Question on Room treatment

[thegatekeeper]

Hey everyone. I notice alot of people mention that becides your monitors, your number one thing for monitoring should be your room. Now my question is, what in fact do you have to do to a room to make it "treated." What would the treatment do that the room doesn't have now. Alot of people mention tuning a room, but tuning to what exactly. I have a feeling that the world of acoustics is going to be to broad to do in a post, but any comments or suggestions on readings would be greatly appreciated. Thanks


-gatekeeper

 

[Diffusion]

this takes a bit of time to read, but trust me, it will help you out a LOT!

http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

 

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

What would the treatment do that the room doesn't have now. Alot of people mention tuning a room, but tuning to what exactly. I have a feeling that the world of acoustics is going to be to broad to do in a post

That is a massive understatement. Consider it like entering Alice in Wonderlands rabbit hole. For the average home recording enthusiast, all the questions have pretty much been not only answered, but proved scientifically in labs as well. Therefore, there is no reason to "guess". The real question is how deep into the hole you want to travel before deciding what you want to do. I suggest reading these and arming yourself with the fundamentals before ventureing deeper. A word of warning though....the rabbit hole(acoustics) is actually a vast subject with lots of "net fact", snake oli salesman, and half baked ideas. Once armed with a modicum of "truth", you can make choices based on science rather than
conjecture. Good luck on your journey.
http://forum.studiotips.com/index.php

 

[emergencyexit]

this takes a bit of time to read, but trust me, it will help you out a LOT!

http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

Just gave this link away on an other thread. Ethan's on this board to my understanding. Why isn't he doing his own advertising???

Just kidding!

Ben

 

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

Why isn't he doing his own advertising???

Ethan has spent an enormous amount of time and money testing concepts and products at acoustical labs to give accurate information on room treatment. He answers tons of questions here and seldom uses the opportunity to spam the forum. My hats off to him. He is as helpful as they come, gracious, and speaks from experience and knowlege.


OOOPS, just saw the "just kidding" Oh well, I still mean it

 

[Gorty]

this takes a bit of time to read, but trust me, it will help you out a LOT!

http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

Very helpful reading......read, then read again......then again!

 

[myfipie]

Ethan has spent an enormous amount of time and money testing concepts and products at acoustical labs to give accurate information on room treatment. He answers tons of questions here and seldom uses the opportunity to spam the forum. My hats off to him. He is as helpful as they come, gracious, and speaks from experience and knowlege.


OOOPS, just saw the "just kidding" Oh well, I still mean it

Rick now that is a "massive understatement"... I really don't know how the guy keeps up! Guess it is easy when you love what you do..

Glenn

 

[Ethan Winer]

Thanks guys!

Until the day comes when people stop wasting money on yet more gear in their quest to get decent mixes, I'll continue to spread the word on the importance of acoustics and room treatment. Thanks for helping in that quest.

--Ethan

 

[Gorty]

Thanks guys!

Until the day comes when people stop wasting money on yet more gear in their quest to get decent mixes, I'll continue to spread the word on the importance of acoustics and room treatment. Thanks for helping in that quest.

--Ethan

How did Ethan get that thumbs up dude in his post?......

 

[myfipie]

http://www.ethanwiner.com/misc-content/bigthumb.gif

that is the link but I really don't know how to get it to show up..

 

[Ethan Winer]

Gorty,

> How did Ethan get that thumbs up dude in his post? <

I have a bunch of images on my personal web site that I stick into posts from time to time. Most sites use a syntax like this one where you can place a full address (including the http:// part) into a message between image tags. If you click Quote to reply to my post above you'll see the code I used to do that.

--Ethan

PS: You mean New Zealand is not in Australia?

 

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

Hey Ethan, where did you get those from?

 

[myfipie]

Thanks guys!

Until the day comes when people stop wasting money on yet more gear in their quest to get decent mixes, I'll continue to spread the word on the importance of acoustics and room treatment. Thanks for helping in that quest.

--Ethan

pretty cool... oh god I am now a geek!!!!!!!!!

 

[Marcellovalerio]

I have a question for you Ethan:
I have walls made of logs, kinda squareish/roundish...What would you say about that?

 

[Scottgman]

I have a feeling that the world of acoustics is going to be to broad to do in a post, but any comments or suggestions on readings would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I like what Rick said. You can read all that stuff if you want to get a basic understanding of acoustics. Ethan's site is awesome for that. But, as Rick pointed out, there is alot of stuff that is pretty much settled fact as far as a Home Recorders needs go. So you can dive into the bottomless pit of acoustics theory or you can just heed the advice of people who have already figured this stuff out.

For instance, rigid fiberglass is probably the best material to treat your room with in terms of bang for your buck. It has very good absorption properties and is pretty cheap. Same goes for rockwool. It's seems well established that the stuff is safe to line your walls with and using some thin fabric provides further protection against airborne fibers and makes the panels look nicer.

As for tuning your room... what people are usually talking about is attempting to make the frequency response in a room flat or balanced. Basically "tuning" a room is a systematic attempt at dealing with excessive peaks or valleys in frequency response. This involves measurement mics, pink noise, sine waves and other things that you probably don't understand (neither do I). So if you really want to get technical and "tune your room," get ready to do ALOT of work.

OR... you can throw up some rigid fiberglass (or rockwool) panels up in your room and start recording. I've done this in two different rooms and the results are very pleasing. I'm sure I'm could "tune" my room much better by taking measurements and moving the panels around until I get a more balanced frequency reponse. But, for me, the difference between the un-treated room and the treated room has been so dramatic that I don't even care about getting that anal about room treatment. The difference has been night and day. I'm working in much better rooms now and you can really tell. In fact, I walk around the rest of house my now and notice how crappy the other rooms sound.

 

[Ethan Winer]

Rick,

> where did you get those from? <

All over the 'net. I have a page full of Smileys I gathered from various places. Help yourself:

www.ethanwiner.com/Smileys.html

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

> oh god I am now a geek!!!!!!!!! <

Uh, Glenn, you were always a geek.

And I mean that only in the most complimentary way!

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

Marcello,

> I have walls made of logs, kinda squareish/roundish...What would you say about that? <

Not much to say. A reflective wall is just that.

--Ethan

 

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

I have a page full of Smileys I gathered from various places. Help yourself:

Hey Ethan, thanks alot. Don't mind if I do.

Not much to say. A reflective wall is just that.

Now comon Ethan, you know he's got built in "polycylindrical"difusers all over the place

 

[myfipie]

> oh god I am now a geek!!!!!!!!! <

Uh, Glenn, you were always a geek.

And I mean that only in the most complimentary way!

--Ethan