pounds invested in them. However, not everyone has the funds or patience to build a customized recording space.
When choosing a suitable room for home recording, it’s always a good idea to use an online room calculator, inputting the measurements of available rooms to ascertain each room’s potential.
Ideally, a room needs to not be too small, as sound will bounce from the walls and create strong ‘standing waves’. Long rectangular rooms are said to naturally give good acoustics.
Add some furniture
Adding in objects such as sofas, stocked bookshelves, picture frames and curtains will work well to develop the sound of a home recording studio.
Absorbing high frequencies and forcing the sound waves to bounce in different directions, musicians should experiment placing furniture in different parts of the room to test how the sound changes.
Invest in acoustic paneling
Thick foam acoustic paneling is usually around 3-4 inches and will absorb frequencies deadening the sound in the room. Portable and light, paneling can be used anywhere on the walls attending to the mid and upper mid frequencies.
It’s worth remembering that too much deadness is a bad thing. Musicians always need to hear themselves, so the trick is said to kill the annoying frequencies, preserving the ‘liveliness’ of the room.
Consider a portable mic booth
Versatile and effective, a portable mic booth ensures that the source of the sound is kept from bouncing across the room and being picked up by the microphone.
Used for recording acoustic guitars, amplifiers and most often vocals, a portable mic booth is guaranteed to improve recorded sound and is ideal for those recording at home.
Keep a comfortable space
The studio space in which musicians spend countless hours trying to get the best sound should be comfortable and inviting.
A relaxed working environment will ensure better recordings and can be achieved simply by decorating the studio in calming pastel colours and pictures on the walls, thus increasing the chance of great sound.
More information
Sound on Sound: DIY Studio Acoustics
