If you can't hear it, how do you know if you like it?

[ericdevine]

Some times it takes a little while for things to sink in.....
I have heard many of the seasoned gearslutz say to "treat your room"
What they should have said is "TREAT YOUR ROOM FIRST!!!!!!!"

I just moved my project studio into a new location. And this time I put a lot more thought into the room and the acoustics.
I did change my monitors too, but the other big factor was the Benchmark DAC1.

All off us here love our gear.
It is shinny, it has pretty lights, and we can spend hours "playing" with it. But how do you know what you really like, if you can't really hear it?
I think I read a post one time about a guy that didn't like AKG 414'S..... but he was running them through an old fostex 4-track (or something).
I was not a 414 fan myself untill I went back to some older guitar tracks recorded w/ 414's and listened to them in a good room. Those things sound pretty good!

So from one newbie who has seen the light to the rest of the newbies out there-
Hold off on that shinny new $2000 mic pre with the beautiful vu meters, and spend a grand or so treating your room, and get a decent d/a converter so you can compare apples to apples with the rest of the gearslutz.

[Ethan Winer]

Eric,

Hold off on that shinny new $2000 mic pre with the beautiful vu meters, and spend a grand or so treating your room, and get a decent d/a converter so you can compare apples to apples with the rest of the gearslutz.

Excellent advice. I see this all the time with speakers as well as microphones. It doesn't matter how well proportioned your room is, or how expensive your gear is. If you don't have bass traps and first reflection treatment, you are not hearing the tracks and mix properly. Gear accounts for 5 percent of what you hear. The speakers and room account for the other 95 percent.

--Ethan

[Jason Poulin]

We spent 3000 last year on a DIY project in our studio.




It was worth more than any piece of gear imo.




So yea, hold off on your purchases for a while and treat your room and then you can really work with the gear you have now.



Jason

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

Eric,



Excellent advice. I see this all the time with speakers as well as microphones. It doesn't matter how well proportioned your room is, or how expensive your gear is. If you don't have bass traps and first reflection treatment, you are not hearing the tracks and mix properly. Gear accounts for 5 percent of what you hear. The speakers and room account for the other 95 percent.

--Ethan

Your tests with mic placement alone (in treated and untreated rooms) as it relates to A/B listening tests were a REAL eye opener to me.

As I read your posts on that a while back, I was nodding because it made so much sense... so I sort of mentally turned off my "head position auto-compensation EQ" in my head and moved my head by small amounts in the "sweet spot" of my customary work area -- I mean tiny amounts of head movement -- and, sure enough, the changes in sound were quite signifcant. (Admittedly, that customary work area is probably a sonic nightmare. I change my room around entirely when I get serious about mixing [and bring out my serious monitors instead of the NS10m's I use everyday] and it's still probably a nightmare.)