Quick Sound Field
Quick Sound Field for Professional and Home Recording Studios
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| The Quick Sound Field is an acoustic space that captures and circulates each sound you make, holding it just long enough so that you get to hear all of it. A very general definition of it is that the QSF is actually a device used to maximize our ability to perceive a sensory experience. The Quick Sound Field consists of arrangements of 8 to 20 StuidoTraps depending on the type of recording. The front half of the Studio Trap is treble range reflective and the back side is treble range absorptive. The entire surface of the Trap is bass range absorptive. This remarkable blend of acoustic properties provides a means to the balanced, broadband control of sound. The Quick Sound Field is a recording technique that uses the traps to sculpt the direct signal reaching the mic. This versatile acoustic tool is great for the modern, digital studio and offers two major recording environments: the typical dead studio sound and the bright but dry Quick Sound Field sound. For the dead sound, rotoate each Trap to face the reflectors outward to get a nearly perfect, boom free, dead space – a quality rarely found even in closed vocal booths. The spaces between the StudiTraps can be tighten or open up to dial in low level room ambience. For a bright but Quick Sound Field sound, rotate the reflectors inward towards the mic to create a bright, rich and transparent sound. Use the mic in a figure 8 or omni setting. The acoustic signal from the talent is captured, reflected and diffused inside the Quick Sound Field zone above 400Hz. Bass to 110 Hz is absorbed by the front side of the StudioTrap while room noise is absorbed by the back side of the StudioTrap. The multiple early reflection pattern from the Quick Sound Field produces a saturation of early reflections, all inside the Haas effect window, which effectively produces acoustical compression. The StudioTraps accommodate almost any microphone placement while the reflectors mask any variation or movement of the script stand or talent. The alternating pattern of absorption, reflection and venting eliminates flutter. Mic boom connector kits for the top of the StudioTraps are especially useful when recording drums. The Quick Sound Field will give you a solid recording every time. A well built studio that has that typical "dead" sound is designed to have absolutely no reflections of sound in the first 1/20th second, this applies to both the control room and the vocal booths. Following this initial short period of absolute silence, known as a "reflection free zone", arrives a quiet, diffusive decay of sound, a backfill that dies away at a rate of 1/2 second. The QSF effect only lasts 1/30th second. Its reflection free zone is about 1/500th of a second, the time it takes for the first reflection to arrive. Then it fills the air around the talent and microphone with a plethora of reflections during the first 1/30th second. Studio Traps are adjustable in height and are usually set up midway between the floor and ceiling, but they can be raised or lowered for different mic positions or line of sight requirements. By setting up the Studio Traps around the talent, iso-booth techniques can be developed to more easily control the sound. In the treble range, the Quick Sound Field eliminates undesirable room reflections while creating a time delayed diffusive back fill, injecting a sense of acoustic presence into the track. The Quick Sound Field was endorsed by Pete Townsend (The Who) in 1987. |
Quick Sound Field Pricing
| Starts at $3,888 |
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Color Options
| Stock Colors (actual colors may vary) | ||||
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 538 Silver Papier |
 408 Black |
 380 Quartz |
 238 Grey Mix |
 298 Medium Grey |
| Special In-Stock Colors and Special Order Colors are also available. | ||||
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Quick Sound Field Accessories
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Carrying & Travel Bag for StudioTraps makes portability a snap. It's also a great way to store your Traps and keep dust and dirt out. Durable 240 oz. black coated cordura nylon fabric and super tough nylon webbing for the handles. It comes with a drawstring at the base to keep the cover from slipping off during transport. $47 ea. |
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Quick Sound Field Technicals
| The standard dry vocal booth has a direct signal spike that lifts out of a low level noise background. Interior reflections and resonances will color the signal and smear the attack transient detail. The direct signal in the Haas effect vocal booth has a 4 ms ETG (Early Time Gap) followed by a statistically diffuse group of early reflections. This statistical ambience produces a bright and openly natural sound at the mic. The sound isolation of any booth should be rated at 30 dB, STC or better. The decay rate of any vocal booth should be RT-60 of 100 ms or better. The quality of the early reflections in the Haas Effect vocal booth is also specified. These must be the specular, coherent type. The diffusion rate is 1000/sec or better with random time offsets while the RT-60 decay rate is 75 to 100 ms. |
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Quick Sound Field Applications
| Quick Acoustics | ||
