This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars and I'm sitting in a tiny little room with this microphone right up to my mouth so that the sound of my voice is transmitted directly from me to you.

There's no sense of the room that I'm in. When I stop speaking, the sound

stops. There is no reverberation, no reverb.

Roman and I are both talking in rooms outfitted specially for recording.

Rooms that sound good.

That's producer Avery Truffelman.

Because if I step outside this tiny completely padded studio.

Okay, it's still quiet because I'm inside,

but I'm gonna walk around a little bit

so you can hear the architecture around me. You can tell now that I'm in a bathroom, or you can

tell if I enter the stairwell outside our office. And if you're not listening in headphones, my

voice is bouncing around your car or whatever room

you're in.

Whatever you're hearing, sound is affected by the architecture.

There are two main ways to control the sound in a building, active acoustics and passive acoustics.

Passive acoustics are the materials in a space, like the padding in the studio room.

Carpeting and drapes are also

absorptive materials that soak up sound.

Glass and porcelain, on the other hand,

create more reverb.

Essentially, if it's shiny, it's going to be reflective is an easy way to interpret that

This is Ashley Hansen. My name is Ashley Hansen. I'm the design services manager at Meyersound

...