Everything changes the sound...

[Dan0h]

Story of life, get things perfect and then intentially fuck them all up so you have to fix something.....

For the last several years my guitar rig has been set up in my bedroom, a pretty dead room sound wise. At the generally lower voulumes I play at I've dailed in the sound I hear in my mind as my favorite and have been sastified with the sound. Well that was, until this weekend. I decided it was time to utilize a portion of my basement and move my rig down there. I have always avoided playing in the basement for three reasons. Fear of flooding, I build things in the basement and didn't want to expose my completed gear to sawdust and or soldering remnents, and half the basement is used as a playroom for my kid, who is now old enough to be trusted around stuff, you know what I'm saying if you have kids.

The problem with having a bedroom set up is I can't really have things set up 100% all the time and espcially when it comes to recording, its a bit of a waste of time to set up and tear down any time I want to do anything. The ability to have my stuff set up and ready to rock has finally overpowered the three issues I had with using the basement. Our basement is completly unfinished and wide open. You can imagine the sound different going from a somewhat dead bedroom to an open basement with cement walls, floors, and open ceiling. Needless to say my reverb pedal instantly became useless as there is plenty of it down here already. But now Im able to play much louder which opens a whole lot of other possibilities sound wise. I have spent the day trying to decide if I should build my own Sound panels for the walls or buy some. Suprisingly we have enough stuff in the basement that the sound is not bad its just a bit echo-ish. Figure its going to take me a few months of tweaking and building before its just right again.

I wanted to share this becasue I think sometimes newbies or even long time players forget how much every single thing can affect the sound and in return the fun of playing, because if it sounds like crap its not very inspiring to play. From the guitar you use, its pickups, the entire pedal chain, the amp, the room, and the volume you play at. All of these things play a role. Well for those that plug into an emulator and rock out with headphones I guess the room has no affect. Anyway, going to have to go through my pedal pile and retry things that sounded like pooh in my room but may sound great in this open space. Fun times.

 

[Brett]

If you're planning on doing ANY recording in the new basement space, do yourself a favor and go with your gut by treating the space before making changes to your home rig. The reflections you're hearing now will be an absolute nightmare to deal with when capturing audio. Adding space/atmosphere to recordings (especially at home) is almost always best done in post.

I don't recall where you're based out of, but acoustic grade insulation materials shouldn't be too difficult to source. Your previous build reports tell us enough to know that you're perfectly capable of building your own room treatment panels. I've used the Owens Corning rigid fiberglass panels wrapped in porous fabric in the past and while they're very effective, fiberglass is nasty. If I were to do it again, I'd go with Rockwool Safe'n'Sound panels instead.

 

[Dan0h]

If you're planning on doing ANY recording in the new basement space, do yourself a favor and go with your gut by treating the space before making changes to your home rig. The reflections you're hearing now will be an absolute nightmare to deal with when capturing audio. Adding space/atmosphere to recordings (especially at home) is almost always best done in post.

I don't recall where you're based out of, but acoustic grade insulation materials shouldn't be too difficult to source. Your previous build reports tell us enough to know that you're perfectly capable of building your own room treatment panels. I've used the Owens Corning rigid fiberglass panels wrapped in porous fabric in the past and while they're very effective, fiberglass is nasty. If I were to do it again, I'd go with Rockwool Safe'n'Sound panels instead.

Indeed on all accounts. I didn’t think about fixing the room before tweaking the sound, thank you for reminding me! You just saved me a huge mess.

I might have to pick up a box of OC 703 panels and frame them up, and see if that gets me where I need. I could make an iso box but I like having some “air”.

Thanks!

 

[phi1]

I had a similar realization when I went to the doctor and they found my ears had too much wax. No wonder I was always running treble knobs high.