Yet another studio/acoustic advice thread...

  • Thread starter Thread starter peritus
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JeffLancaster said:
Actually yes, I have read that it's not the best idea to have your mix position in the exact center of the room. However, I do believe it's a good idea to have yourself, as well as your monitors, positioned evenly between the sides of the room. I have also read that when using nearfields you don't want them positioned TOO close to either the back or side walls as that will tend to exagerate bass frequencies. The manual for my monitors recommends at least a foot from any walls.

Your room seems to be quite similar in size and shape to mine, (mine is about 14 1/2 feet long by 8 1/2 feet wide) so I'll tell you what's working pretty good for me. I have the back of my desk positioned about 18" from the front wall. Since the legs of my desk are also equipment racks, this gives me just enough space to get behind there and run cables, etc. The furthest back points of my monitors end up being about 20" inches from the front wall and they get no closer than 14" from either side. When sitting in the ideal mix position where my head and monitors form an equilateral triangle, my ears are approximately 5'10" from the front wall (approximately 40% back into the room). I have 2" acoustic foam on the front and side walls as well as the on the ceiling for the front 6' of the room. This seems to really control early reflections that could bounce off the sides or the ceiling of the room. The backwall of my studio I left bare, and I have foam bass traps in all four corners. This arrangement really works great, although one area I think I could improve upon would be adding more substantial bass traps in the back corners of my room (behind my mix position), probably something along the lines of the Ethan Winer bass trap design.

Hope that helps...Jeff
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Great info.. Thanks

What part of the room do you record in?
 
Another thing I would like to do is cover up the air conditioning register. It is directly in front of the window (on the floor)...... I suppose I could lay a piece of MDF over it until I got hot/cold... :)
 
peritus said:
Great info.. Thanks

What part of the room do you record in?
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I record in the middle or back part of the room - for vocals I set up facing forward towards my desk. I'm still experimenting with the best way to record acoustic guitar in there. Everything else is direct (amp modelers, electronic drums and keyboards/synths) so I don't have to worry about how I'm set up for those things.
 
JeffLancaster said:
I record in the middle or back part of the room - for vocals I set up facing forward towards my desk. I'm still experimenting with the best way to record acoustic guitar in there. Everything else is direct (amp modelers, electronic drums and keyboards/synths) so I don't have to worry about how I'm set up for those things.
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I especially like the idea of facing the desk for vocals (It's always good to see what's going on)... Thanks again!
 
peritus said:
Another thing I would like to do is cover up the air conditioning register. It is directly in front of the window (on the floor)...... I suppose I could lay a piece of MDF over it until I got hot/cold... :)
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Yep, mines on the ceiling and I have it covered with MDF. Keeps the central heating noise out of the room, and keeps MY noise from travelling to the other rooms of the house. I mounted it by using threaded rods protruding from the ceiling at all four corners, and using wing nuts too hold it in place, so I could take it on/off quickly. However, as it turns out I never have to remove it. I just leave the door open sometimes when I'm not in there and that stabilizes the temp with the rest of the house. And as tightly insulated and sealed as I have the room, the temperature in there doesn't change too much - except in the summer if I'm in there for a long time with the computers going and the halogen lights on - then it tends to get kind of hot. We don't have AC though (living in Oregon we don't often need it), so there's not much I could do about that anyway.
 
JeffLancaster said:
Yep, mines on the ceiling and I have it covered with MDF. Keeps the central heating noise out of the room, and keeps MY noise from travelling to the other rooms of the house. I mounted it by using threaded rods protruding from the ceiling at all four corners, and using wing nuts too hold it in place, so I could take it on/off quickly. However, as it turns out I never have to remove it. I just leave the door open sometimes when I'm not in there and that stabilizes the temp with the rest of the house. And as tightly insulated and sealed as I have the room, the temperature in there doesn't change too much - except in the summer if I'm in there for a long time with the computers going and the halogen lights on - then it tends to get kind of hot. We don't have AC though (living in Oregon we don't often need it), so there's not much I could do about that anyway.
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Good idea with the wingnuts... Guess our rooms really are quite similiar.. :D
 
mshilarious said:
First priority would be hanging absorbers on the side walls at your mix position. Overhead too.

Second priority is bass traps in the corners, and ceiling/wall corners.
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I've decided to go a rigid fiberglass only route... I think other people mix and match, but it seems a more attractive option for me to go all 703/705... Based on this, I'm trying to wade through the sea of knowledge...

As far as absorbers are concerned... If I'm understanding what I'm reading, a piece of lightly framed, fabric covered 703 placed on the wall picture frame style (and maybe spaced out from the wall) should be my source for mid and high (not bass freqs) absorbtion....

And...

I'm trying to decide just exactly what variety of bass treatment to pursue.

I am also a little confused here too.... On Ethan's site in the Accoustic FAQ there is a description of the "typical wood panel membrane trap" (pic 1 below) and on the Better Bass Trap page there is a panel trap description also (pic 2 below)... These look different to me. Am I missing something? Which one am I to pursue?

Pic 1
basstrap.gif



Pic 2
BTPlans.gif


Or should I just pursue the coner traps?

