Advice Needed - Space vs Ratio

MarkP

New member
Hi,

I was hoping to get some advice from all of the knowledgeable contributors on the forum. :D

My little home studio setup is in need of a few alterations.
I'm working with a pre configured space and it's probably, as bad as is can get, being square with a ceiling height coming in at roughly half the length & width. :(

My main concern is room size. It's around 82m3 at the moment. I've been considering adding a partition to improve the ratio, plus I could do with a couple of small, lively rooms for guitars and vocals etc.
There is also a lot of glass on the one wall, which a partition would also help with. The only problem is from what I can see is, to get a ratio worth bothering with I'd need to reduce the width by 1.2m, which would reduce the room to 65m3.

It has a pitched roof, which makes things a little more difficult to calculate. I've used the Amroc Room Mode Calculator and taken the average for the roof to get some idea.

Amroc-full-room.jpgAmroc-smaller-room.jpgStudio 3.jpgStudio.jpgFostex.jpg

Really keen to get this up together, so any advice would be gratefully received.

Regards,

Mark
 
I'm not quite understanding some of the numbers (82m3..?)...but just looking at the pictures of the room, IMO...don't waste your time fixing the ratios with partitions and whatnot...and there's no such thing as a small live room that will be of any value. You can do small, dead iso-booths, but even they may not be of much valuje if too small. I think you want to have the max size available as one room.

Just add more broadband and LF trapping throughout....and see if you can target the low end peak & null to even them out a bit.

Are you hearing any specific problems you wanted to address...or just looking at the room mod calculator and going by that?
That thing will make you nuts...because when it comes to smaller spaces, there is no such thing as perfect ratios or sizes...and so you move on dimension, and something else is messed up. Your room is decent, and the higher ceiling is actually good.
Put some treatment at the back, the back corners, and the ceiling, and see what you get.
 
I'm not quite understanding some of the numbers (82m3..?).

That is usually a 'cubed' measurement of the total space. Meaning .......length x width x height = All of the 'space' inside the building. So it is equal to 82 cubic meters.

If he reduces by 1.2 meters on width. It would be 1.2 width x length x height so in effect he has reduced by '17m3' amount of cubic meters down to 65 cubic meters or 65m3
 
That is usually a 'cubed' measurement of the total space. Meaning .......length x width x height = All of the 'space' inside the building. So it is equal to 82 cubic meters.

If he reduces by 1.2 meters on width. It would be 1.2 width x length x height so in effect he has reduced by '17m3' amount of cubic meters down to 65 cubic meters or 65m3

I figured it was the space measurement...though I wasn't translating it all in my head to get a clear picture. :)
Anyway...I still say that shrinking the room (or splitting things up) to get to some better ratios is not going to improve things, and it's better to leave the room as big as it is, and one open space.
 
Not only that, by putting up a partition, unless it absorbs/reflects 100% of the soundwaves hitting it, that space behind it could act as a 'drum', building up more reflections - unless of course it was filled with insulation.
 
Thanks for all the responses.

I had a feeling the overall opinion would be leave it as one room.
I do struggle having a large boost at 60hz and a big cut at 120hz, which is why I started looking at ratios.
I've got 12 broadband absorbers in the room, including a cloud absorber. They do help, but short of spending a fortune on treatment given that it's 18' x 18' x 9' I was hoping the reduction in size would reduce the room treatment costs.
I know 82 cubic metres is still way too small for good live room, so I usually run samples on my drum kit anyway. Kind figured it wouldn't make a great deal of difference being slightly smaller from a live recording viewpoint. My main focus is getting a better response at my listening position for mixing.
I'm no maths wiz, so I don't fully grasp all of the information generated by the different room calculators.

I did notice using this calculator that reducing the room to the given dimensions gives a smoother curve on the Benello graph with no dips. Also, it's just inside the bolt area, as opposed to being off the chart. Lol
The modes seem to have a better spread at this size, which is why I thought with tuned traps and lots more broadband treatment I might get better results?
I've been told to get great results in a control room you ideally need to start with a minimum length of 23', so I guess it's never going to be great.

I like the look of the hangers. I'm guessing the thickness of fibreboard is critical depending on the frequencies that need taming and possibly the use of different material in between the insulation would act as a guide too? Sadly, calculating this sort of stuff is beyond me.

Regards,

Mark :-)
 
Thanks for all the responses.
I had a feeling the overall opinion would be leave it as one room.
I do struggle having a large boost at 60hz and a big cut at 120hz, which is why I started looking at ratios.
I've got 12 broadband absorbers in the room, including a cloud absorber. They do help, but short of spending a fortune on treatment given that it's 18' x 18' x 9' I was hoping the reduction in size would reduce the room treatment costs.
I know 82 cubic metres is still way too small for good live room, so I usually run samples on my drum kit anyway. Kind figured it wouldn't make a great deal of difference being slightly smaller from a live recording viewpoint. My main focus is getting a better response at my listening position for mixing. ...

That looks like a nice room. I like that pitched ceilings break up at least somewhat one major parallel dimension. Is that 9' at the side walls? Looks like it might be more at the peak?
My humble, non technical -informed but 'I surrendered view'..
We won't get 'flat in our smallish rooms w/o major build and treatments.
The room' goes onto our various tracks -in variations at each mic placement.
Then in playback the curve (response) is non flat ..again, and changes at each point the measurement mic is placed -anywhere in the room.
Consider decay time via the waterfall plot may be more significant -yet related, than the single point freq. curves.
Knowing this, I've gone to not making final low end mix eq decisions from any single point in the room.
I'm inclined to offer ..and perhaps a contrary view, go after the low mid-mid wall/ceiling bounces/resonances for the recording stage. It is at least doable with reasonable treatment.
That and I wish dearly I could have ceilings higher than my nine feet. :>)
 
Last edited:
... I was hoping the reduction in size would reduce the room treatment costs.

.......


... with tuned traps and lots more broadband treatment I might get better results?


I know that looking at ratios, there might this perception that some adjustment in layout will make a significant improvement, but that will really apply to much bigger spaces. The more you reduce the room sizes, regardless of the ratios, the more treatment you will need.
On the other end...when you get to a certain minimum "good" size...the bigger you make it, the less treatment it will need.

If you just look at total volume...you need to get to a certain point, no matter the ratios, before it starts to be good...and then as you increase the volume, it only gets better. Likewise, with very small rooms, it's very difficult to treat, no matter the ratios.

Here's a YT clip that talks about this stuff somewhat. The dimensions are in feet/inches...but you can do the conversion to metric.



One of the reasons in my current studio build project that's soon to kick off I decided to go with one huge space. I was at one point thinking of having a large iso-booth and large storage area within the total space...but then decided to not do that, as it would be less beneficial than not having them and instead going with the bigger space.
My total room volume is going to now approach 10 thousand cubic feet.
Of course...I also happen to really like the one-room recording approach. Having that huge wide open space and just breaking it up as needed with gobos and careful mic placement, etc...and making some adjustments to the overall session approach. Some things you just end up doing later, as overdubs...etc.
To have a bunch of people playing simultaneously, and providing total individual isolation for each person/instrument...that's a lot of space needed with a lot of individual, isolated rooms. Not an easy/cheap thing to do, and still have it all be really good acoustically...not to mention, I think it's a bit unnatural.

They made great records back in the day with entire orchestras in one room...so it's doable. You just approach it a little differently, and the trade off is you have this one really nice, bigger space to work in. :)
 
Back
Top