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The QSF is created by a set of at least 8 StudioTraps that wrap around the talent and mic. There are two sides to each trap, one half is studio live and the other is studio dead. The traditional dead sound of a recording studio is created by rotating the traps so their dead side is facing inward. The ambience of the room disappears. Because room noise is down, you can inch the mic back and up the gain, reaching for that more natural sound at the mic. Unlike vocal booths, the QSF space absorbs and vents bass and there is no bass build up. And then with a quick move, spin the traps around so their bright side is facing inwards and something amazing happens. You have a sound at the mic that is astounding. You no longer hear the ceiling. You no longer hear the script stand. Step the mic back and the level stays the same. The more distant ambience mic track also sounds the same. You now have sound the way nature intended people to hear sound, with lots of very early reflections. The original meaning of the Quick Sound Field is an acoustic space with lots of very early reflections that quickly die out, RT-60 is 1/10 second. And there is no bass build up because this acoustic space both absorbs and vents bass. |
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| Diffusion | ||
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When laying down vocal tracks, the QSF provides a simple solution for eliminating the sound to the room by prediffusing it as it leaves the gobo. Arrange the Studio Traps in a horseshoe pattern (spaced with 6-8 in. gaps) with the reflective sides facing inward to form a bright, "live" acoustic space. Along with external sources, noise in a room also originates with the talent. Sound does leak out between the Studio Traps. Some of this is attenuated by the absorptive half of the trap and the remainder expands laterally due to edge diffraction effects The sound that is leaked to the room has been pre-diffused which eliminates the need for studio poly’s or other types of diffusers. The important feature is that a sound originating from the QSF and hitting parallel walls produces no flutter effect at the mic. The QSF can also be set up near walls with minimal impact. |
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| Dialing Ambience | ||
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Versatility, in the form of controlled multidirectional sound, has made the QSF a standard in acoustic equipment used in professional and home recording studios. By rotating the reflective surfaces of the Studio Traps, the engineer or talent can distribute the sound they need conforming to how the room and equipment are setup. Studio Traps enable minimalist recording. The QSF can be used to increase the presence reflections at the mic from one direction while reducing the intrusion of signals from another. For example, with some of the Studio Traps arranged with the reflective sides facing inward, it will increase the isolation and add brightness to the sound. When placed between the talent and a wall, reflective sides to the wall, the sound is multiply reflected off the wall. This is not reverberation, but it adds a short time delay diffusion tail to the direct signal. The hard wall bounce is removed from one direction, the open space is backfilled in the other. |
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| The Quick Sound Field raises the standard of excellence for microphone work in today’s studio. It is an essential accessory in downtown studios and the only acoustic tool needed in a small studio. When you are working inside the QSF, you almost forget about room acoustics. |
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Quick Sound Field Setups
| Studio Dead: Quiet Space The Quick Sound Field is easy to adjust from a locally bright space (all reflectors inwards) to a locally dead space (all reflectors facing outwards). To replicate studio dead in your own imperfect environment, use "standard spacing," which equals 6 in. air space between each pair of Studio Traps, plus reflectors pointed outward. In this QSF dry space, the nearfield of the mic is very quiet, and the space has that snug quality of an acoustically dead studio. But the studio traps don’t exactly absorb all sound–their rolloff is about 110 Hz. That means they are actually supporting the bottom end of the bass range. |
| Studio Live: Bright Space Take Studio Dead and rotate the reflectors inward, right where they sit, and the sound instantly brightens. But that’s not all: this setup effects a virtual soundproofing on unruly, reverberant rooms. A typical live room can have unwanted reflections from the ceiling, script stands, whatever. With Studio live setup, and all the reflectors pointed inward, these "bad" reflections disappear, lost among the early reflections directed back inward by the QSF. For a more scientific explanation of how and why this works, check out the section later on titled: "A Discussion of Acoustic Space and Time" The basic Studio Live setup is with 6 inches of air space between each pair of traps, and the reflectors dialed inwards to create the QSF bright sound. Changing this spacing is a great place to begin to experiment. |
| Tight Circle (little 8) Try making a smaller circle with the same number 8 traps, so that the traps are spaced closer together. Step into the circle and pull each trap in towards the center 6 inches or so. You’ll need to keep the opening for the talent just about the same size, but the rest of the traps will be almost touching. By moving the traps closer together, more sound is kept inside the QSF and less is allowed to leak out. The strength of the brightness increases. |
