jhbrandt
Acoustic Design
K,
Sorry to hear about your problem. Your pillows would probably help a little if they are put in a couple of the tri-corners, maybe on the floor there out of the way.
- I have also had problems with ppl being rude, so I understand.
Let me suggest that you try moving the mic around to find a spot that works ie; less room mode effect or boominess/boxiness. Your axial modes start at approximately 75Hz, 95Hz, and 150Hz. Foam will not help these freq's. (below 200Hz) Your best bet is to try to avoid the area(s) where the modes either pile up or combine to form a null. This can only be found by listening and moving the mic a few inches at a time to find the so called sweet spot.
I have mixed quite a few home recorded hip-hop tracks in which the vocal was recorded in a closet... and it is very hard to remove the closet resonance without effecting the vocal.
Is there stuff on the shelves?
Let me know if that helped.
Sorry to hear about your problem. Your pillows would probably help a little if they are put in a couple of the tri-corners, maybe on the floor there out of the way.
- I have also had problems with ppl being rude, so I understand.
Let me suggest that you try moving the mic around to find a spot that works ie; less room mode effect or boominess/boxiness. Your axial modes start at approximately 75Hz, 95Hz, and 150Hz. Foam will not help these freq's. (below 200Hz) Your best bet is to try to avoid the area(s) where the modes either pile up or combine to form a null. This can only be found by listening and moving the mic a few inches at a time to find the so called sweet spot.
I have mixed quite a few home recorded hip-hop tracks in which the vocal was recorded in a closet... and it is very hard to remove the closet resonance without effecting the vocal.
Is there stuff on the shelves?
Let me know if that helped.
K
Kerose
New member
okay, so i guess screw the roxul they got at ats acoustics, but here is the ?, can i take one of these 4 foot by 2 foot by 2inch panels and cut it down into thirds and make a 2 foot x 1.3 foot x 6 inch panel, the site you linked says i need 6" thickness of 3lbs/cubic foot of CO 703 and that will give me over 1.0 coefficient for all frequencies listed and most importantly the 125 hz which is what i'm having biggest issue with, or do i have to find an actual 6inch piece, i would think 3, 2 inch pieces would work the same, this would be awesome, cuz i could make a panel that fits in where i need for only 15 bucks, plus shipping, of course i think i will need more, judging by my pic, where would you place them, can't make giant ass corner traps, just smaller panel traps
K
Kerose
New member
K,
Sorry to hear about your problem. Your pillows would probably help a little if they are put in a couple of the tri-corners, maybe on the floor there out of the way.
- I have also had problems with ppl being rude, so I understand.
Let me suggest that you try moving the mic around to find a spot that works ie; less room mode effect or boominess/boxiness. Your axial modes start at approximately 75Hz, 95Hz, and 150Hz. Foam will not help these freq's. (below 200Hz) Your best bet is to try to avoid the area(s) where the modes either pile up or combine to form a null. This can only be found by listening and moving the mic a few inches at a time to find the so called sweet spot.
I have mixed quite a few home recorded hip-hop tracks in which the vocal was recorded in a closet... and it is very hard to remove the closet resonance without effecting the vocal.
Is there stuff on the shelves?
Let me know if that helped.
yeah actually there is stuff packed on all the shelves except for right behind me, my problem in the past in that room was reverb at the high levels, so i carpeted the area around where the mic is if you can tell where i mean, as well as the floor, i seem to still get a lot of sibilance and it is now also extra boomy, so it's like i cut out the mids and the rest is worse, is it possible to overdue trying to cut the highs, i got the ceiling everything behind me the door to my back left and the rest of the area where the shelves are which is only plywood, but i'm facing the carpeted corner so i didn't think it would bounce off the front and back and forward again, i can still through up acoustic panels on the rest of the walls, but i don't want to worsen the problem i have with the low frequencies, if that is even possible, if they are bouncing now, i can't see how more high end treatment would cause it too be worse, maybe just sound worse to my brain, since i'm removing more high end stuff, on the specturm analyzer the high end seems pretty leveled out and tame, but i still hear sibilance
jhbrandt
Acoustic Design
K,
Sibilance is not usually caused by the room. Remember that when recording at 24 bit you do not need to even come close to 0 on the meters... keep your peaks at around -12 to -14 on your DAW meters.
You probably already knew that though...
I am always warning ppl about too much absorption. Basically your problem, as I understand it, is poor mode distribution - which you CAN NOT fix. You must work with it.
Try moving the mic and singing with your back to the carpeted area. I think you are getting early reflections that create a comb filter in the microphone. This often happens in small booths where a viewing glass is close to the mic. That's why you often see angled glass on the viewing windows of voice-over studios.
