(term) Acoustics

Discussion in 'Glossary of Terms' started by Jeemy, Apr 20, 2010.

  1. Jeemy

    Jeemy Well-Known Member

    Sep 19, 2003
    The sound characteristics (or ambience) of a particular environment. For example, the term 'live acoustics" would be used to describe a room in which the sound waves reverberate off the walls and ceiling, while "dead acoustics" would describe a room in which the sound waves are absorbed by the surroundings.

    Acoustics in Recording

    When referring to Acoustics in terms of recording, there are 3 major areas.

    Sound Treatment of a Listening Room

    A control room, mastering suite or other listening room requires treatment to ensure a balanced response across all frequencies. Primarily this is done by reducing bass buildup, inaccurate frequency response due to standing waves, flutter echoes and early reflections.

    Sound Treatment of a Recording or "Live" Room

    A room in which you record instruments also requires treatment in the same way as a control room to reduce most of these types of acoustic inaccuracy. However dependent upon the size of the room, you may wish to encourage some reflections to provide a more "live" sound - hence the term "live room".

    Isolation of Recording Areas

    To enable objective analysis of monitored sound, to prevent unwanted spill into microphones and just to plain not annoy your neighbors, the third topic that is discussed in pro audio acoustics is simply isolating one area from another so the sound cannot be heard in another room, or so that you can have multiple instruments recording in your live room without bleed into other microphones.


    This article is a stub and discussion of the principles behind audio transmission, standing waves and sound trapping will be written to go here.

    Myths and Methods

    This article is a stub and while some expansion is necessary, the 3 topics above should be developed into 3 separate articles.

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