Need help about Acoustic Treatment (Foam)

A

Anders_Ong

New member
Hey guys,

I am planning on setting up a workspace for mixing/mastering in a square room. I centered my listening position and it's pretty straightforward considering it being a square. It is a pretty small room, 8' X 8'. (it is probably far from optimal?)

I am not quite sure what kind of foam to get and where to put them in order to optimize my monitoring. Please advise on the basic guidelines of choosing foam and positions that needs to be treated.

Also, what do you guys do to treat windows and doors?

Thanks a lot!!
 
Centered - In a square - is so far from "optimal" that it honestly can't get much worse. And foam is the last thing you need -- really, foam is almost always the last thing you need -- It's a "touch-up" for high end issues once the low end is under control.

You might want to hit the "search" but you'll find that you're looking for about as much broadband absorption as you can fit in there (my usual "starting point' in just about any room is a dozen 2'x4'x4" 703/Roxul-based panels -- In a square, maybe 16 instead).
 
Massive Master said:
Centered - In a square - is so far from "optimal" that it honestly can't get much worse. And foam is the last thing you need -- really, foam is almost always the last thing you need -- It's a "touch-up" for high end issues once the low end is under control.

You might want to hit the "search" but you'll find that you're looking for about as much broadband absorption as you can fit in there (my usual "starting point' in just about any room is a dozen 2'x4'x4" 703/Roxul-based panels -- In a square, maybe 16 instead).
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply! I was under the impression that the listening position should be centered so that the sound comes in right on both sides. So i guess i am totally off track? Where do you suggest the listening position to be?

Or what are the things i need to take note when deciding on the placement?

Thanks again.
 
No, typically 1/3 ish from center of the length of a room is ideal, but that really depends on the size of the room. Listening position should be centered between the short length.

You have essentially, the worst case scenario for a room to find good acoustics in. Don't be afraid tho, you can work with it. As MM said above, you need to treat the hell out of your corners first. This does not mean you need to sell one of your kidneys. There are many threads here about the subject. I would link you to some, but I am having movie night with my family. Come back here later, and I will help further, if you haven't found the info yourself. :)

I had to come back just to tell you that foam is never the answer to anything. Do not go out and buy foam!!!
 
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Centered left to right, sure. Centered front to back, no.

The problem here (other than being in a square, which is just a really bad place to start) is that the theoretical *best* and "flattest" part of the room is less than one foot from the theoretical *worst* part of the room.

I was in a 10x11 space for a short time (a time I don't ever, EVER want to repeat) while my current space was under construction -- The "sweet spot" in the room was six inches away from a null point of 40dB. Forty decibels at a particular frequency was gone six inches away from where it was built-up around 6dB. And that was just one frequency. The peaks and nulls in that room were staggering.

I put 18 broadband traps in that space and it helped - quite a bit - although it was still in the "unacceptable" category by a longshot.

Your "sweet spot" is (again, theoretically) 3.04' from the wall. Granted, you can put your head 3.04 feet from the rear wall also (which is probably a good idea unless you want to have your monitors so close to your ears that they may as well be headphones). The *worst* spot in the room would be at 4'. If you're in a cube (8x8x8) your problems are magnified once again.

Foam is going to be your worst enemy in that space -- Actually, it's pretty much your worst enemy in *any* space that doesn't have the low end under control. And the amount of trapping you're going to need in that space isn't going to leave much room for -- you, for that matter.

THAT SAID, I'm talking about making a space that's actually acoustically viable -- A lot of people don't care that much and that's fine -- But keep in mind the two "rules" of recording:

(1) No matter your gear, years of experience and critical listening skills, you will only ever hear anything as accurately and consistently as your monitoring chain can reproduce it and therefore allow you to hear it.

(2) No matter how accurate and consistent your monitoring chain, it will only ever be as accurate and consistent as the space allows it to be.

I'd start reading up at RealTraps and GIKAcoustics -- Although I don't think they quite 'drive home' how bad a square space (especially a really small square space) can really be, there's a lot of info on both sites that will certainly help, assuming you follow the guidelines.