Pic 3
corner-trap.gif


Also... I'm not able to put a corner trap by the door (see room diagram)... Will that be a problem? Should I be corner trapping the ceiling by the door possibly?

Thanks!

Edit: Redefining goal...
 
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peritus said:
Also... I'm not able to put a corner trap by the door (see room diagram)... Will that be a problem? Should I be corner trapping the ceiling by the door possibly?
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Seems like you could build a portable bass trap on a stand, and just stand it up in front of the closed door when you're working in there...then slide it out of the way when you're done.

Hopefully someone else can answer the question about which bass trap construction method is best - I'm interested in that too.
 
JeffLancaster said:
Seems like you could build a portable bass trap on a stand, and just stand it up in front of the closed door when you're working in there...then slide it out of the way when you're done.
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Agreed. I'm also thinking that the door way should be acting like a bass trap, since I don't require isolation (plus the door is pretty thin as of today)...
 
peritus said:
However... I think I could acheive what I need with a doubled up 4' x 4' sheet of plywood directly behind the current mixing position. The player or vocalist could be centered on it. Then, I guess I could have gobos (thanks mshilarious :) ) on all four sides (or less depending on the sound I want)...
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I just discovered a 5' x 4' piece of 3/4" plywood in my garage.... Just one less thing to buy.... :D
 
Here are my room modes.... Thanks Ethan (Ethan's site)!

roommodes9mt.jpg


Edit: These calculations obviously don't include the closet area.
 
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JeffLancaster said:
Actually yes, I have read that it's not the best idea to have your mix position in the exact center of the room. However, I do believe it's a good idea to have yourself, as well as your monitors, positioned evenly between the sides of the room. I have also read that when using nearfields you don't want them positioned TOO close to either the back or side walls as that will tend to exagerate bass frequencies. The manual for my monitors recommends at least a foot from any walls.
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There is some related info on this page (from Ethan's site)...

Here's a quote:
The drawing below shows the test room and its dimensions, as well as the "listener" position where the measuring microphone was placed. As per studio designer Wes Lachot, the room was divided at 38% front to back and floor to ceiling as giving the flattest low frequency response. In truth, this probably doesn't matter much for these tests because the focus here is to assess the change in decay time, not obtain the flattest measured response.
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Here's the diagram:
room_layout.gif


My question is... How can I find the best position percentage for my room? Anyone know the formula?
 
JeffLancaster said:
Hopefully someone else can answer the question about which bass trap construction method is best - I'm interested in that too.
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Seems like this thread clears up a lot of our questions...

---------

I'll summarize for my own reference...

Ethan suggests that a room that has a size similiar to our's should use:

Bass: 4" 705 rigid fiberglass corner traps (ceiling and wall)

Mids & Highs: 1" or 2" 703/705 on the walls (Frequency tuning can be done using spacers behind them)

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My conclusion is that I will be pursuing the above in addition to the 6" 705 (4" thick) dropped ceiling.

While on the subject of dropped ceilings, I've decided that I'd like to do a drop ceiling in the entire room (as opposed to what was I stated earlier in this thread). I haven't calculated the cost. I imagine it will be high. I'm also concerned about how to use corner traps that extend to the physical ceiling while also using a dropped ceiling. Topics for tommorow, I guess.

Here's another quote from Ethan's Accoustic FAQ:

"Although it is often desirable to alternate hard and soft surfaces on the walls, I often recommend covering the entire ceiling with absorbent material, especially if the ceiling is low. Besides eliminating floor to ceiling flutter echoes, full absorption can make the ceiling appear acoustically to be much higher. Most home studio owners cringe at the thought of making their ceilings even lower than they already are, but it really can help the sound. If you cover the entire ceiling with 2- to 4-inch thick 705, suspended with strings or wires to leave an air gap, the room will sound as if the ceiling were much higher. There's no difference between reflections that are reduced by the greater distance of a high ceiling and reflections from a low ceiling that are reduced by absorption. Using thick, dense fiberglass extends the simulated increase in height to lower frequencies. Where thin fiberglass makes the ceiling appear higher at midrange and high frequencies, using thicker and denser fiberglass with an air gap raises the apparent height at lower frequencies as well."

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I'm also kicking around the idea of buying sheets of plywood to cover the carpet... Not sure about that one yet... Seems like the dropped ceiling would be a higher priority...

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Glad we cleared that up! :D
 
peritus said:
I haven't calculated the cost. I imagine it will be high.
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Based on info from this thread, I've calculated the cost of the fiberglass I'd need for a dropped ceiling using 4" thick 705 rigid insulation...

In the thread, Ethan posted the following:

"As for cost, expect to pay somewhere between 30 and 60 cents per square foot for 703 one inch thick. Double that for 705, and/or multiply times 2, 3, or 4 for panels 2, 3, or 4 inches thick."

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I'll be calculating with a price of $3.60 sq ft. (Using 45 cents as a base number)...

$3.60 x 165 sq ft = $594.00 (no fabric, grid-work, tax, shipping, etc.)

Does this calculation sound reasonable? :confused:

Edit: Here's my updated graphic...

 
mshilarious said:
Here's some good 703 ceiling absorber porno ;)
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Much better looking than what I had in mind! :eek: Maybe I should rethink the ceiling plans... :D
 
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