What the hell is wrong with my room?

P

pearldrum944

New member
So I just moved into a new apartment and am having some FUNKY stuff happening in my control room (bedroom). Basically when I am listening with my monitors it sounds like someone is turning the volume knob on my vocal track up and down. All I have recorded is a vocal track over a karaoke song to test sounds. On headphones together the tracks sound fine, individually both tracks on my monitors sound fine, but when they are played together through the monitors it sounds like the vocals go up and down in volume. The walls are pretty bare...but still...I would have thought that would just cause bassey/echoey sounds. What am I hearing? I am in a rectangle room against one of the shorter walls 12'x15' 8' ceilings.
 
Try reversing the polarity on just ONE of your monitors - sounds like a possible phase problem... Steve
 
Hmm...Flipping the phase of one of the speakers did not change the effect on the vocal track any, it still moves up and down in volume. I don't get what is going on here, it does not do it as badly on other projects, but playing music on my monitors sounds a little funky as well, vocals seem softer, etc...
 
do you have certain pitches that are consistently louder? it could be that some frequencies are getting amplified because the nodes are at the walls...
 
Well, It looks like it was a bass/reflection on the rear wall problem.... I took the mattress and set it against the rear wall, Instantly removing almost all appearances of the volume going up and down. I need some more treatment for the first reflection sites...I may just flip the mattress up when I need to do mixing though.
 
pearldrum944 said:
Well, It looks like it was a bass/reflection on the rear wall problem.... I took the mattress and set it against the rear wall, Instantly removing almost all appearances of the volume going up and down. I need some more treatment for the first reflection sites...I may just flip the mattress up when I need to do mixing though.
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Wait, hang on. The bass reflections on the rear wall were making the volume appear to go up and down?
 
I know, its crazy sounding...but its happening. Anyone want to come over and hear it? I don't know what was going on, it shouldn't be a node/anti-node problem because the amplitude was changing, also, it could be heard from all over the room. With the mattress flipped up at the rear you can only hear the apparent amplitude change a tiny bit...I'm lost, I've never heard of anything like this. I'm siding with Nashbackslash....ghosts.
 
pearldrum944 said:
I know, its crazy sounding...but its happening.
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I'm not doubting you. I am totally ignorant in this field, and I just took a bunch of foam off of my ceiling and a couple of walls, and I swear to god the same thing happened. I thought I was hallucinating.
 
Really? Wow, I've never heard any other mention of this effect. I'm an audio engineering major, my curriculum includes acoustics...but I've never heard of anything like this.
 
there are several forces at work: room modes which define the most likely problem frequencies based on room dimensions, resonances which result from the construction of the room, and standing waves resulting from trapping the energy in the room and the intestiry of which are affected by materials, treatments, furniture and people as to how they build up and fall off.

it sounds like putting the mattress on the back wall has added the necessary absorption to the room to knock down the room modes a bit and controlling the standing waves by reducing their intensity.

if you can use something like Room EQ Wizard to measure your room, you'll very likely see the exact effects the mattress placement has.
 
ez_willis said:
I'm not doubting you. I am totally ignorant in this field, and I just took a bunch of foam off of my ceiling and a couple of walls, and I swear to god the same thing happened. I thought I was hallucinating.
Click to expand...

The master fader on my mixer is the culprit.
 
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