Location for placing first 6 Acoustic Panels

C

chromaticstatic

New member
I am starting acoustic treatment on my home recording studio. Room dimensions are 12' W, 20' L, with a sloped ceiling, from height 8'3" to 9'6" at the other end. My workstation sits against one of the 12' walls where the 8'3" ceiling is. (I read that the long wall is more ideal but this is what it is).
I built 6 rockwool panels, 2'x4' @ 4". I am planning placement.
I did the "mirror technique" to locate the first reflections lateral to the workstation. My questions:
--Are the first reflections so significant that I should place 2 panels side by side (essentially creating a 4'x4' panel) at this first reflection on the side walls, or would it be better to space these panels further apart and place the second one further back?
--For the remaining 2 panels- with a room of this length, is it better to place them against the back wall for those reflections, or angle them in the corners behind my workstation (as bass traps are usually located)?
I plan on building more panels in the future but want to budget the 6 I have for the most useful locations first.
Thanks for your help.
 
First place would be the rear corners of the room. 'Superchunks' are better - fill the whole corner in a triangle - but use your 2' wide panels to straddle the corner from floor to ceiling (so 4 of yours won't quite reach that 9'6".) Point of first reflection is one place, front corners also, and a ceiling cloud. A lot depends on what else is in the room, how you are oging to use it, and how it is constructed. You've got a decent size space. PoFR and cloud can be 2" thick rockwool.
 
The first reflection point is for the near-field monitors when you mix. I don’t see a reason to double that. If your monitors have rear facing ports I’d put traps behind those and probably just stick one in front of me and one on the rear wall or possibly overhead. Bass traps in corners are next and probably more in the sides and some clouds if you are recording in that space.

Make sure to mount the panels off the wall by about 3” so reflections can get trapped from both sides.
 
You want your head to be 7'8" from the short wall (that's .38 the length of the room) and on the low side (which if I read correctly, you already are).

This might just be me -- But assuming your speakers are directly in line with or slightly lower than your ears and tilted ever so slightly upward, I'd have the rear corners trapped from about a foot from the ceiling down and in the front about a foot from the floor up. Ideally, you want all four corners floor-to-ceiling. The other two would go at the high-side corners ending just past the mix position (roughly from 4' to 8' from the short wall in front of you). FTR, if your speakers are a bit higher and tilted down, reverse that situation and go floor up behind you and ceiling down in front. In any case, I'm a big fan of a slight tilt.

This is sort of a "guess" combined with "been there, done that" -- Yes, you want to have some amount of trapping at the reflection points. But first and foremost, you want to have your corners (where 90% of your problematic energy is being funneled). Staggering in the height front and back gives you *some* coverage on both sides with an overlap at ear level. The high-sides take at least a little of the "corner schmutz" out of the high corners. This is definitely a "IMO/E" thing - But (again, IMO/E) it seems as if you're going to have reflections, I'd rather have those "crisp" reflections from the walls than the "blooch" from the corners (and I'm about to trademark the word "blooch™"). That said - I don't think anyone would fault you for hanging a pair on both sides horizontally centered in height around ear level between you and the speakers (that would be at least a foot from the wall, putting the fronts of the speakers at around 2' from the wall, making an equilateral triangle of around 5.5' between the speakers and the mix position).

Lawd, I hope that all came out. It so late that it's early and I had a couple Skrewballs over the last hour or so.
 
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