Treat your rooms . . .

  • Thread starter Thread starter chessrock
  • Start date Start date
chessrock said:
And get some better mics.

Then worry about whether you need to buy a new goddamn preamp.

Jeez Louise.
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OK. I got two large peices of Aurelux (sp?) foam and will stick them up on the walls this weekend.

Room=done.

Now I will hear the minute differences of the new Avalon Pre-amp I just got.


I have enough good mics.

And a new mixing board......................


Anything else?
 
Re: Re: Treat your rooms . . .

acorec said:
OK. I got two large peices of Aurelux (sp?) foam and will stick them up on the walls this weekend.

Room=done.

Anything else?
Click to expand...
If only it were that simple!

Foam is good for sucking all the highs out of your room, that's about it. What you'll most likely end up with is a room that's artificially bass heavy. When mixing, you'll (incorrectly) compensate for that exagerrated bass you're hearing from the room. On other systems, your mixed CD's will likely sound thin and transparent.

To adequately address room acoustics, you'll need to calculate the modal response of the room, determine the problematic frequencies, and design/build frequency attenuators that are specific to those problem frequencies.

Throwing "two large pieces of foam" up on the walls is hardly "treating a room."
 
Re: Re: Re: Treat your rooms . . .

Michael Jones said:
If only it were that simple!

Foam is good for sucking all the highs out of your room, that's about it. What you'll most likely end up with is a room that's artificially bass heavy. When mixing, you'll (incorrectly) compensate for that exagerrated bass you're hearing from the room. On other systems, your mixed CD's will likely sound thin and transparent.

To adequately address room acoustics, you'll need to calculate the modal response of the room, determine the problematic frequencies, and design/build frequency attenuators that are specific to those problem frequencies.

Throwing "two large pieces of foam" up on the walls is hardly "treating a room."
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I am only lining the wall between the monitors and in between them (behind) because I get funny reflections from that wall. The foam will go behind the monitors. I am working a little at a time to treat what needs to be treated. I plan to use simple mixes to check the difference between the control room sound and the car CD sound. At least if I can get the two to sound the same, I will have some frame of reference. The room I have is like a 12*12' and has the ceiling "folded in" The ceiling is shaped like the roof. I am new to this and want to make sure I am in the ballpark of correcting the problems before I spend too many $$.
 
Ethan Winer said:
DJ,

> are your MiniTraps basically a shock absorber too <

No, MiniTraps work on a completely different principle than panel traps. Well, a mostly different principle, anyway. Panels traps are resonant enclosures that vibrate sympathetically when struck by sound waves. Fiberglass and foam instead absorb by offering resistance to sound waves that pass through the material.

MiniTraps are a combination of very dense rigid fiberglass,which is much better than foam, and a membrane. So there is some "spring" action in the fiberglass as the membrane flexes.

--Ethan
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Ok I think I'm getting a grip (understanding) on the spring... but what is this membrane stuff, what's it made of? Thanks again. :)
 
Here's an odd question for you Ethan - Do human bodies act as effective bass traps? My current room has some serious bass issues (luckily I'm moving to a new room shortly), but I swear that if I have a few people standing around listening to a mix, the bass in my mix position becomes louder, clearer and much tighter.
 
Re: Re: Treat your rooms . . .

aco,

> Room=done <

Listen to Michael's advice.

If you want to see how badly skewed your room really is at low frequencies, play a 100 Hz sine wave and walk around. All of the low end problems will be immediately obvious.

--Ethan
 
DJ,

> what is this membrane stuff, what's it made of? <

Magic dust and pixie wings.

Sorry, but the internal construction of MiniTraps is proprietary. If I told you how we make them, I'd have to kill you.

--Ethan
 
JS,

> Do human bodies act as effective bass traps? <

Humans definitely do absorb sound, and maybe even at lowish frequencies. I have no hard data (though it probably exists). But what's probably happening is the presence of people standing around you is blocking the reflections you normally hear bouncing around off the walls. So that's why it sounds "tighter."

--Ethan
 
Ethan Winer said:
DJ,

> what is this membrane stuff, what's it made of? <

Magic dust and pixie wings.

