Acoustic Treatment for Home Studios (Absorption, Diffusion, Bass Traps, Oh My)

0:02 Everybody, it is Scoobert Doobert.I am currently recording inside of my closet because it is the only place in my entire housethat doesn't sound like absolute crap because I'm actually moving right now.

0:32 And in this process of moving, I am finally developing my own little studio space.So I actually wanted to talk to you guys just about what I've been learning, about acousticsabout the madness of developing a space, a creative space for yourself.And then also the advantages and I guess disadvantages that are kind of inherent in that.So let's just dive in.

0:54 So one of the things that I've been really dealing with, obviously, I'm in a closetright now, is figuring out how to make the room not sound so cavernous and have somethingcalled Flutter Echo.Flutter Echo is what happens when you have two parallel surfaces.And the sound just goes back and forth back and forth back and forth back and forth.

1:14 And it creates this really harsh, tinny thing that's damn near impossible to get out ofa recording.So that's step one, right?That's why you see people in like a vocal booth or in a closet or with their head, youknow, the blanket over their head, all that kind of stuff.That's to prevent for some of those high-end reflections.High-end reflections, they can be stopped by, you know, a series of shirts that I'm looking

1:38 at right now or a blanket over your head.The bigger and better the frequencies get, the harder it is to stop them.So one of the things that I'm trying to do in my space is not necessarily like tracka whole band.It's not big enough to be able to have that kind of a space in San Diego.I mean, I don't know what you'd have to do for a job, but like my space, I'll probablybe recording vocals.

2:03 I'll be recording a little bit of drums, a little bit of guitar and probably all thebass will be line in, but I'll want to be able to like listen to it in speakers becauseI've been mixing in headphones for forever and be able to see how it hits in speakersand level up my music from just, you know, experiencing it a different way.

2:21 But if you just do the blanket over your head or a bunch of drapes on the wall or a closetin effect where you're staring at t-shirts, you're only going to be blocking out theeasiest of frequencies, the high, high frequencies, that flutter echo.But you're not going to be able to do anything about, in those circumstances, but the lowfrequencies.

2:44 Because if you think about it, the high end frequencies, they're these tiny little oscillatingwaves.You can picture like a slinky going really, really fast, really tiny slinky, just like a hummingbird'swings, right?And then you compare that to like a whale or something like a whale call, or the ocean'swaves.

3:04 These big, big oscillations, the larger of those oscillations, the lower the sound is.So one of the things that people talk about with like the universe or whatever it oscillates,the super, super low level black holes, I don't know if you've ever heard the recordingthe NASA released of a black hole.Obviously, you cannot record something because it's one super far way to.

3:32 It's going through space, which does not have any air to propagate sound through.But you can extrapolate some of these vibrations, like pulses of light, or these things, andthen pitch it up to the level of human hearing.It's very eerie, you know.So I definitely recommend checking that out.It sounds like you're dying.But the idea is how you're not going to stop that stuff until you introduce this very

3:59 specific type of material, rock wool, or there's a bunch of like different brand namesfor it.But basically it's a highly dense foam.It's more than the little like recording foam or eggshells that you've seen in moviesor something like that.This is a stuff where if you look at a pro recording studio and there's a big squareon the wall with fabric over it, the stuff that's inside of it is this high density foam

4:23 or wool-like material.And that stuff is the stuff that can actually start to stop low frequencies.And even then, you know, it's not that great, but it adds up, right?Like the more you put of that on the wall, the better off you are to tame the giant beast.So again, it's super easy to deal with the higher stuff, but the lower and lower you go,the harder it is to deal with it.

4:49 The pro recording studios, like the absolute top of the top, this is the reason why thesethings are million dollar recording studios.It's because of everything from the ground up is designed with these low frequencies inmind because they're picturing like recording an entire band, put microphones in the centerof the room.That's pretty much the mix.

