Talk:Recording studio

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1 Disorganized Article
2 Older Comments (2006 and earlier)
3 Hey all, I appreciate any notes or suggs.
4 Proposed Alternative

[edit] Disorganized Article

This article needs a fairly major cleanup. Firstly, there are zero references. Second, the article has a history of recording studios from 1890-1970... what about 1970-present? Thirdly, a large degree of the information in the history section focuses on trends and methods of recording, rather than the studios themselves. This tends to make the history section unbearably long and bloated. Fourth, the introductory "paragraph" consists of one short sentence which would not even suffice as a dictionary entry.

I think some information about the general acoustic properties of recording studios should be added. Also, general information on popular layouts of studios and control rooms could be added. The 1940-1970 history section should be cut down to about 25% of its current length. A 1970-present section should be added.

Because of these issues, I have downgraded the rating of this article from "B" to "Start".

Snottywong 16:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I definitely concur. There should be a clean separation between sound recording techniques (aka studio techniques) and studio facilities.

--Michael Tiemann (talk) 20:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Older Comments (2006 and earlier)

[edit] Effects Link

Linking from "Outboard Effects" to "Sound effects" doesn't seem quite right. Sound effects are audio elements that make up the soundtracks of movies and such -- that is, they are the end result sounds themselves. "Outboard Effects" on the other hand refer to audio signal processing, and specific effects such as compression, phaser, flanger, equalization, reverb, delay, and so on. The "Sound Effects" page does mention some of these when talking about processing sound effects, I believe they may deserve their own category.

Just an idea. I may get around to writing this up myself, but I don't have enough time right now.

Could someone please find a better picture? That is a fine home setup, but please, I'd like to see something more professional...

PenguiN42 17:07, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The Mac is a great platform, but really now...

Please stop inserting pro-Mac propaganda into the History section (User:Michael, I am talking to you). There is no possible way that what you are saying can be rendered NPOV, no matter how many permutations of it you write, and I'm very close to putting this up on Requests for Protection. What is an unvarnished fact is that the music community tends to favor the Macintosh. It may (though I would err on the side of leaving it out) be the case that this is because of the Mac platform's ease of use, or because of simple tradition, or what have you. But what you are repeatedly inserting into this article is not only POV but borders on persistent astroturfing. Haikupoet 04:23, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

My third revert in 24 hours. It's out of my hands now, but please please please don't reinsert any form of the offending material... Haikupoet 17:38, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Don't merge please

I think this page stands alone, as the recording studio is a big topic. Lists of famous things are generally linked to separately. --Lindosland 01:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

By way of example, an article on "cars" shouldn't include an exhaustive list of makes and models. Remember: think what someone would expect to find if they searched for Recording Studio and provide him or her with that information The existing link to the Recording Studios category provides links for further research. Creating new and better pages for notable studios is the way to improve Wikipedia. Cleanr 05:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of equipment in recording studio

Somebody deleted the list of equipment. I reverted the deletions.

Have a nice day. --Starionwolf 18:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge "Isolation booth (audio)" into "Recording studio"?

I created Isolation booth (audio) and User:Pascal.Tesson suggested merging it into "Recording studio". That sounds like a good idea, from what little I've seen. MichaelSHoffman 06:01, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

How about creating headings for each room in a studio with detailed information about that room under its heading, eg: isolation booth, control room, live room etc? Neilius 15:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

That sounds right. I'd emphasize how the rooms are used in relation to each other, and also, importantly, how these rooms are effectively implemented in a home studio environment, like in the recent book on famous musicians' home studios, such as a garage as the live room and a back guest cottage as the control room (Korn), and an upstairs level as the isolation room for the mic'd guitar amps (311). That book should be cited, it's in the guitarsounds book list at amptone.com in the new books section.

[edit] More topics to cover

It would be good for experts to expand this article while they are stopping by to add a link to a studio website.

