[Brad McGowan]

I'm in the process of renovating my studio. Primarily I'm working on converting one of my bigger rooms into a control room. But while I'm tearing everything apart, I'm starting to think about tweaking the sound of my live room a bit. I've had some discussions with Glenn from GIK Acoustics about how I should approach the room, but it would be great to get some other people's thoughts as well.

The live room is currently about 18x21 with slightly sloping ceilings that average about 11 feet. There is a mix of absorptive and diffusive/reflective acoustic treatment in the room currently, but the room seems to have a bit of a midrange honk in the 500-700Hz range that is building up across my tracks in an unpleasant way. I should add that the ceiling is covered with acoustic ceiling tile for better or worse. I inherited the room that way--I would never put that crap up. I put a coat of paint on the ceiling tile this past weekend in an attempt to restore some high frequency response.

My question is this:

For a room of this size and volume that is primarily used to record rock music, would it be functionally better to have a well controlled, tight sounding room with signficant treatment, or would it be more constructive to have a mostly untreated, boomy, live room?

Ideally I'd love my room to have a nice live ambience to it, but maybe it's just not possible given the volume of the room. Am I better off making it slightly drier and more dead than I would prefer, but with a flatter, more pleasing tonality? Anyone have an strategies or tips for getting rid of midrange honk in a room without destroying the ambience?

thanks,
Brad