The Non-Environment control room 417 readily perceived, and any unwanted aspects of the recordings, such as the audible operation of gates, can be dealt with before they become embarrassingly evident to the more discerning members of the record-buying public. 16.4 Limitations, real and imaginary Over the years, a number of criticisms have circulated about the room concept being discussed here. Some of these comments have had substantial grounds to support them, such as the abandonment of the concept of having a `domestic' decay time, but others have been based on misconceived theories. Examples of the latter type are comments such that the lack of modal support will produce rooms that are subjectively lacking in bass, and that an over-dead monitoring acoustic will lead to the excessive use of reverberation when mixing. The lack of modal support would only produce bass-light mixes if the decay time at the middle and high frequencies remained typical of more conventional control rooms. This was the case with some of the control rooms of the 1970s and early '80s, where the excessive use of `bass traps' was incorporated into rooms which still possessed significant decay times at higher frequencies. The Non- Environment rooms, however, are all-trapped, not just bass-trapped. A person who is used to working in a more lively room may initially be unaccustomed to the low decay time, but it is usually rapidly adjusted to, and the clarity and impact that the low frequencies possess is a revelation. If a recording is considered to be sounding too dry, then it is because a dry sound is what is on