For example, sections could be added on:

Why is it difficult to monitor incoming mic signals while sending a signal out to be reamp'd and recording the result?
Trends (tape > digital > DAW; pro studio > home/project studio; vinyl, cassette, CD, mp3/iTunes)
Mics, miking techniques, using mics during the hands-on recording process, miking various instruments;
The lifecycle process of studio design and construction
The lifecycle of music composition, recording, overdubbing, mixing, monitoring, producing, and mastering
Reamping a signal from DAW through outboard tube gear including guitar amps and tape saturation
Comparison of pro studio technique trends and home studio implementation of the equivalent techniques.
Physical space of the studio vs. signal processing point of view; how DAW tends to shift balance from recording studio as physical space to recording studio as an abstracted virtual signal-processing environment
Mixer boards: channels, subgroups, Insert points, channel eq, levels, analog consoles, DAW-integrated control surfaces or mixers, automation, virtual mixers
What you see physically when walk around a recording studio: spaces, wall construction, windows, room sizes, materials, acoustic materials, amenities
Talkback systems between control room and live room and headphones
Built-in speakers vs. various other monitors
How can one visit a recording studio?
Podcasting studios, online-oriented video production environment
Surround Sound for 5.1 audio or soundtracks

Look at print encyclopedias then go beyond that to "get real" and lay out the basics. MichaelSHoffman 00:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Visual tours of recording studios worldwide

Hi everybody, I just added the link Visual tours of recording studios worldwide. I'm not affiliated with it, I just think it's the single most in-depth website covering studios around the world and feel that it has its place in the "external links" section, even if that section is only 3 links long. Cheers :-) Peter S. 17:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hey all, I appreciate any notes or suggs.

Hey everyone, I have begun a more factual introduction to this article. I have done this because many of the introductory sentences were (structurally) unclear. I noticed this as both a reader, and a recording professional. I mean no offense to the original author. I intend to help reconstruct the introduction and supporting paragraphs, as 3 peoeple have now commented on the structure and overall contents of this sections information.

USER:MICHAEL,requests additional topics -

I will begin to add and edit this page. I will tackle one key point at a time.

Any and all help, comments, sugg's are appreciated.TheRecordingGuru 00:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I had to revert your edits for now. Here's a link to your last-edited version. It somewhat messed with the established structure, throwing in arbitrary H1 headings (which are reserved for the article title, and not really helping to expand the lead), covering history outside of the history section, and an external links section in the middle of the article, which doesn't fit with the Wikipedia Manual of Style. While you were probably planning to continue working on it at a later time, articles shouldn't be left in a less-usable state for an extended period of time. It may be more appropriate for you to work on a separate copy as a subpage of your user page. Dancter 01:30, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Guru - I liked where you were going with this; my introduction that you changed was by no means wonderful, but I felt it was better than what was there earlier. I do not have the time to devote to re-writing this artcle, and was not offended by your changes - if you plan on doing a large-scale rewrite, do as Dancter suggests and work on it offline. Also, I am not sure all of the bullet points suggested by User:MichaelSHoffman are worthy of inclusion, but use your judgement. Stizz 14:56, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't advising that he conduct his work completely off-wiki. He certainly could invite others to work on the user space draft copy I suggested. I myself am not opposed to helping with some copy-editing and style adjustments where I can. There are other approaches, though, such as the {{inuse}} template. The history section does need work, as Snottywong pointed out. My concerns were not so much about the content as style considerations. For instance, the H1 headings were messing with the table of contents, and terms such as "30 years ago" and "new standard" are time-sensitive phrasings (see WP:DATED). One last thing: are you the same James who writes the articles to which you were linking? Dancter 17:54, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Stizz- I appreciate your comments, i can understand the point about not working on it while online in peices the way i had planned. I do not think some of the bullet points should have been left as is, but that was not the intention. With that said, i can tell you as a recording professional, that the introduction of this article needs some revision. I am new to wikipedia and I do not intend to step on any feet, but i thought my information was supplemental to the other content, but required some additional polish. I still beleive that the definition i wrote for a recording studio is the most accurate definition, and i think that a definition of a recording studio should be the main focus of the intro, followed by statements that are relative to the following paragraphs which should support and explain these statements. If i were to spend the time doing a full revision of the article would you be interested in editing and organizing our content together?

Is anyone else in interested in restructuring and reviing the overall content of this article? As it stands now, there are many improvements to be made.

Dancter- Thanks for the comments, yes, the linked articles were to articles that i have written. Is this is problem? I read the wikipedia policy on external linking and did not believe there was anything wrong with providing links to other articles. Actually i thought that it was encouraged so as to give the reader an idea of the individuals writing style. Thanks all, happy recording.TheRecordingGuru 22:18, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Alternative

Definition: Historically a recording studio was an all-in-one environment where sounds emitted in the studio could be captured by a microphone, converted to electrical signals, and fixed into a tangible media such as a wax cylinder, a record, or magnetic tape. As techniques evolved, elements of the recording process could be separated in time and developed independently, thus allowing the use of different facilities for different phases of the project. Recording studios nowadays typically specialize in one or more elements of the recording process: tracking, overdubs, mixing (to mono, stereo, surround, or to stems), mastering, post-production, audio-follow-video, sound-for-video, and media duplication. Studios that have the ability to record audio signals from microphones or other transducers usually identify themselves as recording studios, though studios that can only transform audio from a source format and content to a specified output format and quality may distinguish themselves as mastering studios.