I know you don't have any glass there.. but your wall can do the same thing. What mic are you using?? Cardioid pattern, right?
If it's a Cardioid then the wall behind the mic will not affect it that much. Try putting the mic in the 'yellow' area and you sing from where you used to have the mic.
Please give a try to putting the mic in different spots and doing a quick recording. I am confident that you will find a better sounding spot... all without spending a dime.
But you might want to put a panel up on the door and one on the ceiling. But try the mic move first to find a spot that is not boomy. Then you can deal with the reverb.
Let me know how it goes.
Sibilance is not usually caused by the room. Remember that when recording at 24 bit you do not need to even come close to 0 on the meters... keep your peaks at around -12 to -14 on your DAW meters.
You probably already knew that though...
I am always warning ppl about too much absorption. Basically your problem, as I understand it, is poor mode distribution - which you CAN NOT fix. You must work with it.
Try moving the mic and singing with your back to the carpeted area. I think you are getting early reflections that create a comb filter in the microphone. This often happens in small booths where a viewing glass is close to the mic. That's why you often see angled glass on the viewing windows of voice-over studios.
I know you don't have any glass there.. but your wall can do the same thing. What mic are you using?? Cardioid pattern, right?
If it's a Cardioid then the wall behind the mic will not affect it that much. Try putting the mic in the 'yellow' area and you sing from where you used to have the mic.
Please give a try to putting the mic in different spots and doing a quick recording. I am confident that you will find a better sounding spot... all without spending a dime.
But you might want to put a panel up on the door and one on the ceiling. But try the mic move first to find a spot that is not boomy. Then you can deal with the reverb.
Let me know how it goes.
jhbrandt
Acoustic Design
One more thing...
You are putting your microphone in an area where the modes all pile up. Corners or alcoves are really only a very good place to set a sub-woofer - so it can drive the modes.
The further away you get from a boundary surface the better. Never put guitar amps, speakers or mics in a corner.. UNLESS that is the sound you are looking for. It will always sound boomy there... no matter what you do - well, unless it is in a corner with a helmholtz resonator.. but that's another story.
You are putting your microphone in an area where the modes all pile up. Corners or alcoves are really only a very good place to set a sub-woofer - so it can drive the modes.
The further away you get from a boundary surface the better. Never put guitar amps, speakers or mics in a corner.. UNLESS that is the sound you are looking for. It will always sound boomy there... no matter what you do - well, unless it is in a corner with a helmholtz resonator.. but that's another story.
D
doulos24
New member
I think you should seriously take your vocal track and play it back with a analizer seeing where your frequencies are. I really really doubt that your hearing to much buildup in the closet for 1 bass doesn't get trapped in closets it would go right through them. Bass frequencies go through everything so really you could proably get away with treating just outside the closet as well. send us a vocal track that your having problems with. I'd run a high q filter sweep to see if it's artifical bass or if it is actully your vocal. Which I really really doubt it is btw. Then I'd use a good eq and work from there low end gear like low end mics and low end preamps also give off bad muddy bass as well so im not 100 percent sold on its your closet sorry
D
doulos24
New member
what I think the problem is a cheap preamp, cheap mic in a corner giving off a bad proximity effect that's my guess and based on your picture its a good guess the vocal trap I showed you would help this. Not the proximity of your vocal and your mic but of your mic and the corner of your space which is causing the bass build up that your talking about which we call boominess. Bass trapping in a room is to even the tone of the room all over, but you being in a corner I don't think it's a bass trap issue but a reaction of your vocal near a corner and a trap in between the mic and corner would reduce this greatly if it was made thick enough to absorb the low end
NL5
Unpossible!
So why would anyone need bass traps?
Kerose - Like I said originally, get out of that alcove if you can. Your entire room is pretty small. Do whatever you can in the bigger part of the room, and then deal with the deficiencies in the tracks. That's about all you can really do.
There is a reason why professional studios spend millions on design and construction.
D
doulos24
New member
furthermore a good engineer can make anything work and what I woud do in your situation was look for a semi transparent preamp the ones that are said to just be blah like a grace 101 a true systems solo a dmp3 something like that and then use that proximity effect to my advantage with a mic with a low pass filter at say 80 hz. Then I'd put you in that corner and let the proximity effect be a good natural eq to your voice and no that doesn't have to be an expensive setup can be done with a sub 200 dollar mic 150 dollar preamp or with a good eq plug in that you can monitor though as well I'd just make it work but that's what i do
D
doulos24
New member
you know what I mean im sticking to my guns that bad bass nodes won't effect the human vocal range near as much as him driving those nodes being in the corner nl5
NL5
Unpossible!
you know what I mean im sticking to my guns that bad bass nodes won't effect the human vocal range near as much as him driving those nodes being in the corner nl5
Maybe I'm not awake, but doesn't that say that bad nodes won't affect the sound, but bad nodes will?
