Are Square (or rectangle) Rooms Bad?

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jonwdowns

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is it true that square and rectangle rooms do not make good control and performance rooms? if so, what is the reason for this...and what can you do with square or rectangle rooms to make them sound better?

jon.
 
Yes. Square is bad! The reason (in a nut shell) has to do with standing waves.
What you can do is "splay" or angle the walls (12 degrees off perpendicular/parallel is the consensus for minimizing those standing waves).

Look at this lay-out:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/Studio/Images/Jones/FloorPlan1.jpg

Notice that even though the control room walls are angled, the control room still exhibits symmetry.
 
If you can't splay the entire walls, because the room is too small (like mine), you can put up resonators or panel traps with angled faces or slats. (I'm using slat resonators) You can see some details in the "wall units" part of www.johnlsayers.com, or the bedroom studio plans on the SAE site (the recording manual link from John's site), or in the plans for my studio posted under the studios under construction link.

Actually, this brings up one possible issue I have with Ethan's bass traps -- it seems like the angles on the faces are not 12 degrees or more, or even 6. I'm not certain of this - but thats how they look. Of course, you could always mount his traps so that one edge was further away from the wall than the other edge, giving you any angle you want, but I've never seen Ethan recommending that. Any comments Ethan?

Thanks,
-lee-
 
Jon:

The main problem with parallel walls is they produce bad echoes and ringing - a "boing" kind of effect when you have a percussive sound like hand claps or side stick on a snare. Angling the walls does nothing to help low frequency problems, but it can reduce echoes and ringing a lot.

Lee:

The minimum angle needed for a panel trap - or room walls for that matter - is not fixed at 12 degrees. Rather, it varies with the room dimensions. In a larger room you can get away with a smaller angle. Unless your room is really tiny, the angle we use on our wood panel traps is enough to reduce echos and ringing. Of course, that assumes you have lined the entire wall with them! :D Otherwise parts of the walls are still parallel. Also, we do not recommend mounting the traps at an angle. They really need to be flush to the wall.

--Ethan
 
thanks for the replies...

so what would be the best to do this:

i have an empty space (20' x 36'), and i'd like to make a large perfomance room (as large as possible), a medium size lounge, and a small control room. what are some suggesetions for splitting up the entire space into those three rooms so that there are no parallel walls, but using the relatively small space as efficiently as possible.

i'm having a hard time figuring this out...if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

thanks,
jon.
 
oh...and all of the rooms have a cathedral-type ceiling that goes up about 10-12 feet. does that matter?

(thanks)
 
oh...and all of the rooms have a cathedral-type ceiling that goes up about 10-12 feet. does that matter?
Click to expand...

you should be so lucky ;):) That ceiling heightwill help in thatsmall constrol room. Drop a false ceiling and use that space for trapping.

cheers
john
 
Re: Re: Are Square (or rectangle) Rooms Bad?

Ethan Winer said:

Lee:

The minimum angle needed for a panel trap - or room walls for that matter - is not fixed at 12 degrees. Rather, it varies with the room dimensions. In a larger room you can get away with a smaller angle. Unless your room is really tiny, the angle we use on our wood panel traps is enough to reduce echos and ringing. Of course, that assumes you have lined the entire wall with them! :D Otherwise parts of the walls are still parallel. Also, we do not recommend mounting the traps at an angle. They really need to be flush to the wall.

--Ethan
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. What would you define as "really tiny"? What angles would you use if you were building a facility? What are the angles on your wood panel traps?

Thanks again,
-lee-
 
Re: Re: Re: Are Square (or rectangle) Rooms Bad?

Lee,

The issue is how far a wave is deflected by the time it gets to the opposite wall. I'm terrible at math so I won't prove the example. But a 10 degree angle deflects a wave more inches when a wall is farther away.

You can calculate the angle of our traps right from the published specs: the depth varies by one inch over a 24 inch width.

--Ethan
 
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