5:08 It was like the stuff that we were talking about with like Rick Rubin's sessions, youknow, those studios they're designed for acoustic perfection.And how do you do that?It's definitely not in a like a townhouse kind of vibe.It is a room that does not have parallel surfaces in the way that you would think of it.So most rooms, you think of like 10 by 10 bucks, which is basically the studio that I'm

5:31 going to be working in.And it is, you have these direct parallel lines.So the sound goes from one side to the other to the other to the other, the other.In a pro studio, now you start to taper things.You start to add new and indents.The height of the ceiling is like so specific.And then you can also deal with it at the very base level of the walls.A lot of these studios, they're actually a room within a room.

6:01 So there's an air pocket in between.So you're not actually like, like say, for example, if you bang onto a two by four, somebodyis at the other side of the two by four, they're going to hear that rumble.To project against that, you start to decouple things.You raise the floor, you raise the walls from the other walls.And if you look at some of these recording studios, their walls are absolutely huge because

6:26 they're building in air pockets.It's not all full in there.And all of that is to try and reduce resonance, the sympathetic thing.It's like when you talk from a can and then a string to another can, it's like, that'sa perfect example of using resonance to get from one end to another.That's exactly what they're trying to not do.They're trying to cut the string in between the two cans.

6:48 So by doing that, reducing the parallel spaces, putting insulation into the walls.And then on top of that, you also put the sound panels on.That's how you start to get these million dollar things because think about the budget.You're not just building one room, you're building two of them.And you're not just using any off the mill drywall or whatever.

7:07 You've got some stuff going on in there that one has to be habitable.It can't go so far that now it's 3,000 degrees in there.And two, it has to be aesthetically pleasing.So it's kind of crazy how these things can spiral.But that's also advice for the home recorders and for myself.Don't let it spiral.Like understand what your actual goals are.

7:34 So I talked to an accoustician person who was through one of the sound panel companiesat G.I.K.

7:41 and they offer free consultation stuff.So I reached out and I'm going to take advantage of that.And obviously he was trying to sell me the nicest stuff.But we had a really frank conversation about like, this is what I'm actually doing.I'm going to mix 80% in headphones and do 20% of like when I, my ears hurt and I don't want it on my head.So it doesn't need to be the perfect mixing room.

8:06 I'm going to record most of my guitar and bass line in so it's not actually miking upan amplifier.It's just going straight into the computer because I tend to prefer the way that soundsat this point.I'm going to record drums, but I mean, like, I'm not going to use the kick drum thatI'm recording very much.I'll probably sound replace it because that's also just something that people do now.

8:27 You know, it depends on the tune.But like if it's a pop song, I'm probably going to want an electronic kick anyway.And again, I'm talking low end.So if I'm just recording hi-hat snare and some ride cymbal or whatever, no big deal.Like I'm probably going to shave everything off of 150 and below 150 Hertz and below.So a lot of the low end frequencies don't matter that much.

8:50 Obviously it still don't want too much of it, but cost can spiral when you forget aboutgoals.And also like production can break down when you have goals that are incompatible.And so it's like trying to find that balance, you know, it's a weird gift.It's like, it's like, I'm so excited to use this space, but it's also its own type of

9:15 stress of like, oh my god, I'm having to make so many decisions that are not musical,but will deeply affect my music.So one of the tricks that I learned that I think is really cool is if you think aboutthat parallel effect, starting with a mirror.So mirrors, lights, light is the same basic path that sound is going to follow.And so what you try to identify are what are the first reflections.

9:40 So you look at, okay, like here's my sound source, so say for example, I've got drumskind of in the corner ish, which a lot of people would be like, oh, I'll put drumsin a corner or whatever.Sounds cool.If you look at where the sound is going to hit the microphone and then where it's goingto go after and how it's going to come back, like kind of critically thinking of the

10:01 path of like, my snare drum is here, the microphone is there.It's going to get in the way on that first bounce or what's what's going to flutter likein that direction or even better like the speakers here and there and I'm sitting here,I'm going to take a mirror and look, okay, where is the speaker going behind my head andbasically like to find that X and that's going to be your first reflection on either side

10:26 of behind you.And then I identify, okay, where would generally be the second reflection.And those are some of the primary places to treat with acoustic foam.And like I'm not, again, not talking about like the eggshell stuff, I'm talking aboutthe real, real deal panels.So by doing that, that already eliminates the worst offender, right?

