Moving to smaller room - Reducing size of corner traps?

Nate74

Nate74

HR4FREBR
I had the good fortune of having a 13'x16' room for quite a while for my home studio. I built 2'x4'x4" Roxul based corner traps and 18"x4'x4" traps to put on the angles between the walls and ceiling. I also had some 2" thick wall hangers of various sizes around the room. I really learned the room and was very pleased with the mixes I achieved with that setup.

BUT times change and it looks like my new room will be smaller; about 10'x11'. I'm going to try to downsize my setup so I can get by with a smaller desk and try to store more stuff in the closet than on shelves in the room, but I realize that I'll lose a lot of space with 2' wide traps in the corners.

SO my question: if I rebuild the corner traps to be 1'x4'x4", would they still have a positive effect? It would greatly help the room feel "less small" if I reduced the amount of space taken up by traps, but of course I realize there will be a trade off. But does a 1' wide corner trap do enough to be worth while?

Thanks!
 
I wonder about that - less space behind the trap means less reflection area that also helps trap bass. Never seen anyone suggest narrower traps. Now that you are dealing with an 'almost square' room, I wouldn't think you would want to lower the area of your trapping surfaces.
 
mjbphotos said:
I wonder about that - less space behind the trap means less reflection area that also helps trap bass. Never seen anyone suggest narrower traps. Now that you are dealing with an 'almost square' room, I wouldn't think you would want to lower the area of your trapping surfaces.
Click to expand...

That's a good point. I wonder about puting the desk into a corner orientation and putting a 2' wide trap on the opposite corner and then using smaller traps in the other two corners. I guess I can do the same sort of frequency analysis on the listening position I did in my last room and then try different configurations. I see some 1' round corner traps available in some place so I'm hopefull I won't have to go with the "big" traps and can get away with smaller versions....
 
Typically any corner of any room (no matter the size) is pretty much useless for anything other than bass traps or storage. Not sure how the bass traps you have are taking up much space. Looking at mine now and wondering what else I would do with the spot. It really doesn't consume much of the room. Best to keep your bass traps the same size man.

A corner setup is likely the worst thing you could do. The goal is to get as far away from corners as possible. Stick your head in one. That will tell you why we place bass traps there.
 
Check. Corner setup = no good. I guess I'll have to wait and see once I get into the new room, but even in my old room, all those traps always made the room seem smaller.

Interestingly, my wife suggested taking the black burlap off and re-wrapping them all with a lighter color. Could it be that my perception of the room seeming smaller could be optical in nature and not physical? If she turns out to be right, I won't hear the end of it for a while... ;)
 
Black will always make a room look smaller, so she's right. I used off-white for ceiling cloud traps and celery green for my wall/corner traps.
 
mjbphotos said:
Black will always make a room look smaller, so she's right. I used off-white for ceiling cloud traps and celery green for my wall/corner traps.
Click to expand...

Man... if I have to tell her she's right... I also guess painting the room a lighter color might be a good idea.
 
There's a reason why Black in the most popular colour for a woman to wear and the wife will know it! :thumbs up:

From personal experience, in an untreated 9'x9'x9' box room (treatment soon to be remedied), a small room is not all that bad if you know your system well and how music translates. You may have to do quite a bit of listen at various volumes to get your ears in gear.
 
My room's 11'x10'x7.5', filled with stuff plus my bass traps, so like Mr Clean said, you can make it work by learning it.
 
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