25 May
2014
25 May
'14
10:07 p.m.
Hi,
I recently moved to a new flat, and I've just got my studio properly setup
in one of the rooms.
Congrats! I hope we get a lot of your beautiful music out of this room:)
Problem is, the room is rather horrible acoustically.
As this is the room
I've got to play with, I'm going to have to make the best of it
acoustically.
So, my question is about DIY acoustic absorbers. I'm most likely looking
to build absorbers both for mid/hi-end (I'm thinking the classical rock
wool ones you place spaced out a bit form the walls) and for the lower end,
but I am very much open for suggestions. Here's some specs of my setup:
- The room is roughly 3.60m wide, 3.40m long and 2.50m
high. I think at
least one wall is concrete.
As first step I would consider to mix facing the narrow side of the room
Plus always keep everything nice and symmetric.
Also I would recommend to measure the room to see what problems you're
dealing with. http://www.roomeqwizard.com/ is available for Linux AFAIK.
- My mixing position/monitors is in the middle of the front wall. I sit
about 1.20m out from the wall.
Have you heard about the 38% rule? If not read up on this
http://realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm, also covers early reflection
points.
- My monitors are small, a set of Adam A3X (so 3"
elements I guess). It
basically gives very low bass response, so I can hear fairly OK down to
about 80hz, rapidly declining down to 60hz where there's nothing left.
Less low energy buildup, but as you mentioned you won't know whats down
there so I would recommend you to treat for lower frequencies in case you
upgrade your speakers in the future.
- I am not terribly dependent on mixing at high
volumes, if that matters.
It matters a bit as there is less energy to be absorbed, but again I would
treat properly just in case you want to listen with higher SPL's, so it
doesn't totally change the EQ of your mix (anyway it will change with sound
pressure level because of equal loudness
contour<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour>)
What I currently have is:
- Two large bookshelves along the wall right behind my mixing position
acting as diffusors. These go almost all the way up to the ceiling, and has
stuff unevenly stacked at different heights/positions in the bookshelf.
They cover 1.60m in the middle of the back wall.
I've got good experience with bookshelves in homestudios, given they
aren't
to close behind the listening position.
- I also have a fairly large carpet on the floor in
the middle of the
room. It probably doesn't do that much, but maybe it does a little.
It does a little in preventing flutter echo of high frequencies.
My question then is; are there any effective ways of acoustically treating
this room? Of course, given the topic of the e-mail, I'm very much willing
to do my own DIY solutions, if that's a viable option. What I have been
thinking is doing what I mention above; classical absorber "panels", and
bass traps.
I would treat the corners and early reflection points first.
In a homestudio of a friend we filled the corners with rockwool made a
wooden frame and covered them with fabric.
Early reflection points can be treated with 10-15cm thick "classical
absorber panels".
For our live room we've done something else, we made wooden slat covered
frames and filled the cavity with rockwool .
I like what it does to the room as it doesn't make it dead but tames the
response quite nicely.
But, before I start anything, I'd very much like
input from people who
actually know what they're talking about (I'm looking at you on this list
;) ). So, does anyone have thoughts/suggestions for me? Any recommended way
of doing this?
Thank you very much for any help and any replies!
Best of luck!
Moshe