Acoustic Treatment Advice

[Cheeky Monkey]

Hi,

I've attempted to draw a simple schematic (hopefully attached) of the spare bedroom that I'm about to turn into a small recording studio. It's less than ideal, but the best I have to work with. The house is a Cape Cod style, so this room has a sloped ceiling on one side and one dormer (depicted by the broken dotted lines on the layout). The closet has mirrored bi-fold doors. Although the gear isn't in the room yet and I'll want to try it out before treating acoustically, I've marked the areas of the room that I think will most likely be trouble spots (X1, X2, X3).

X1: is actually sort of a little alcove, the depth of the closet, and rising from the floor to about 5' (where it hits the sloped ceiling). It slopes down to about 3' where it hits the outer knee wall.

X2: I only have about 3" before the door starts, so I'm not sure how to treat this corner.

X3: I'm concerned that sound will hit the dormer slope where I indicate, and bounce across to the other dormer slope and cause some weird things to happen.

I don't believe I have much choice in where I place the recording desk and monitors. I'd appreciate any advice regarding how to treat this room -- both the potential trouble areas, and in general. Also, what materials would work best?

Many thanks for your time.

 

[knightfly]

Man, I can see why this got ignored - you're right about the difficulties of getting this space to work for mixing.

I'd almost think you'd be better off building a few gobo's, and trying to work with your desk in front of the dormer - doing a 4" thick rockwool screen (gobo) across the dormer (portable, move it when not mixing) and some more behind your speakers (placed either side of the dormer) would get you a more balance stereo image up front - then, more absorbent in front of the closet (maybe attached to the door, if it's where first reflections from speakers would show up) and another piece on the side where you've shown the desk - another piece of rockwool (rigid fiberglass will also work everywhere - 3 pcf preferably) on the ceiling over the desk - and then more rockwool across any and all corners you can for broadband (incl. bass) trapping - even more across the rear (the wall the door is in)

Basically, with the possible exception of the sloped ceiling sections (good for reflection free zone) the rest of the room needs to "disappear" as much as possible.

I'm off to bed after almost 10 hours of answering stuff at John Sayers site, I'll check back to see your response when I can... Steve

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Thanks very much for the advice, knightfly. Much appreciated. Yeah, I agree about the difficulties associated with my space (which is why I'm asking ). I believe I understand your recommendations (to be sure, in the revised attached drawing I repositioned the desk/monitor position -- am I right?). I agree this desk/monitor position would most likely work better. The problem however, is that the vertical wall rising up from the floor to where the ceiling begins to slope is a little under 4'. This means that the monitors are going to be too low. Hmmm.

 

[knightfly]

IF you can pull the desk/monitors out from the wall a bit so you have enough height for the speakers, it could still work - just be sure that neither you or your speakers end up at even fractions of any dimension of the room, except for left-right (which needs to be centered in the room for best stereo imaging) - then, if you can stuff some mineral wool in the dormer area and behind both speakers, you should hear some improvement... Steve