Hi everyone, I am setting up a DAW studio space in my townhome. The room is essentially a loft with a window at the back and on the opposite side a stairwell with railing around it and doors to other rooms. It's also rather long and oddly shaped which raises some interesting questions, at least in my mind, as to how the acoustics will behave in this room. I currently have no absorption or diffusion material up and I am not too interested in sound proofing as I will mainly be recording vocals and acoustic guitar, for now at least 
For the curious here is a link to my rooms layout: http://www.mojointeractive.com/~chris/studio/studiolayout.jpg
K, here are some questions for the gurus to help me out with
- How do I figure out the mode in a room like this that has screwy uneven walls or should I not even bother? Should I just put up some acoustical treatment like a Roominator package and assume that will do the job?
I did play around with the mode calculator that was linked from John Sayer's site and put in data as though the room were a perfect rectangle. From what I gathered there was a bunch up of frequencies around 73hz. What the heck should I do about that assuming it is accurate?
- I currently have my monitors and desk near the back wall facing the stairwell. But doing this puts the left monitor in front of the window and the other in front of the wall. Will this color the sound or throw the monitors off? Is there a better place for the monitors in this room?
- Not that I can do much about it, but there's a huuuuuge hole in the floor behind me, i.e. the stairwell. I am thinking that this can only help though as the sound will probably be reflected down there and less of it will come back to my ears when monitoring. That's not really a question I know, but maybe someone who has dealt with a similar situation can offer some insight.
- Since the backwall is about 20 feet from my monitors should I still be concerned about putting absorption and or diffusors on it? I am guessing the answer is yes
- This kind of ties into the mode question, but how do I know how much bass absorption I need? One piece of foam for each corner, or should I be thinking in terms of square feet worth of bass foam?
I am planning to build a three wall vocal booth out of some interior doors and place it right at the edge of the stairwell in the studio room. I figure this will help dampen the reverb in the room as well. I actually have the doors there now but with no foam on them yet. Waiting for the sheets from markertek to arrive. And based on the advice from the above questions I'd like to be able to place an order for or construct the rest of the absorption material I will need for the walls of the room. I don't want to spend thousands of dollars but maybe a few hundred is reasonable (just got a bonus! heh heh).
Here's what I think I know so far:
There should be broader band absorption behind the monitors. Absorption on the walls to the right and left of the monitors and then diffusion toward the back of the room furthest from the monitors. And then absorption again on the back wall in front of the monitors. Then the bass absorption in the corners; most importantly on the back corners. But like I mentioned I am concerned about how much and how do I apply the how much to the mode situation?
-Chris
For the curious here is a link to my rooms layout: http://www.mojointeractive.com/~chris/studio/studiolayout.jpg
K, here are some questions for the gurus to help me out with
- How do I figure out the mode in a room like this that has screwy uneven walls or should I not even bother? Should I just put up some acoustical treatment like a Roominator package and assume that will do the job?
I did play around with the mode calculator that was linked from John Sayer's site and put in data as though the room were a perfect rectangle. From what I gathered there was a bunch up of frequencies around 73hz. What the heck should I do about that assuming it is accurate?
- I currently have my monitors and desk near the back wall facing the stairwell. But doing this puts the left monitor in front of the window and the other in front of the wall. Will this color the sound or throw the monitors off? Is there a better place for the monitors in this room?
- Not that I can do much about it, but there's a huuuuuge hole in the floor behind me, i.e. the stairwell. I am thinking that this can only help though as the sound will probably be reflected down there and less of it will come back to my ears when monitoring. That's not really a question I know, but maybe someone who has dealt with a similar situation can offer some insight.
- Since the backwall is about 20 feet from my monitors should I still be concerned about putting absorption and or diffusors on it? I am guessing the answer is yes
- This kind of ties into the mode question, but how do I know how much bass absorption I need? One piece of foam for each corner, or should I be thinking in terms of square feet worth of bass foam?
I am planning to build a three wall vocal booth out of some interior doors and place it right at the edge of the stairwell in the studio room. I figure this will help dampen the reverb in the room as well. I actually have the doors there now but with no foam on them yet. Waiting for the sheets from markertek to arrive. And based on the advice from the above questions I'd like to be able to place an order for or construct the rest of the absorption material I will need for the walls of the room. I don't want to spend thousands of dollars but maybe a few hundred is reasonable (just got a bonus! heh heh).
Here's what I think I know so far:
There should be broader band absorption behind the monitors. Absorption on the walls to the right and left of the monitors and then diffusion toward the back of the room furthest from the monitors. And then absorption again on the back wall in front of the monitors. Then the bass absorption in the corners; most importantly on the back corners. But like I mentioned I am concerned about how much and how do I apply the how much to the mode situation?
-Chris