| Loose Circle (big 8) Next, try opening the spaces between the traps back up even more than before. Give the traps about 12 in. air space between them, to make a circle about 5 feet in diameter. With this wider spacing, the brightness quality becomes less intense, as more sound leaks out of the central QSF space. Notice too, how the farther apart the traps are positioned, more of the sound of the rest of the room begins to leak into the center of the QSF space. It’s important to have a feeling for the brightness and leakage effects of changing the spacing between the traps. Try using 6 inch spacing, but changing the size and shape of the formation. |
| QSF Mini (circles with traps removed) You can change the size of the circle without changing the spacing of the traps. To go larger it takes more than 8 traps, but you can always pull a trap or two, and then shrink the diameter of the circle, keeping the same 6 inches between the traps. If you pull two traps, this gives you a 3 foot diameter circle. It sounds similar to the standard 4 foot circle but acoustically faster and brighter. Generally, people prefer to work with an 8 trap QSF in a 4 foot circle, but sometimes this smaller circle sounds interesting. |
| Ellipse 1 (In Your Face) Try flattening the circle so that it becomes an oval, or ellipse. Take the traps across from you and move them towards the center. Move the traps on either side of you farther away, out of the circle. Then readjust everything so that the 6 in. air gaps remain, and you’re using 8 traps in a wide, flat circle. Try vocalizing into the space. You hear an "in your face" type of effect. |
| Ellipse 2 (Hallway) Try the ellipse going the other way, too. Return to the basic circle, then move the traps opposite from you away from the center of the circle, and bring the traps to either side in towards the center. You get a hallway effect: a lot of side splash, and very little of the "in your face effect." It’s not as severe as if you were in a real hallway, but the effect is noticeable. The sound in this long ellipse has a brightness due to the closeness of the side traps, and a darkness due to the distance of the front traps. It is the front traps that hear most directly the top end of your voice. |
| Triangle The space in a triangle arrangement lets a little more of the room acoustics leak in than a standard circle, but works pretty well. You start with a wide open space, about 3 1/2 feet, between the first pair of tubes, where the talent stands. Then the next pair are placed about 2 1/2 feet apart. The third pair are set about 1 1/2 feet apart, and the fourth pair, the most distant ones, are set about 6 in. apart. You can adjust the depth and taper of the triangle by changing the spacings and offsets. |
| Angled wall A wall is an interesting reflection to add back into a bright QSF space. A sound we usually do not like is to be vocalizing directly towards a flat wall. The voice bounces right back, and a hollow comb filter effect takes place. Flat wall reflections work a lot better if you feed them into the QSF at an angle to your voice. It helps to visualize walls and reflecting surfaces as if they were made of mirrors–that’s pretty much how sound feels about them. In this arrangement, the wall is located at an angle of about 45 degrees and to the side, ahead of the talent. The traps retain the 6 in. spacing but lead to and from the wall. As long as the wall reflection, as viewed from the talent’s position, contains nothing but QSF traps, you’re in pretty good shape. The sound has a bass-heavy effect, and an openness that almost starts to be a hollowness. |
| Corner The QSF can be built into the intersection of two walls. Talent faces the corner, about 5 feet out, with 3 traps arcing towards each wall, and 2 traps crossing the corner. This is a double-wall version of the arrangement above; instead of the wall reflecting at, or "seeing" traps, it sees the other wall. The sound off each wall crosses over the front of the two corner traps and just comes back at you. It’s something like talking directly into a flat wall, but the effect is different because the two sounds switch sides: what comes out the right side of your mouth enters your left ear. This setup may not be of use to you, but it is definitely an interesting experiment. |
| Flat wall We’ve been talking about vocalizing onto a flat wall, so let’s try it. Set the talent position about 4 feet straight out from a wall. Set up two rows of 4 traps each, starting at the shoulders and ending by leaving a gap at the wall. Leave a gap of exposed wall about 3 feet wide. Try vocalizing into the space. It’s not quite an in-your-face sound, but definitely related. The hardness and fixed time delay of the wall reflection give a brittleness to the sound, and there’s a bass hump present that normally isn’t noticed. |
| Triangle on a Flat Wall Try varying the triangle arrangement by incorporating a wall. This arrangement gives a wide, open sound, and a much quieter room acoustic leak than the basic triangle. Start by placing two traps side by side, about 6 in. in front of the wall. Place the next pair to either side of the two center traps, leaving about 2 feet of exposed wall space on each side. Angle the next two pairs back away from the wall, and towards the talent opening. In this arrangement, the row of traps across from the talent damps the bass-loading of the wall. The presence of the ceiling corner above can be felt, however, especially in low-ceilinged rooms. |
