Ok so i measured my room..... erm... now what?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Neeps
  • Start date Start date
bass trapping needs to happen at the corners, and I suspect at the peak of that cathedral ceiling.

That cloud idea over the mixing area is also important.

Nice space.
 
Ok can anyone explain this one...

I was in the studio tonight and my band mate (let's call him Field Mouse) pointed out that as he walked around the room talking that at certain places there was weird stuff going on with the volume of his voice.

So we all walked around the room talking and listening to what happened to the sound as we went.

Now at one point during this test I could have sweared that someone whispered something right into my ear up close... quite loud... cm's away. Of course it was my own voice but it was a some sort of high frequency echo. I sounded quite creepy I tried to get it back by moving around again and I found that I could but it only happened if I spoke in a very exact spot.

What's going on here? Anyone? This can't be room modes can it? I thought they only affected low frequencies. Of course I'm probably totally off track I usually am!

Also I've ordered some of those ready bags, yes they are just bags but I've been meaning to build panels diy style for about 6 months and never got round to it so hopefully the bags will make things easy for me. Sounds easy, you just fill them with some insulation and hang them. Here's the plan with the traps, as recommended by Scott R. Foster from Ready Acoustics.

readybags.JPG
 
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angles and curves

your curved ceilings are most likely focusing certain frequencies at certain spots, and high frequency echoes are sort of re-cohereing in odd places. The angled ceiling in the middle is probably also good at doing this too.

The US Capitol Building in Washington DC has a room with an elliptical dome. because of the geometric properties of that shape, whispers may be heard across the room.

remember in geometry class, those focus points inside an ellipse? I bet your weird HF echoes are starting up in those curves and bouncing out into the rest of the room to make those weird sounds.

get more treatment ahead of that cloud that you drew in front of your mixing area. Likewise towards the back up in those curves.

I bet that the space will sound great, once you tame the odd stuff with some treatment. My thinking is that the really great rooms have some character to their reverb trails, as I'm sure yours will.

just my 2 cents, remember. I'm not all that experienced, and at the very same point in my own studio construction as you are.
 
That looks pretty good. You might want some diffusers on the back wall so the reflected sound is even. But maybe with a big room, absorption would be better on the rear wall. Crap, I gotta study that chapter on acoustics more, I have a test on it tomorrow.
 
Ok i'll get the treatment in and then post more graphs and pictures and we can see what difference it makes. :)
 
Some More Current Pics

Wow it's been a while... nearly a year and a half... still never got round to re-doing the room analysis as of yet. Thought I'd post these photos on this old thread for anyone who's interested. Whilst my diy skills are improving all the time I've still to actually finish recording something worthwhile. I wonder how common that it on here :)


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And finally... the after treatment measurement. I don't look that much flatter do I?

graph1.jpg

graph2.jpg
 
Yeah - you still have some issues but the decay time looks OK for a live room. You're down quite a bit except for a couple areas. 50hz looks to be an issue. You have your Z axis still set at 500ms.

Bryan
 
I have a peaked ceiling like you but I'm in the upper part of a loft. I've also got some of those lower midbass problems I believe is from the ceiling (Mines actually below 45hz) I've put a highpass on my speakers to try and minimize exciting frequencies below 45hz. I'm building a big "cloud" to see if that helps. Your's look nice though!
 
Looks flatter to me. I'd say nice work.

I'd hate to see that graph for my studio! :rolleyes:
 
Obi-Wan zenabI said:
Looks flatter to me. I'd say nice work.

I'd hate to see that graph for my studio! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I meant to write "the graph" not "that graph." :)

***

Do you need to fix it? How do your mixes translate in other rooms/in your car/ etc.?

How do you think things sound when recorded there?

I used to live near Abbey Road studios-- I'm sure those rooms had a little character to their sound and response-- why not your studio, too?
 
Neeps said:
And finally... the after treatment measurement. I don't look that much flatter do I?

graph1.jpg

graph2.jpg
Click to expand...

You don't look anwhere near what I would like to see...
And I don't have a clue as to how long those low frequencies are lasting - try increasing the time hack from the 500 ms you have now until you can see things dissapear.

Right now you are a pretty long way from seeing things drop 60dB. And that is the goal - to get the RT60 down where it should be.

