Studio orientation + sound treatment

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Tommy_Gunn

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Hi everyone,

Been hesitant to post regarding this subject, but ive read lots of articles and watched lots of videos but feel a bit overwhelmed by the process so I think the time is right to ask these questions!

I have a rather small studio room, and I have currently setup as below (I have measured everything however the scale of the picture is likely to be a bit off!!);
tom-studio.webp

I feel like my room is incorrectly setup and I want to orientate everything correctly before I look at treating the room and I have a couple of questions;

Is it best practice in this build to orientate my desk directly under the window? I have read contradicting things in regards to windows and monitors...It should be noted there are no curtains at the window, merely a blind. However there is space to hang some curtains if required

Currently the floor is laminate wood. I have read that the floor should remain bare as it helps acoustics, but I have also read that a rug is the best idea?

Any help would be great and id really appreciate any advice and tips when comes to sound treating the room when the orientation is correct.

Many thanks
 
Wow, makes my room look big! ;)
Yes, you should have your desk facing the window wall. The wood floor is fine, you can always throw a rug down on it if needed.
You're going to need to really trap (bass trap) the corners (well, the whole window wall) including the corner where the 'boiler cupboard is, and where your door is - maybe movable gobo-traps for that spot. Side walls will need absorption, too. Do you have any other options besides that room? You're just not going to get good acoustics in a space that tiny. It's a situation where mixing with headphone may in fact give you better results.
Read this thread about small room acoustics.
 
Hi there!

im afraid not, this is the only room I have available to me. I have a good set of cans for the finer details (audio technicas) and the monitors are the JBL LSR305s (i chose them over the 308s due to size).

I shall move the desk now and then look at my options. The room is a rather funny shape due to the boiler cupboard (which I may be able to remove in future)

I am looking at this kit in regards to room treatment, it is within my price range and seems to get alot of good feedback? I will need alot of those corner traps by the sound of things ;-)
AFHS Pro Acoustic Foam Home Studio Room Treatment Kit 24 tiles & 4 Bass Traps | eBay

I appreciate your advice, thankyou!
 
Forget the foam - it only traps high frequencies, in a room that small, you need to trap them all. If you have access to a wood saw, some basic tools like hammer/screwdriver, staple gun, you can make your own bass traps - plenty of info here and on youtube on how to do it.
Move your desk, then put the JBLs on the ends of the desk - they are going to be near the room's corners. Because they have rear bass ports, the bass is going to bounce into and out of those corners. Put some music on, not too high a volume, and move around and listen to where the bass gets exagurated from this effect. This will show you what you've got to overcome in using that room for mixing.
 
all moved round now, things sound a bit different but havent done a full test yet. Interesting to know that the foam isnt going to be much use, i have seen some stuff on the custom built traps, so thanks for the headsup, I shall certainly go and checkout some tutorials.
 
Tommy_Gunn said:
all moved round now, things sound a bit different but havent done a full test yet. Interesting to know that the foam isnt going to be much use, i have seen some stuff on the custom built traps, so thanks for the headsup, I shall certainly go and checkout some tutorials.
Click to expand...

Yeah - foam is definitely not going to do the room justice. Foam does work well for treble frequencies, but not much else. You can check out the tests we did comparing standard Bass Trap panels to foam 'bass traps' here: Comparing Acoustic Foam to GIK 244 Bass Traps
Generally you'll want to trap at least the front corners with thick traps, hit your reflection points, and the rear wall. Since your room is much longer than wide, you'll want a good amount of treatment on the sidewalls too to help with flutter echo and bass issues. The basics are here: Room Acoustics Primer - GIK Acoustics
 
thankyou, I have sent a message to your British sales team who hopefully will advise me further
 
It's not "much longer than wide", it's just plain tiny all the way around. I was about to jump on and say that you're going to need more treatment than you can likely fit in that room. Remember that the wall/ceiling and wall/floor corners are good places to but bass traps, and sometimes take less actual floor space from the room...

But then it occurred to me to ask just how solid these walls are? Concrete, stud wall with drywall (insulation?), or just flimsy paneling? Your one saving grace would be if this room is actually part of a (much) larger space with thin walls that let most of the bass blow through, instead of bouncing around in the "studio".
 
hey dont get me wrong id love to have a bigger space for a studio but I am not in the position to be able to move into another room. It should be noted I am from the UK and the average 3 bedroom house in my area isnt very big so the studio had to live in the smallest of the three rooms (the other rooms are no bigger than 12ft sq either)

That being said, there are two outside walls (layers of concrete block, brick and cavity wall insulation) and two plasterboard/drywall studded walls in the room (of which I am not sure if insulated).

I have noticed considerable bass being sucked into the corners of the room since I changed the desk to sit under the window. Infact its so bad that had I not have had my desk in the prior position beforehand, my mixes would have sounded all kinds of shit!! So looking to try and rectify that issue as quickly and as effectively as I can :cool:
 
He was saying that if your walls aren't very solid, you could luck out that the walls are 'lossy' and as such won't build up resonances as strongly as they do in other rooms. Though this can (and does) cause other problems as well, and can cause big nulls in response anyways.
But regardless, just to note: bass doesn't get "sucked" into corners. Your speakers play the same volume of sound regardless - it's likely your set up that is causing a lack of bass at mixing position so it seems so much more concentrated in the corners. A few main things can cause a lack of bass at listening position:
Having your speakers within 20-50cm of the front wall can cause some cancellations at low frequencies
Having your speakers not decoupled can increase the sound transmission through whatever they're sitting on, so they won't be as powerful at certain frequencies
You may be sitting in a sub-optimal position in the room - maybe close to 25 or 50% of the length of the room, which can put you in large null spots in the space. This is the main reason for the "38% rule" - it puts you in optimal position to get the least cancellations for modes.
General room boominess can also just increase the difference in our perception of what the speakers are playing vs. what we hear too.
Bass traps in the corners and setting up ideally are the two areas you should look to to get a solid start in the room!
 
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