I’ve just read Russ Hughes’ article entitled “Stop Obsessing Over The Sound Of The Room - It Rarely Matters”.

A few years ago I was asked to produce an album for Ultravox. At the time I was working in a large “space” at Sarm West. No acoustic treatment whatsoever with just a pair of NS10s and a sub. Half way through mixing I had to move studios (long and boring story) and ended up where I am now, a magnificent room in the old Battery complex. I love everything about this room but the best it has to offer is the monitoring. I’ve never heard music sound so good. I inherited the system, Dynaudio M4s, built into the walls with acoustic treatment by Andy Munro who designed them. It’s not that they’re flattering, they’re just the best full range monitors I’ve ever heard. The low end is tight and deep, the high end is clear and in no way tiring, and of course the mids and imaging perfect. Oh, and they’re amazing at any volume. I can’t praise the sound enough. Needless to say the room plays a massive part in achieving this.

Back to Ultravox. Once I was settled in I continued mixing and discovered that I was getting the same results in a matter of hours as opposed to days in my old room. I could hear what I was doing so clearly without any translation or guesswork. It felt like the difference between driving a truck and a super aerodynamic car, not that I’ve done either.

Of course one can work in bad sounding rooms. Ditto bad speakers, whatever that means. And of course bad mics, whatever that means. One can get used to anything and I have many examples of having to do just that. Just the other day I was sent a vocal patch the singer had done at home on her phone. I simply accentuated the difference and it worked out really well.

Over the years my ethos, certainly as far as making music is concerned, has been to get the best of everything I can afford and then ignore it. I’m lucky enough to have a great room at home which mirrors my studio gear. I’m constantly striving to make it as good as it can be. Serious acoustic treatment, heavy duty speaker stands mounted on sorbothane, brilliant speakers, and a Trinnov, all connected digitally. Each step has made small but incremental improvements to both my comfort and work speed, ending up giving me a home studio that’s seriously good.

For me the title of the article is flawed. I don’t obsess, I care. It’s not that I disagree, it’s that this reasoning applies to every aspect of our lives. Food, car, partner…. I could go on but you get the point. I appreciate that not everyone can afford to endlessly tweak their system. Both time and money play a massive part. Someone once said “Good is the enemy of great”, and if I’ve learnt anything over the years it’s that we should strive to be great at everything we do, however small the steps.

UPDATE: The title of the original article Steve refers to has been updated to better reflect the intent of the author. Thanks to Steve for raising his concerns about the title and contributing such an excellent follow up article.