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With equipment aspects aside, there are more factors that affect the performance of your music software. This includes the environment that you record your music in, and ultimately your own skills in tracking, mixing and mastering your music. One of the most daunting elements that can affect your recording is acoustics. Room acoustics are definitely one of the key deciding factors in determining how your music will sound while recording. There are two key things that greatly influence the quality of your recording:
• Leakage: how much sound leaves the studio and how much sound comes into the studio. If you are recording in a family house, the main leakage suspects are the doors and windows, if the doors are not solid wood or metal, then it is possible that a lot of leakage is present; affecting how much sound is actually being recorded. Also if the windows are not properly glazed, then lots of sound will leave through the windows. The sound coming into the studio would be from people walking on the floor, radiators, fans etc. Anything that makes some kind of frequency reading is bound to be recorded into the track and becomes external sound; you must accommodate this and eliminate as many possible external sounds as you can before recording.
• Reflections: the aspects of reverb and echo. Sound waves bounce off walls, floor and ceilings and go straight back into the microphone – not good for your recording as it is unnecessary reflection. While recording, you want clear and focused sound, not echoes that are out of time with your recording. To tackle this problem, “moving blankets” are popular to treat this, or even putting mattresses to the walls works very well too. Having a square room is not helpful because sound is easily reflected, so make sure you put your materials at angles to help eliminate this.
