What do you understand by 'good acoustics' for a mastering room?

[Local 47]

Let me elaborate. I've noticed in a bunch of threads (except maybe for the 60% which handle on loudness) that besides the experience of the ME, proper acoustics and monitoring are key ingredients for the ME.
Well then, where do you start? Is there an ideal room size for mastering rooms? Reverb time? Are these important factors, or can you basically turn any room into a proper mastering suite?
And lastly, who's known for building great mastering rooms?

[crna59]

Here is my take on Mastering rooms. Most people will go with the "Golden Ratio" for room dimensions but that is only part of the equation. You will need good bass trapping and also diffusion at your first reflection points. A lot of people "believe" that you can do mastering in a control room with near-fields sitting up on a console. A Mastering Room and a Dub Stage are very similar. It is the final place to do any tweaking to the material and the rooms represent the pinacle of listening/viewing environments. Mastering is also done in the far-field with full range speakers. You can not have a large console between you and the speakers. That's why they make Mastering consoles.
The companies/people that come to mind when I think of Mastering rooms are Russ Berger, Francis Manzella, John Storyk, Martin Pilchner and Rives Audio.

Regards,

[Ethan Winer]

> where do you start? <

Bruce gave you some good advice, and you'll find a lot more here in my Acoustics FAQ:

www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

The key is as much bass trapping as possible. This is not an option, it's a minimum requirement.

Understand that it's not possible to make any smallish room perfectly flat - not that speakers are ever perfectly flat either! But the room is always much worse than the speakers, and you should aim to get the room as flat as its size and your budget allow. Ignore this and you will always be guessing as to what's really happening in the low end of a mix.

--Ethan