Room Treatment Placement for Small Studio Control Room

AshX

New member
I've been working on slowly gathering enough gear to start working on some tracking for an album and recently purchased the Auralex Alpha-DST Roominators Kit to see if it can help with some reflections. My room is somewhat quirky (dimensions below) but there aren't huge issues that I've noticed.

Room treatment materials:

(32) DST-112 Studiofoam panels
(32) DST 114 Studiofoam panels
(4) LENRD-DST Bass Traps

Room dimensions:

roomdesignharrymetzler.png

The ceiling splits in the middle with the one closest to the door being 81 inches high and the one on the other side being 84 inches high. There are two windows (they fold open, used in most older basements) one over the desk and one on the far side of the room (not near the door) that go 7 in deep. There is also some sort of plaster/drywall boxes that seem to cover some piping on the wall with the desk that are 9inches in length and 6 inches high.

The floor is concrete which I have a very light rug (maybe a few centimeters thick) and the walls are plaster/drywall except on the wall parallel to the door which seems to be concrete/bricks.

I hope I've given enough information and if anyone could help point me in the right direction as far as where to place these panels it would be a huge help.
 
-------------------------------------------------
 
Last edited:
Your desk should definitely go against the wall that's 11'12" long, not along the longer wall. Wait, isn't 11'12" also known as 12'?

Also, and I know you're not going to want to hear this (or read it), but those foam panels are close to useless. Foam does nothing for your low end, and unfortunately, 99% of the problem in 99% of rooms is the low end. That foam is going to kill your high's and mids and make your room even more box-y sounding, rather than less, and in the end, bass will become 100% of your problem. Foam can be sort of useful here and there AFTER you've properly treated your corners and first reflection points with some kind of raw material like fibreglass. But using foam as your primary source of trapping is not a good idea.

Hard floor is a good thing, though. You'll probably want to make a cloud over your listening area.

Your thread title says "control room". Is this just your control room, or are you tracking in there too? I would recommend NOT splitting that room into 2, if that's what you're planning on doing. You'd be better off having it serve as a tracking and a control room.

I wasn't expecting the Auralex foam to do much. I could only afford something that was broken up into payments, so I figured this was better than nothing at all. I don't disagree with you.

I haven't moved the desk position because there is a radiator on the wall that is not next to the door. It might be possible to move the desk to the wall near the door. Would that cause any problems?

It is primarily a control room. The only thing I would be tracking live in the control room is vocals and acoustic guitar. I have an isolation cab in the control room for guitars and drums are done off-site. My goal with the foam was to basically just reduce the reverberation from the room while tracking vocals. I'm hoping this will do the trick, lest I have to make a makeshift booth with moving blankets.

A couple other things: Other than rough mixing, I won't be mixing in this room. All that's really important to me is I can hear mostly everything accurately while tracking and be able to record vocals and acoustic guitar and not pick up reflections as much as I was.

Can you recommend any economical bass trap possibilities that might help with the foam traps I have?
 
------------------------------------------
 
Last edited:
Good advice X2 from Rami. If you're not really doing any mixing in the room, then layout is less important, but any 'rough mixing' will be affected by the layout an dacoustic treatment - better to do it right from the start. Yes, foam will help in tamng the flutter echo (I'm guessing what you call reverb), but won't help the low mid-mud which will become a concern, and like was already said will leave you with a boxy sound on vocals especially. Build some bass traps for the corners - or even stack up some rolls of pink fluffy insulation.
 
Back
Top