If it helps at all, what I wound up doing in my case was stacking panels (mostly GIK 244's at the time) floor-to-ceiling in all four corners, one in each high-side corner, 2 vertical front ('outside'), 2 vertical rear ('inside') and one each horizontal side first reflection point.

And again -- All that did was turn a complete acoustical nightmare into less of an acoustical nightmare. It made the peaks and nulls "less peaky and nullish" and widened the sweet spot quite a bit. I still had to keep my head nearly perfectly still to make adjustments, but it made the sweet spot "more learnable" (for lack of a better term).

Still, the longest and hardest few months of my career... An exceptionally decent monitoring chain and freakishly careful placement made it almost tolerable - but it was the coffee that really made it happen.
 
8X8 cube? :facepalm: Defining this as the worst set up is the "worst" word of definition I could come up with. Just let me simplify this post from Massive for you Anders. First off Massive is correct about your "cube of hell". Reason why? You have no space for the bass and or sound to diffuse "naturally". Ex. You ever yell in the bathroom "Hear your self and all the reverberations" thats whats you get (on a smaller scale) when you mix in a cube such as an 8X8. The target is not to allow sound to bounce right back to your ears instantaneously. Larger rooms and "longer rooms" allow the sound to travel further distances before returning back to listener allowing for the reflected sound to be less intense if that makes more since. So a 8X12 room or a 10X16 would be more "ideal" not perfect just better suited. No square or rectangular room is suited for sound as Massive mentioned its terrible for sound (member the bathroom). More obstructed room designs would be more suitable for sound but most rooms or constructed in a square format so you have to work the best you can in your environment. So basically think of your cubed room as a bathroom and your goal would be to stop all sound reflection in every area you can in that room. Acoustic panels my friend and lots of them. 70-80% of that cubed room would have to be treated to better you're mixing environment. My advice if you cant treat that room 100% then find another room PLEASE!
 
Just to explain a lil further why a larger/longer room would be better and setup. Say the 10X16 room I mentioned you would set you on the short wall "the 10 side". So your monitors would be placed on either side of the short wall so the monitors could face down the long way of the room, so when played the sound would travel down the long way of the room allowing for the reflection to be less intense. That distance gives the bass more time to diffuse a little before reflecting back. If you place your monitors on the LONG wall "16 side" the sound would hit the wall directly behind you so fast the reflections would give you an inaccurate reading on your mix especially your bass responses. You would get that feeling of sound building up in your room.
 
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Wow, i really learnt a lot just by reading these posts.

Guess i was set on a very wrong direction from the start. (Need to learn a lot!)

Fortunately i was just planning to and didn't execute anything. Thanks guys, appreciate these a lot!
 
I will agree with the other posters here. That is a very small room, and it has cubed dimensions - the worst for acoustics!

Note that the 38% rule usually helps in larger rooms, but in smaller rooms it is much harder to find the best spot for listening. First things first, I would definitely try many positions of speakers & listener to try to find the most even response. A lot of times in small rooms we see speakers completely butted up against your front wall to be the best bet...but that would also differ per monitors used as well, I'm sure. I would experiment a lot with it - at least that part won't cost you any money - only time.

You can also measure your room with a program like REW to see what problems you will need to fight off the most, and you can also use the program to find the best listening position. You can also find out the best places to treat bass buildup in your rooms using the signal generator in REW (say if 80Hz was really boomy in your room, you could play a sine wave at 80Hz and find where its the loudest, and treat it at those areas). Or you can use other sounds like pink noise to find the best places to treat.

You can check out our video we did on how to install and use REW here:
Room EQ Wizard Tutorial Video

And we also just made a brand new video covering how to identify bass trapping hotspots in a room:
Video: Testing Bass Trap Placement

Our acoustics primer on our website (in the education section) also has tons of info to get you started on acoustic treatment. Best of luck with your room!
 
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