How important is room treatment for modern pop/rap vocals? Juice WRLD AirBnb Example
Hi everyone, I'm a pop vocalist and I've been going down a rabbit hole of acoustic treatment for home recording and started questioning how much it matters after coming across something interesting.
Juice WRLD's personal videographer Chris Long posts full sessions of him recording vocals in what appears to be random Airbnb bedrooms. These are completely untreated rooms, no panels, no booth, nothing. The mics being used are U87s and other condensers that from my understanding are some of the most sensitive and detailed condensers you can get, meaning they would pick up every flaw in the room.
And yet the songs recorded this way ended up being polished-sounding radio hits with billions of streams and sound completely professional.
Example Images: https://imgur.com/a/5TMh6e3
My current understanding of why this works:
- He's recording extremely close to the mic (2-4 inches), so the direct signal massively overpowers any room reflections
- Pop and rap vocals are heavily processed in the mix anyway which masks subtle room character
- A skilled mix engineer can deal with whatever room tone makes it into the recording
For context: I record pop and melodic rap vocals myself on an SM7B, which I purchased to replace my AT-2035 condenser due to its reputation of working in poor recording environments. However, I strongly dislike both the sound profile of the mic with my voice, and the amount of work it takes to get a good bright sound out of it. As much as I'd like to permanently treat a room, I move around between locations constantly due to my career so I'm always recording in various rooms.
I've looked into easy options such as desktop reflection filters, kaotica eyeballs, blanket forts, etc, but from my research I've heard extremely mixed opinions on these types of treatments.
I'm curious what experienced engineers and producers actually think about this. How important is room treatment for this genre? And is close mic technique really doing most of the heavy lifting in situations like AirBnb sessions?