How I Record_Part 2 Large vs. Small sets

Room size is more than a setting on your digital reverb. Room size is directly related to an individual’s comfort level.

Robert Lang Studios ...Seattle, WA

We all have a restriction zone surrounding us. We call it our personal space. Most people feel it is X radiating symmetrically from their body beginning at or below the ground up to infinity. It involves all of their senses.

It is difficult to say exactly what we all think “good” is, but it is not difficult to predict what we all “dislike”. Being confined to a restrictive space is something most of us can agree is unpleasant. For capturing sound, the space surrounding the performer can be an engineering nightmare. Too small a space is too dead and too big is too boomy (live).
London Bridge Studio ...Seattle

On the human side, generally speaking, bigger spaces feel better. A recording engineer’s job is to capture human performances. The challenging part is: On a technical level it is easier to add space to a dead sound than it is to remove space from a live one. 
There are tools that will de-gushy a gushy (live, boomy) recording. They de-reverb but they do add an artifact to the sound they're processing. That artifact affects the natural resonance of lingering harmonics in music production. It can go unnoticed when used tenderly on individual components (parts).
It is easier to add reverb in a mix than it is to take it away.

Paradise Sound ...Index WA.

Big open acoustically controlled isolated spaces devoted to capturing music are fading fast. It takes real-estate and that is expensive. There are still a few of these brave businesspeople around who struggle with the economic logic of maintaining a space specifically designed for a performers comfort in body, soul and sound. They more than understand the magic of a large setting over a smaller one.
These masters of acoustic fortresses more than know its cost but when they see and hear the magic come to life as their client’s gather and perform (the unicorn appears) ...they know it's more than worth it.
Next up_ Recording Rhythm Tracks

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