Tracking: the defining characteristic of a recording studio. Any sound that is to be recorded will have some interaction with the environment in which it is recorded. When sound is recorded in a room—any room from the smallest closet to the largest cathedral—the qualities of the room will have an effect on the quality of the audio that is recorded in that room. There are five room characteristics that define that interaction, and good recording studios design their rooms to make the interaction sound beneficial (or at least appropriate) to the material that is being recorded. The five characteristics are:

Isolation: what sounds originating outside the room can come into the room and be recorded?
Absorption: when a sound hits a surface, what is absorbed by the surface's materials?
Reflection: when sound hits a surface, what is reflected by the surface's materials?
Diffusion: when a sound hits a surface, what is scattered by the surface's materials?
Dimensions: all sounds bounded by two surfaces will excite a series of modal resonances, which in turn will create a characteristic sound of the room. A typical room has four walls, a floor, and a ceiling, yielding three modal sequences, but typical recording studio rooms avoid parallel surfaces in one, two, or all three dimensions. This makes modal analysis far more complex, but it does not entirely eliminate room modes and hence there remains characteristic room sound. Some studios are justifiably proud of the sound of their rooms.

In addition to the acoustic characteristics of the room, the room's size, layout, and relationship to other rooms in the studio dictate its appropriateness for specific recording purposes. An orchestra recorded one instrument at a time in a small room is not going to sound at all like an orchestra recorded in Abbey Road Studio 1. Conversely there is a limit as to how small a room can be and hold an orchestra of 100 and a chorus of 120 people. But bigger is not always better: some instruments sound much better in a smaller room than in a symphony hall, and many pop vocalists owe their sound to the effects of singing in a small vocal booth. Thus, the appropriateness of a tracking room is a function of both acoustics and logistics (as the diversity of facilities around the world shows).

There are advantages and disadvantages to having multiple artists in a single acoustic environment (at the same time). The advantages include:

Musicians who are used to playing together tend play better together than separately.
The interaction between instruments often creates a richer, more realistic sound.
Larger rooms holding more musicians tend to sound better than smaller rooms holding just a single musician at a time.

The disadvantages include:

A mistake by any musician can require all the musicians to play the piece again. If one person makes one mistake per take, the work will never be finished.
Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to balance the sound and recording levels of all the different instruments in the room. Drums are loud!
If the producer has an idea for a new drum beat or a new bass line, it is very difficult to extract the original from an integrated recording and replace it with a new one.

Over time, recording studios have evolved to support multiple recording environments that can be used either for their unique acoustic properties or they can be used simultaneously to allow musicians to play together while recording their tracks separately. Often these rooms can be linked visually (either via glass panels or video links), giving musicians real-time cues about who is about to do what. Sometimes they can also be acoustically coupled by not fully closing the door separating them. This acoustic bleed-through can help create a more organic sound while still limiting the damage that one wrong note in one part can do to an overall take.

Another important consideration of acoustic recording is the artist's environment. Musical and artistic performance is never as deterministic as a simple mathematical calculation, and the environment itself (lighting, decorations and materials, ambience, etc.) can have a large effect on whether the performance achieves its potential or not. Some artists work best in isolation, others prefer to work collaboratively. Some artists are able to try, try, and try again, one hundred times if that is what is required. Others will falter and become useless if they are asked to try a take one too many times. The layout of the rooms, as well as the visual and acoustic coupling of the tracking and control rooms play a major role in establishing the vibe of the studio.

The Acoustics section should deal with:

Isolation: NC 10, STC-50, etc.
Absorbtion and Reflection: index of materials and RT-60
Diffusion: why it's a good thing
Discussion of room modes, modal distribution, "ideal" and non-ideal room dimension ratios, early reflections (which is why small drum rooms often suck), parallel vs. non-parallel walls, etc.
The Sabine equation, including predictions and measurements of real studio results

A Mixing section could talk about all sorts of technical details, but they are beyond the scope of a recording studio--they are studio techniques.

--Michael Tiemann (talk) 02:19, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

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