I agree though, get out of that TINY closet. The room is already the size of a vocal booth - and that's bad enough.
K
Kerose
New member
K,
Sibilance is not usually caused by the room. Remember that when recording at 24 bit you do not need to even come close to 0 on the meters... keep your peaks at around -12 to -14 on your DAW meters.
You probably already knew that though...
I am always warning ppl about too much absorption. Basically your problem, as I understand it, is poor mode distribution - which you CAN NOT fix. You must work with it.
Try moving the mic and singing with your back to the carpeted area. I think you are getting early reflections that create a comb filter in the microphone. This often happens in small booths where a viewing glass is close to the mic. That's why you often see angled glass on the viewing windows of voice-over studios.
I know you don't have any glass there.. but your wall can do the same thing. What mic are you using?? Cardioid pattern, right?
If it's a Cardioid then the wall behind the mic will not affect it that much. Try putting the mic in the 'yellow' area and you sing from where you used to have the mic.
Please give a try to putting the mic in different spots and doing a quick recording. I am confident that you will find a better sounding spot... all without spending a dime.
But you might want to put a panel up on the door and one on the ceiling. But try the mic move first to find a spot that is not boomy. Then you can deal with the reverb.
Let me know how it goes.
i actually think i had my soundcard set at 16 bit, last night it was at 24, not sure what i had Sonar set at, i think it may be defaulted at 16, will have to chekc that, but i did remove the preamp i had, and i was able to find a pretty good level that gave me decent volume in my headphones and very little noise, will still need to work on the noise from the computer yet, as i have to have it in the same room since i work on stuff by myself a lot, i have a box built but it needs some more work to be more silent
i was trying out different configurations and comparing the spectral graph between them and am not sure that i was getting any difference with absorption directly above me or behind the mic, but yes i am using a cardoid pattern, i haven't tried facing away from the panel yet, i am afraid i was getting a lot of reflection from the wall behind me, being as that is where the mic is facing, any treatment behind the mic, prolly isn't doing much
thanks for the tips, i will get to that this weekend
K
Kerose
New member
you guys are great,
you hit both points with these posts, i in fact was using a preamp, a Studio Projects VTB1, i was analyzing my tracks, which was showing a lot of buildup, but i removed the pre and tried a few other things, i took another look at the spectrum and it looks a lot better, and most importantly sounds better, there are still some issues with the overall sound, which i am going to first address by moving my mic around the room before i decide on any panels, which at this point apparently only need to be broadband rather than bass traps, would a 4" panel of oc 703 work well as a broadband, or do i only need to go 2", i was going to go with 6" when i thought my bass was from the room, but now that seems to not be the problem so muhc as bad room modes
NL5
Unpossible!
You do realize that room nodes are "the room", right?
Your vtb-1 is rated at 20Hz - 20kHz +0/-0.5dB . The room is gonna have 30db and up nodes. A freakin' 1/2 db ain't gonna make a shit bit of difference in a room like that. Besides, the mic will even have at least 10X as much swing as the preamp.
D
doulos24
New member
i think 2 would work but your not going to lose anything from 4 or 6 and could use the trap as a gobo later on if you mic any instruments
D
doulos24
New member
no it says bad room nodes wont effect the vocal as much as amplifing them in the corner will nl5 I'm saying getting out of the corner will work better cause the problem wont be as amplified in the track
NL5
Unpossible!
Ahhhh, much clearer.
Yeah, the nodes from that closet are gonna be way worse than the bigger room.
K
Kerose
New member
I think i get that...
so are you saying that the preamp is shit and ditch it, cuz that is already in progress, or are you saying it's not enough to have a negative effect??
anyways, i'm staying in the room, i will just move away from that corner, open it up a bit, get some treatment around the room, and i already am callingn the preamp a failed experiment, also, my body is bringing over a MXL 4000, which is a major step up from my MXL V63M, so lets see if that makes a difference
NL5
Unpossible!
Its plus or minus a half a decibel across he entire audio spectrum. Not even the best room on the planet is anywhere near that flat. It's not contributing anything to your room node problem. From what I understand, they are a pretty good budget preamp, and certainly isn't the limiting factor in your recordings.