Sorry, but the internal construction of MiniTraps is proprietary. If I told you how we make them, I'd have to kill you.

--Ethan
Click to expand...
I had the feeling that may be the case... but does the membrane act as, or do the same thing as the spring?
 
Re: Re: Re: Treat your rooms . . .

Michael Jones said:
If only it were that simple!

Foam is good for sucking all the highs out of your room, that's about it. What you'll most likely end up with is a room that's artificially bass heavy. When mixing, you'll (incorrectly) compensate for that exagerrated bass you're hearing from the room. On other systems, your mixed CD's will likely sound thin and transparent.
Click to expand...

I'm in agreement with your basic premise. But it should be pointed out that lack of bass treatment can result in just the opposite effect as well, depending on your monitoring position in the room.

If your mix position is about 1/4 of the way into the room, you will be sitting at the null point of the standing wave created by reflections off of the back wall. In that case you will perceive all your mixes to be bass-lite, and will compensate by adding extra gain or eq'ing in lower frequencies.

I had this exact problem. I'd mix a song so the bass sounded slamming, take it out to my car, and the windows would explode.
 
Ethan Winer said:
JS,

> Do human bodies act as effective bass traps? <

Humans definitely do absorb sound, and maybe even at lowish frequencies. I have no hard data (though it probably exists). But what's probably happening is the presence of people standing around you is blocking the reflections you normally hear bouncing around off the walls. So that's why it sounds "tighter."

--Ethan
Click to expand...

Someone posted an article recently where they did some studies on acoustic properties of human bodies. They claimed that bodies will reflect sound similar to a large egg shape and there was very little bass absorption.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Treat your rooms . . .

littledog said:
I'm in agreement with your basic premise. But it should be pointed out that lack of bass treatment can result in just the opposite effect as well, depending on your monitoring position in the room.

If your mix position is about 1/4 of the way into the room, you will be sitting at the null point of the standing wave created by reflections off of the back wall. In that case you will perceive all your mixes to be bass-lite, and will compensate by adding extra gain or eq'ing in lower frequencies.

I had this exact problem. I'd mix a song so the bass sounded slamming, take it out to my car, and the windows would explode.
Click to expand...

Is it better to just have monitors up against the wall? I'm having low end issues and my monitors are probably close to a 1/4 the lengthwise distance away from the wall in a 16'x30' room. I'd always heard it's best to have some air around the mix position but I wonder if that is my problem.
 
DJ,

You keep asking questions I've already answered. :D

> does the membrane act as, or do the same thing as the spring? <

A few messages above I said "there is some 'spring' action in the fiberglass as the membrane flexes."

Earlier in this thread I explained that in any membrane trap, the membrane is the mass.

--Ethan
 
Tex,

> Is it better to just have monitors up against the wall? <

My partner and I just did some tests of this last week. I had a theory that flat against the wall is better than spaced out from the wall a little. I was wrong. It turns out that the response is flatter out from the wall a few feet. We tested seven placements in six inch increments using his Mackie HR-824s. The best response for this particular 16x10x8 room was when the front of the speaker was 2-1/2 feet in front of the wall.

We also tested the 2-1/2 foot spacing with no bass traps, versus flat against the wall with bass traps. No contest, bass traps won hands down, even with the speakers in the less than optimum placement of flat against the wall.

It's not practical to put the speakers that far out in such a small room, because it eats up so much space. In your longer room it's probably worth trying. But don't expect miracles! The difference due to spacing was slight, compared to having bass traps which was a huge improvement.

--Ethan
 
Ethan Winer said:
DJ,

You keep asking questions I've already answered. :D

> does the membrane act as, or do the same thing as the spring? <

A few messages above I said "there is some 'spring' action in the fiberglass as the membrane flexes."

Earlier in this thread I explained that in any membrane trap, the membrane is the mass.

--Ethan
Click to expand...
I'm slow :D but hey, I want to thank you for taking the time to paint a better picture for me... now that I have some new idea's I'm going to see if I can make some better traps than the first ones I built. Thanks Again :)
 
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