Chapter 18 Acoustics and Monitoring - Posted on 2014-04-23 by Amanda Payne

Chapter 18 was full of information that will help greatly when I get to build my own studio as well as a great review from the first half of the program. The whole point of being an audio engineer is capturing/producing the best sound possible for a client. This can be tough and even frustrating at times when a band is not that great or they do not have a proper understanding of techniques that can ultimately make or break their album. It is what separates the amateurs from the professionals.

If we all were to build our studios from the ground up, it would be much more than just gluing tons of colorful sponges to the walls with some super expensive equipment. By knowing how different sound waves react in an environment, it helps to come up with a decent game plan when it comes first to a building/location and second, the interior.

Absorbers (bass traps), diffusers, and monitors are the three major basics when starting a studio. The capturing and spreading of different frequencies will greatly affect your product. It’s possible to get phasing, interference, and even masking. Remembering that isolation is the key to recording will be a great focus point.

There is no distinct right or wrong answer when it comes to a studio and its sound. What may be terrible for one engineer may be greatly valued by another. Most of the major producing studios are located in the city. There’s probably lots of business which is good and also needed if you think about how expensive that must be in order to block out all the street sounds from the inside. My goal is to have a studio back up north. It is plenty quiet but also loaded with people looking for a good recording studio. With my months working with Phil at Green Team Media, I’ve learned that bigger is NOT always better. It’s not what you need to make a great product; it is how you utilize the decent investments to their absolute potential by means of knowledge, common sense, and logic. No, he may not be the top studio in the world. But he has multiple sessions every single week filled with both new clients and returning clients. It’s one thing to learn and study textbook information. It is another thing to see true real life sessions (which I have assisted on many in the past few months) and what is truly needed and not wasted.

I cannot believe how far I have come since Chapter 1. I still have a lot to learn in the masters program, but I can be confidant that I am learning in the right studio and environment that I need to be.