Cyclorama wall accoustics

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pushedbutton
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21 May 2023

I'm looking into ways i can improve our media suite and I was just wondering if anyone had any experience in working with sound in a cyclorama studio.
How are the accoustics? Does it make reflection harder the manage? Do the curved corners help with sound diffusion or just make it more complicated?
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selig
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21 May 2023

I’ve only ever been in a few large scale corner cyclorama studios, and they are not build expressly for sound. ANY large smooth surface will cause reflections which can be a problem in some cases. The curved bits of the studio are not that big in relation to the flat bits, so will contribute little to the overall sound. I guess there may be an edge case where the curved parts can act like a parabolic reflector and focus the sound at a certain point, but this can be avoided by staying away from the edges and especially the corner with sources and mics.

So I would say the curved corners probably do little either way unless you are within a few feet of them with a mic. And this is unlikely since most ‘talant’ will be far from the back wall by design most of the time, correct? Like any large space with smooth flat surfaces, you will need to address overall reverb time and typically want to do so in a broadband manner rather than just absorbing the high frequencies with a few curtains or panels.

How much do acoustics matter, are you recording audio there or just wanting to control the sound for better communication etc?
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pushedbutton
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22 May 2023

Hi Gyles, thanks for the input.
I've been asked to look at improving the acoustics of the whole media area, the walls are paper thin, I really don't know how they got away with recording anything for so long. I would like to keep an eye on the acoustics of the room, make them no worse at least but primarily it would be for video production, using shotgun mics or lapel mics where audio matters. The reason I'm looking at that room is primarily so we can put some sound barriers in between that and next door where I'm hoping to put a decent recording/foley room and then put a vocal booth in a corner of that. I'm just in the process of producing a 3d model of the building so we can visualise it a little easier. Watch this space.
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Using Reason since version 3 and still never finished a song.

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