Studio Monitor and Desk Layout

Choncho

New member
Please help me for I am having trouble firguring out the best position for my monitors and mammoth desk.

The room is roughly 12'x10' with two closet openings. The closet doors have been removed and covered with a floor to ceiling 4" thick 705 OC bass trap wall. All corners of the room have traps . The rear center of my work area has an 8' trap and the sides have 4' traps.
I still need to build first reflection side absorbers to mount on a door and partially cover a window.

My speakers are set to the height of tweeters to my ears and the desk is slightly higher than the port height opening. I am short and sit low comfortably. Making a perfect even triangle I have played with and various mixing positions to make it work.


Question #1:
If the lower openings or ports of my studio monitors are slightly covered or directed to the sides of my desk is that bad or incorrect for their placement?

Question #2:
Does a person include the closet opening with the length of the room for calculated mix position? I am using 38% off the rear wall.

I have a large Output "platform" desk that is 5' wide and have my Pioneer S-DJ08 monitors on stands with prime acoustic foamisolators off to the side. Because the speakers are lower than the top of the desk placing them rear of the desk will deflect the sound off the top of the desk. I think the side placement is best.
 

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I don't know where to begin...

You need to buy a Behringer ECM8000 (60$) or a Superlux ECM999 (the same, but even more affordable, 40$), download REW (room eq wizard, free), learn how to use it and post some graphs here. The audio interface you probably already own will do perfectly.

REW - Room EQ Wizard Room Acoustics Software

To name just a few problems, evident on sight:

- Monitors may be to big for the room. So you just stuffed them in the corners. May sound good, with some work, some EQ.

- Your desk is just under the bass reflex ports. That will produce reflections and bumps in the graph. Without measuring, you won't know what comes from the desk surface.

- You started acoustic treatment without knowing what the problem is. There's a lot of wrong information on the net, about acoustic treatment. And if you have no experience with it, you'll at least get confused by that information. That doesn't lead to knowledge, it only leads to frustration.

I've measured and treated rooms like that. It can be done. But you need to know what you're fighting here...

Especially when your desk is upside down :D
 
The upside down picture is the rear of the desk and not an upside down desk but a temporary work table which is no longer in the room.

I started acoustic treatment knowing I would need corner bass traps as per what I was advised to do from a member of this forum and from what I've learned from Ethan Winer's website.
 
Could I raise the monitors so the bass reflex ports are flush above the desk putting it at a higher height of about an inch from tweeter to my ears?
 
You don't need tweeters exactly at ear height, you actually want the mid-point from speaker to tweeter at ear height...so you can certainly raise them up to clear the desk.

AFA the treatment...for a room that small, it's OK to start with a good amount of broadband trapping, and then see what you have, and add more (possibly focusing mostly on the low -end) after you have the room setup and you can do some tests.
IOW....small rooms generally just need a decent amount without even worrying about measurements. It's not like adding or removing a couple traps is going to have some significant positive effect....so small rooms just need a lot.

AFA as the actual monitor/mixing position...it's kinda hard to see the actual shape of the room from the pictures...but generally speaking, go for the longer side, and go for the symmetry if you can.
Don't let the closets figure too much into things...unless you always have them open...which actually can act as additional trapping assuming the closets are going to be full of stuff.
With small rooms...you're better off forgetting about any "room sound" and just go for a more treated, dead vibe...but not 100% dead. Don't kill the room completely. So a hard floor is a good thing...and maybe some bare wall space would help...or even better add some hard diffusion on top of the traps.

With the ceiling...you may want to add something...a cloud over the mix area...maybe some thing toward the corners...but you can save that for last, after the room is filled up and you have your everything in it's place.
 
Thank you very much Cosmic Cowboy.

To be more clear, the closets are going to be always open since the bifold doors have been removed. One closet is 100% empty and the other has a few jackets hanging up pushed off to the side behind the wall of the corner bass trap.
 
Afterwards

Here is what did. Side wall to side the speakers evenly spaced making a equalateral triangle. I will setup my gear next and get one of those suggested mics for room eq and software later.
 

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