Acoustic Treatment – A Neccessity Always?

Oh don’t get me started on this topic.  OK, I started it…fair enough.  Let’s just say this is one of those things that is oft-talked about and rarely done, or at least rarely done “correctly.”  I think there is a fair bit of “naked emperor” around this topic, but that’s likely to start a firefight.  Let’s just say it (NOT having any acoustic treatment, that is) didn’t stop me getting any voice over jobs before I had any acoustic treatment in my room

But that is – at least in part – because I know how to squeeze maximum audio quality from a recording. And one thing I always do is record with my mouth close to the microphone to reduce bad room sound – that echo and reverb common when we record in converted bedrooms like most of us.

Then while editing the recording, I pay a freakish amount of attention to detail. Mostly this is in reducing or eliminating every kind of noise there is in the recording, including room echo.

The problem with my way (well, the old way at least) is that it takes forever. It would be so much easier and faster if I didn’t have to fight the room sound. And one of the best ways to do that is to put acoustic treatment – usually sound-absorbing foam – on your walls.

Here is an article talking about this topic. And unlike a lot of articles on audio or acoustics, you don’t need a science degree to understand it.