| Reverb Opening Instead of using a wall, try using an opening to get a different effect. Make the QSF circle as usual, but open a gap that vents sound into a reverberant space (like a kitchen nook, a bathroom, or even an empty coat room). You can use the opening to this reverberant space as an acoustic reverb feed. And you can adjust the size of the opening as if it were a volume control on your reverb feed circuit. Experiment with shaping the QSF coupling space that connects your voice to the reverb chamber. Make the long ellipse arrangement, or a straight tunnel, two feet wide. Try a wide-to-narrow taper, where the triangle leads towards the reverb room. |
| Hallway Duet The basic arrangement for duet is to locate both talents at opposite ends of a hallway that is simulated by setting up the StudioTraps along a pair of parallel lines, about 3 feet wide. The reflector Dots are set, facing into the interior of the hallway. One talent stands at one open end of the hall and the other at the other. This creates a mixture of the QSF-Bright effect and acoustically couples one talent to the other. |
| Hourglass Duet Variations on this pattern can be interesting. Move the middle two pairs of traps closer together, so that they are 2 feet apart instead of 3 feet. This pinches down the size of the opening between the two talents. More sound is scattered back towards each end of the hallway, towards the talent who generated the sound. Less sound is carried forward, down the hallway to the talent at the opposite end. This hourglass hallway increases the sense of self presence and reduces the strength of the monitoring of the other talent. It is useful when the focus of the exercise is to concentrate on and develop your own sound while in the presence of the other. |
| Shared QSF Duet Once you get your sound, the opposite arrangement should be tried. Widen the spacing of StudioTraps in the middle of the hallway, making the hallway elliptical or even circular in shaped. This brings the direct sound of the talents closer to each other. It becomes acoustically, more like two people performing together inside a large QSF circle. The sense of two separate spaces, each with a high degree of self presence, being joined together for a regulated amount of cross fill is lost. What is now heard is the more traditional sound of two people performing together but with the added QSF effect to enhance their combined sound. |
| Multiple Acoustic Spaces Sometimes the song calls for two different acoustic spaces to surround and enfold the talent’s voice but the change has to be seamless and fast. The sound of the voice doing one line may be bright and energetic and then, the very next line has to have a dark context. This can be achieved in one take by using two QSF setups in a "W" arrangement. One space is set bright and the other set dark. The two spaces are side by side so that the absorptive back side of the common wall of traps is used to create the dark space next door. A mic is in each space and the talent turns and steps forward into each space as its sound is needed. Don’t stop at the circle: you can setup a dichotomy of live space and dead space using other QSF shapes too. |
| Acoustic Cloud Overhead trapping is ideal for camera and video production settings where you need an invisible mic. A typical boom mic picks up a lot of room sound, including reflections from the walls and ceiling. For one camera talent, one of the most well known voices in the country, these ceiling reflections became a particular problem as the set of his show was moved around the country to shoot on location. The wall sounds remained the same, because they brought their set with them, but the characteristics of the ceiling reflections changed with each venue. The solution was to fly 6 Studio Traps overhead, with the reflectors directed down and the absorbing side up. This way, the ceiling always sounded the same, no matter what warehouse the show was actually shot in. |
| Capturing Natural Rhythm The overhead mic isn’t just for video. One world-famous pop artist records with a mic suspended above a special dance platform surrounded by Studio Traps. With the number and position of the traps carefully dialed in to capture just the right acoustic mix, this one mic cleanly captures not just the sound of his voice, but also an essence of the characteristic dance movements that make up half of his identity as a performer. |
| Recording Sax There’s something almost wonderful about recording a sax playing in the corner of the studio. But try putting one Studio Trap in the corner, with the reflector facing out. The harsh part of the sound goes away, leaving nothing but the good. Now that’s wonderful. |
| Recording Drums The drum room is usually nested into the corner of a studio, with a sliding glass door across the diagonal front. It’s always just a little too small, and the splash off the glass and walls make it hard, even impossible, to get separate tracks on the drum kit. Try adding a set of Studio Traps to the room. The space will be more crowded, but the sound really opens up. Between the extra diffusion from the reflectors, the absorption from the dead side of the traps, and their overall bass-absorbing power, they’re just what the room needs. The drummer can hear what’s going on more clearly, and the engineer gets the separation of mics that he always wanted. |