I think you still have way too much ringing going on.

BTW - setting up your gear so that you block out the low frequencies in your mix room doesn't mean that those levels won't be too high or low when you're done the mixdown - it only means you won't be able to hear it at all in your mix in that room - you could still find it to be a big problem in other listening environments.

Sincerely,

Rod
 
Two Things:

1. What's the covered keyboard instrument on the right?

2. I think the two chairs/coffee table might be por Feng Shui... ;)
 
Obi-Wan zenabI said:
I meant to write "the graph" not "that graph." :)

***

Do you need to fix it? How do your mixes translate in other rooms/in your car/ etc.?

How do you think things sound when recorded there?

I used to live near Abbey Road studios-- I'm sure those rooms had a little character to their sound and response-- why not your studio, too?
Click to expand...

Dunno... as daft as it sounds I've not tried mixing anything yet. Still very much at the tracking stage. The album-in-progress can be heard here. All the acoustic instruments were recorded at at least a few feet in the room. Apart from vocal which is closer miced. I don't really want to reduce the reverb much more than I already have cos it's a good level for recording but those peaks are worrying.
 
Rod Gervais said:
Right now you are a pretty long way from seeing things drop 60dB. And that is the goal - to get the RT60 down where it should be.
Click to expand...

My mix room is my tracking room. I've only got one room. I extended the time to 1000 ms and it's still ringing away. I think I want the reverb for tracking but can I not get it to ring evenly?

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1000b.jpg

And here's those other two graphs merged.
merged.jpg
 
Obi-Wan zenabI said:
1. What's the covered keyboard instrument on the right?

2. I think the two chairs/coffee table might be por Feng Shui... ;)
Click to expand...

Not sure where the right is... in the room there is an old yamaha keyboard that I stole from my little sister back in the 90's we just use it as a controller keyboard these days. Theres a hohner symphonic 32 that has died sitting against the wall (it's got power but no sound). And theres a hohner button box melodeon sitting on the desk that needs new reeds.

To the right of the desk sits my first guitar... a black hondo that we drilled holes into and turned into moodlighting. The amps don't work either they have lamps inside them and they glow off the back. I needed the overhead lights on for the photos so you don't get the full effect.

The chairs would go in the corner you can't see with all the junk in it at the moment next to the organ, but that's where the baby grand piano is going to complete the studio just as soon as we find a few grand spare. The seats are in the best position to sit back, have a cup of tea and listen to the days work.
 
The drums have a cool, distant indie sound... reminds me of my Palace CD. I dig the trad influences running through the music. You folks'd be fun to see live.

Anyway, I like that drum sound for your songs, but if that is the sound your room will impart to all the drum tracks, it could be a problem for other genres of music with more exacting drum requirements.

I'm not in the studio now, so only listening thru laptop speakers, but I do hear a phase-y character to the sound... You might need to do more treatment, or possibly re-arrange it.

Some absorbtive gobos (like office cubicle dividers) and such might give you more versatility in the room, allowing you to deaden things in the vicinity of the drums.

I would start by pulling the two broadbands off those two little angled walls and placing them elsewhere as those angles might actually diffuse things a bit. I'd take those absorbers and have them on walls that are paralell to others.

I'm no expert on treatment-- experimentation is all I really have at my disposal.

I'm enjoying your music as I type this, though. Keep it up!
 
Do you mean gobo's like these?

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One side absorbs one diffuses (hopefully).

I take it you have ikea wherever you are.

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40047675

We took two Expedit bookcases and put 4 inches of fiberglass into little boxed frames covered them with fabric and then put the little boxed frames into the expedit. The diffuser side was bent bits of 3mm ply with a black fabric over them. Don't know how well they will diffuse but we needed to cover the back anyway. 6 castor wheels on each was enough to get them mobile.

The desk was 3 desks joined together with some stretched fabric over frames to fill the left and right desks.

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40079218

We're the only band that records in the studio so it only needs to work for us. The drums will be distant because we only randomly chucked up a couple of overheads to capture something. We're getting into rerecording the drums now with more mics and a bit more preperation that's why the kit has been wheeled into the middle of the room.

Thanks for having a listen.
 
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