Official Luthiers Forum!

How many of you judge the quality of your newly built guitar's sound based on a room that colors the sound the least? I was just reading about how mastering engineers work in such a room. But given that most of our guitars will never be played in such a room is that really such a good room to go off of? My cheap Ibanez sounds like pure gold when I play in the laundry room and terrible everywhere else.

The main reason why ME work in the most neutral rooms possible - mostly in the pop/rock context - is that they want their mixes to be heard in the widest range of systems / environments combo possible and to translate well to these, so neutrality gives a kind of usable middle ground. If they were mastering for your laundry room only, they would use your laundry room (if you would be so kind to let them) - laundry rooms tend to emphasise the early reflections of the reverb.
There are other reasons, of course - it´s easier to judge and fine tune the amount and quality of effects, such as a surgical EQ cut or the amount of reverb present in the final mix in a dry environment; it´s mandatory to mitigate the effect of room modes on the low frequency content of mixes; engineers are already used to neutral rooms;... - but i believe translatability is the main reason and the later ones are not of much interest to the average guitar builder anyway.

That said, one should never forget that one ears the room as well as the intended sound (say, a guitar), as there are no neutral rooms (except for anechoic chambers) in this world. So the best thing is to KNOW your room and how it sounds.

cheers,
miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

If you really want neutral go outside away from the reflections off walls.

I agree. That is the most practical approach. Otherwise, any room I have access to has its own sound reflecting color.

Since I play guitar mainly in one area of my home, I am most familiar with the sound there. It is easier for me to make A-B comparisons of guitars there in that room (with the same set of new strings on each and minimal, if any, noise) than any other room. Otherwise, I need to go outdoors. Comparing guitars in a music store or convention hall or _____ room, typically with different age and type strings and noisy surroundings, is nearly impossible for me. (Frankly, I think is it not very practical for accurate comparisons for most people, but that is a different discussion.)

Ed