Control Room or Tracking Room first?

[Ca$h Marty]

Hi All -

Just wanted to tap the knowledge base here for some advise on treating a control room vs. treating a tracking room. So my humble home setup is a standard smallish bedroom for a tracking space and then a long narrow room for the control room.

As it stands now I have a few 703 4" thick panels made (non FRK) for the tracking room. It's not enough so I am considering adding more. The question would be should I continue adding treatment to the recording space or start treating an otherwise untreated control room.

My thoughts are to finish the recording space first as this will influence what is actually going to tape rather than what is being monitored. The control room isn't bad but it certainly needs treatment eventually. I know the correct answer is both but it's simply not in the budget at the moment. So which should take priority?

Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Chris Williams]

I did my "control room" first and after that I could instantly hear how bad the tracking room was. Since doing both it's been a huge step up.

If you do the control room first you can at least compensate for a bad tracking room when you can hear the defects and mic accordingly.
Just my 2 cents

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by Chris Williams

I did my "control room" first and after that I could instantly hear how bad the tracking room was. Since doing both it's been a huge step up.

If you do the control room first you can at least compensate for a bad tracking room when you can hear the defects and mic accordingly.
Just my 2 cents

I tend to agree but then again the source is the tracking room. Hard call.

[mixmkr]

If you can't hear in your control room what's going on.......

to me, that's a first, without even thinking about it. You may even want some of those "nasty" reflections, etc on your tracks.... who knows. But you won't, until you accurately hear what's happening.

[Ca$h Marty]

Yeah it's a conundrum for sure - I guess the question would be would you prefer a slightly treated control room and tracking room OR a well treated tracking room/untreated control room.

I figure since I'm closer to finishing the tracking room, I should go with it.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by mixmkr

If you can't hear in your control room what's going on.......

to me, that's a first, without even thinking about it. You may even want some of those "nasty" reflections, etc on your tracks.... who knows. But you won't, until you accurately hear what's happening.

I guess the more I think about it I tend to agree. Hey why not have panels and move them between the rooms? Most panels can hang on the wall like a picture frame.