Bedroom Studio Help

[Professionality]

I've finished my makeshift bedroom studio for the most part. All I need to do is place my sound dampening foam. I ordered twelve 2'x2'x4" squares, eight 2'x5"x5" corner blocks, and a heavy 8'x7' acoustic dampening sheet. Based on the pictures, how should I place my stuff?





I'm taking that TV down too. Anyway, thanks for any responses.

 

[RecordingMaster]

You're going to want to read up on some basic acoustics setup procedures. There is at least one new post per day on here about that, so if you use the search function (or just use google) you'll get tons of info.

I'm no acoustician, but what most will tell you is:
- start with trying to cover as much of the wall behind your computer as possible, including that nice window unfortunately
- Treat the side walls (to your right and left of your mix position)
^^ What you've done so far here is treated the early reflections^^
- Something to note is you probably don't need to put any treatment lower than 2-3 feet up the wall
- Put 2 bass aborbers stacked on top of each each in each corner. Above your door, you can place them in the corner horizontally, butted up to each other, one on each wall. Spacing them an inch or two apart will increase surface area and absorb more. Please note your "bass" absorbers won't absorb much of the important low frequencies that you actually should be aborbing. They'll likely just aborb more mid-high frequencies.
- I'd treat the back of your door and shut it when mixing. And even your closet mirrors if you can find a good way to put foam (or whatever) without wrecking the mirror. If that's not an option, the leaving the clodet door open like in the pic would be better than closed, since you can at least hope some of your clothes will act as a pseudo absorber and the other stuff in there might hopefully diffuse a bit. You generally want a combo of diffusion and absorption on the back wall, but with a small room like this, you'd be better off just having more absorption. Although over absorbing all the high frequencies and not any low ones, will just make your room sound dead and boomy, probably resulting in you reducing the bass in your mix and increasing the treble, which won't translate well elsewhere.
- Another note, is you probably want to make or buy some fiberglass panels instead (or in addition). Make sure you read up on the best type usually OC 703 or 705) and how thick depending on what frequencies you want to absorb. Although at least you didn't get the 1 or 2" foam. The thicker and denser the foam, the more low end it will capture.
- Eventually you'll maybe want a cloud above the mix position. Google "make your own acoustic ceiling cloud" or something similar.
- Also make or buy a mic isolator. Go on youtube and search "$10 Mic Gobo". Good vid and it works. I made one.
- As for your monitors, put them on a riser of some sort to get the tweeters at your ear-level. Under the speakers you'll want to de-couple them. You can do this by using some of your foam or google Auralex Mopads or Primacoustic Recoil Stabilizer and buy some of those

Best of luck.

 

[Professionality]

You're going to want to read up on some basic acoustics setup procedures. There is at least one new post per day on here about that, so if you use the search function (or just use google) you'll get tons of info.

I'm no acoustician, but what most will tell you is:
- start with trying to cover as much of the wall behind your computer as possible, including that nice window unfortunately
- Treat the side walls (to your right and left of your mix position)
^^ What you've done so far here is treated the early reflections^^
- Something to note is you probably don't need to put any treatment lower than 2-3 feet up the wall
- Put 2 bass aborbers stacked on top of each each in each corner. Above your door, you can place them in the corner horizontally, butted up to each other, one on each wall. Spacing them an inch or two apart will increase surface area and absorb more. Please note your "bass" absorbers won't absorb much of the important low frequencies that you actually should be aborbing. They'll likely just aborb more mid-high frequencies.
- I'd treat the back of your door and shut it when mixing. And even your closet mirrors if you can find a good way to put foam (or whatever) without wrecking the mirror. If that's not an option, the leaving the clodet door open like in the pic would be better than closed, since you can at least hope some of your clothes will act as a pseudo absorber and the other stuff in there might hopefully diffuse a bit. You generally want a combo of diffusion and absorption on the back wall, but with a small room like this, you'd be better off just having more absorption. Although over absorbing all the high frequencies and not any low ones, will just make your room sound dead and boomy, probably resulting in you reducing the bass in your mix and increasing the treble, which won't translate well elsewhere.
- Another note, is you probably want to make or buy some fiberglass panels instead (or in addition). Make sure you read up on the best type usually OC 703 or 705) and how thick depending on what frequencies you want to absorb. Although at least you didn't get the 1 or 2" foam. The thicker and denser the foam, the more low end it will capture.
- Eventually you'll maybe want a cloud above the mix position. Google "make your own acoustic ceiling cloud" or something similar.
- Also make or buy a mic isolator. Go on youtube and search "$10 Mic Gobo". Good vid and it works. I made one.
- As for your monitors, put them on a riser of some sort to get the tweeters at your ear-level. Under the speakers you'll want to de-couple them. You can do this by using some of your foam or google Auralex Mopads or Primacoustic Recoil Stabilizer and buy some of those

Best of luck.

Thanks for the info! I'll try to do the best I can with what little I was able to purchase. I have read all about the 703-705 stuff, I'm just broke and it's a bit out of my price range to build that stuff. I do plan to put the tweeters at ear-level and I also ordered MoPads along with all of my dampening stuff.

Do you think I'll need to put foam all the way along my side walls, or just where the early reflections will be coming from? As I said earlier, I only have twelve squares so I need to make the most out of where I place them. Same goes for the eight corner blocks. I'll definitely get more when I can afford it, this is all I can get for a while though and I need to make it work.

Thanks again for the great response, lots of good info and helped me tons.

 

[Pahtcub]

For the back wall use take both mirror panels off and fill your closet with clothes. position your monitors more centered on the room and move them away from the wall, up to ear level while mixing and possibly off the desk and yes that window has to be covered.

 

[RecordingMaster]

Thanks for the info! I'll try to do the best I can with what little I was able to purchase. I have read all about the 703-705 stuff, I'm just broke and it's a bit out of my price range to build that stuff. I do plan to put the tweeters at ear-level and I also ordered MoPads along with all of my dampening stuff.

Do you think I'll need to put foam all the way along my side walls, or just where the early reflections will be coming from? As I said earlier, I only have twelve squares so I need to make the most out of where I place them. Same goes for the eight corner blocks. I'll definitely get more when I can afford it, this is all I can get for a while though and I need to make it work.

Thanks again for the great response, lots of good info and helped me tons.

No, not necessary all over the side walls, just early reflections (although it would be great if you had enough material to do so). Look at some "home studio control room" pics online and you'll see what i mean. You say you bought an "acoustic damping sheet"? Well if it is 8x7, you could hang it on your front wall (the wall you're facing). It'll probably only dampen high-mid to high frequencies, but it's better than nothing. It will eliminate SOME early reflections bouncing off that wall. Then place 6 of your squares in two columns of three on either side of your ears. Try alternating the direction the wedges flow (if you bought the wedge type) and leave a 1-2" gap in between each one. Space them evenly (use a spacer for measuring) so it looks crisp and clean. The spaces will provide some mild pseudo-diffusion and allow the squares to cover more square footage of the wall, thus treating a larger portion of the reflections off the side walls.

As for your corner blocks, if you MUST go the foam route, get the largest ones you can. In my live room, I use the 12" foam "bass traps" (but they are 2 feet high each). They are a lower-priced knock off of the Auralex LENRD bass traps, but have the same ratings, etc.

All that plus what Pahtcub said!

Have fun and post some follow pics.