by Tom Nelson
You may already have a video or audio studio set up in your home. Perhaps you used some of the equipment and suggestions from last week’s Rocket Yard Guide: Road to NAB 2018: A Guide to Mac Home Video/Audio Studio Gear.
You may also want to check out some related Rocket Yard Guides:
- Road to NAB 2018: Getting Started with Audio Podcasting
- Road to NAB 2018 Easy, Inexpensive Screencasting with QuickTime Player
As we mentioned in the previous guide, we’re going to expand on the topic, taking a look at ways of improving your video/audio studio to make it more versatile, and generally improve the overall quality of the content you can produce in your home studio.
Turn an iPad into a excellent teleprompter by adding a stand and holder.
Acoustic Treatment
One of the first upgrades that can really improve the sound of any home studio is to add acoustic treatment to reduce reverberation and improve the quality of the sound you’ll be recording. But don’t think this applies only to those of you with a recording studio; you may be surprised to learn that not only will acoustic treatment make your videos sound better, but it can help make them look better, too. We’ll get back to that last point in a bit, so let’s get started with fixing the sound in your studio.
One of the sound problems we want to attack is reverberation. This occurs as sound bounces off the floor, walls, and ceiling. If there are enough reflective surfaces, sound can build up a reverberation effect that can be distracting, and muddy the sound quality of your project. There are various methods to combat reverberation, from basic to expensive; which you use is up to you, but in many cases, the basic options work pretty well and are a good place to begin.
Bass traps come in many configurations, from triangular-shaped acoustic foam with large fins, to stuffed, open-sided boxes. Credit: Powerjoe CC BY-SA 4.0
Add Some Carpeting
The floor in your studio space is one of the prime surfaces for reflection, and if the floor is wood, any of the resilient floor coverings, or concrete, you probably will need to add acoustic treatment to the floor to reduce the strength of any sound reflection. This can be accomplished using any material that can absorb the sound and/or scatter the sound away from parallel planes, such as the ceiling.
Carpeting is one of the easiest and least expensive ways of treating a floor surface. It can also help fix a common lighting problem that plagues studios with wood or colored flooring material, the casting of an unwanted color tone onto subjects, props, and backdrops. Pick a carpet in a neutral color, and you’ll help both the audio and video quality of your projects.
Comfy Chairs
Those hard-surface stools and chairs you find at the local office store may be inexpensive, but they can compound sound reflection issues you may be having. Try using plush comfy chairs and couches in the studio, when you can. Once again, keep the colors neutral, unless they’re being used for props with a specific color requirement.
Wall Panels
Acoustic wall panels, available as foam panels, usually in an egg crate design, are a common sound treatment for absorbing mid- to high-frequency sounds. They can help reduce reverberation within their frequency range, and since that range covers the human voice, they’re ideal to help tame voices with a more strident sound quality.
You can also make wall panels from drapes, and even leftover carpet, but this type of treatment is for general use and doesn’t help specifically with voice quality.
Bass Traps
The last treatment to consider is bass traps, which are similar to the wall panels we mentioned. They’re made of foam, but are thicker than foam panels, and have irregular sets of fins instead of the uniform egg crate shape. Bass traps absorb the lower frequencies, and can help reduce reflections and reverb from bass instruments, and noise from some equipment common in the studio.
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