Knottwire.com: What are the benefits of acoustic products?

Gavin Haverstick: The benefit of acoustical treatment is that it makes the room more accurate. If you have a typical recording studio-size room, a lot of the time, the low frequencies are all over the place as far as the level is concerned. So, if you do a test of a smaller room, and you get a frequency response, there are going to be dips and peaks throughout the entire frequency-range, and when you’re mixing, you’re mixing based on that frequency response of the room – not necessarily what you’ve recorded already.
So, what you could end up doing is cutting out a lot of low frequencies because there is a ‘boost’ in your room, and so you’re trying to calm it down. Then you cut ‘em out, cut ‘em out, and when you go to your car and play a mix, you don’t have any low-frequency information because you’ve altered it based on what the room has there.

Dave Paxton: Equipment is built today to try to be as accurate as possible. You can digitally pull in and manipulate audio with much greater effect afterwards, but the problem is still the environment around – and you’re still listening analog in two ears. So, how the environment affects the sound that you are listening to affects how you’re mixing it, or even if you’re just an end-user, how you’re actually enjoying the music that’s being created.

Knottwire.com: When your company provides Room Analysis … does some one actually do a Room Analysis in person?

Gavin Haverstick: It kind of depends on what the project is and what the needs are. I would say that ninety-five percent of the rooms that we work on were not physically going to be in the room, because we have a free Room Analysis service where people send us blueprints, diagrams and information about the room, and we’re able to successfully model that space and figure out what the problems are and come up with a solution.

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