10:50 So now you can work, like that's the whole deal is like you can have some room soundin your recordings, like there's still stuff that I mean that I have to do even whenI get pro recordings for EQ and resonances and stuff.So it's like that's just part of the job.It's never going to be perfect that that's what you have tools for is to fix problems.

11:08 But then second, another cool thing is to think about those reflections and be like,hey, you don't have to reflect both sides.So it cuts down one half of the sound panels.Again, this is not ideal world, this is just real world.So like say I've got, I've got a straight line and then I'm going to do a padded acousticfoam on one side and then take a foot over and then on the opposite side, I'll put an acousticpanel.

11:33 It will be flat wall that it's exposed, but it will be exposed parallel to somethingthat is covered.So it's like this, if you like laid the wall three-dimensionally to two-dimensional, itwould be perfectly covered.But then you split it up and then it's half of this wall, half of the other and you savemuch money because you don't have to buy that other thing.And obviously it's not the ideal world.

11:56 But if you go too far, some of those recordings today is like they sound super dead, whichcan be cool, but it can also kind of suck because you lose all the character of the room.And also you just, you spend a bunch of money and you feel like you're like an insaneasylum or something, like you can sap a vibe very heavily out of these spaces.

12:15 That's again part of the reason why these million dollar ones do a bunch of the stuff insideof the walls instead of on top of the walls so that you can keep that vibe and it canstill look like an architectural like cool place to work.And so like I saw I saw Dua Lipa and Kevin Parker, the Tame Impala guy were just workedon a song and they released some stuff from his tracking room.That stuff wasn't treated.

12:38 He had this thing called a diffuser on top of his roof.Diffusers are cool because they can help basically like if you've ever seen it, it's a bunchof different angles so it can either plastic or foam or wood, it usually would.It basically tries to send these reflections of sound in a million different ways.And so these can be good to combat those flutter echoes and it can create a more like harmonious

13:04 sounding room like a concert hall kind of vibe where it's sending all these frequenciesinstead of stop, stop, stop, stop.It is diffusing then across the room in a million different directions like a prism.But that's like the acoustic, acousticion was telling me like, hey, you don't reallyneed that for what you're doing and for your size room and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.It just looks cool.

13:28 And it's like, you know what, that's Tame Impala.Like that guy's got Grammys and his space is like not super well acoustically treated.He's looking at a window from his space that he's getting a bunch of this mirror slapback and he just did a Dua Lipa of song.So I don't need to worry about it too much.But that said, the current state of where that room is at, unworkable.

13:49 So it's like finding that balance and also trying to make it viby and feel good to workin because we're not scientists here, we're not supposed to be in a literal lab that feelssterile.We're supposed to be in a place that feels creative.So it's instead of like trying to make the perfect space, it's about like linear problem-solving,

14:08 which is all recording engineering and some parts of mixing really are just like, okay,that problem's fixed.What's the next problem?Keep moving.And that's my acoustic rant, so I hope you enjoyed that.On the next pod, I'm going to be talking to a dude that makes a bunch of beats and loopsand samples for a sample pack library called Splice.And it actually makes pretty good money doing this.

14:36 So it's like a really cool look into the modern arc of like where musicians are goingand then after him, I'm talking to another guy who did a little bit of that and theyhave slightly contrasting views.So I hope you enjoy next week's podcast and the ones after that.I am about to go to Japan for some recording sessions, really excited about that.And so I'm going to get back to packing now and get out of this closet.

15:03 But thank you for listening.I hope you can rate and subscribe to the pod and stick around for next week.It's going to be a really great conversation.Really enjoyed it.You can check out my music at scoobertdoobert.pizza.Take it easy.