| Softening Ceiling Bounce A major international recording talent has a QSF and loves it. But in the tiny vocal room of his private studio the ceiling bounce seems to penetrate into the mic. He takes a large patio style vinyl umbrella and turns it upside down. He adds some sound absorption into the top of it and mounts the whole thing directly above his QSF. He softened the ceiling bounce, replacing it with a wave spreading curved surface and it sounds even better than he could imagine. |
| Capturing Room Ambience A fantastic vocalist has discovered her new home practice and recording venue. She already had a well developed home singing environment in the living room and liked the sound of the room. She tried the QSF setup and found it wiped out the ambient sound of the room. She wanted that room sound back plus the QSF effect. So, she now stands directly in the middle of the QSF and puts her mic outside of the QSF. The mic is still 3 ft. away as it always was but now she has fully encircled herself with Studio Traps. If that isn’t enough, she has found hats for each of the Studio Traps and even given them names. It’s all starting to look a little too much like Snow White and the 8 Dwarfs. That’s show biz. |
| Cathedral Reverb Adjustment A flautist performs in a cathedral with an overhead mic. The plan is to get a real-time acoustic mix of the direct and reverberant signals, capturing that cathedral essence on the recorded track. The first recording has complex problems: the reverb is too loud, and the voice of the flute seems too thin. So set up a QSF in a fairly large pattern, about 2 1/2 feet apart. Direct the reflective sides in to increase the aliveness and presence of the flute, and the dead sides face the cathedral, quieting the volume of the reverb. Then you can raise and lower the overhead mic to adjust the ratio of direct-to-reverb until you develop the perfect blend of sound. |
| Upright Piano Fix An upright piano is used in a small room by a pianist preparing for a concert tour. But the dynamic response and intonation of the piano are all wrong, even though it is perfectly tuned. By placing 5 Studio Traps behind the piano, with the reflectors oriented towards the sounding board, the piano regains its sense of dynamic response and intonation. It no longer sounds like a piano in a box, but like one on stage. Then, when the talent moves across the country to the opposite coast, the piano and set of traps go along, making the new practice environment sound just the old, with no need for adjustment. |
| Gobo/Acoustic Mix Two singers work on a duet in a recording studio. Each singer is a powerful, operatic-type singer, and each with their own microphone. To get the kind of sound they want, a close mic setup is not an option. With mics at a distance of one foot, there is way too much bleed-through from one to the other. The solution is to form a wall of Studio Traps between the two talents and their mic positions. The direct sound from each talent to the other’s mic is blocked by a trap, and so is the direct sound between each talent and the other’s ear. Then dial in the reflectors to create a low level but effective cross-fill, with independently adjusted levels appropriate for each mic and talent ear. |
| Recording in the Pit A small but complete orchestra is in a recording session. To back off of one instrument and get a track of the whole section, the engineer needs to pull the mics up out of the orchestra. But as the mic goes higher, and the blend of instruments improves, the unwanted bleed-through of the room increases. So the engineer distributes Studio Traps along the hard-surfaced front wall of the studio, about 1 1/2 feet from the wall, with the reflectors facing forward. The combination of increased diffusion off the front of the traps and absorption at their back side gets the room sound out of the mic for the perfect section blend. |
| Performing in the Pit A small ensemble performs in an orchestra pit so long and narrow they can’t hear each other. There are a number of overhead section mics, but not enough gain before feedback. Moving the mics closer only zeroes in on a particular instrument. Monitor levels are cut back, before feedback comes in, but then members of the band can’t hear one another. So two sets of studio traps are distributed along the hard wall of the pit, just below the edge of the stage, with the absorptive side facing the musicians. Another few pairs are mixed into the sections, with the reflectors set to keep the energy in each section and block the bleed from adjacent sections. Problems solved! |
| Playing with Horn Dynamics The bell of a french horn, unlike most horns, faces back behind the player, rather than towards the audience. In one ensemble, the trombone player finds that whenever the french horn plays in front of him, the sound comes backwards and chokes him right off key–and vice versa. The exponential horn of each instrument is extremely efficient in both the production and collection of sound. With the bells of the two horns facing each other, they "play catch" with the sound power. Solution: place one Studio Trap behind the french horn, in the path between the two instruments, and both musicians are happy. |
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