i finally have a dedicated studio room - advise on treatment

NewSc2 · Post by **NewSc2** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 6:22 am

Realtraps.com has all the info you need. I DIYed some bass traps on the corners, 4" thick, on all my corners, and it very noticably tightened up the sound. The most important ones were covering the front corners.

Check out Gearslutz's studio building/acoustics forum for more help.

breaktwister · Post by **breaktwister** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 5:58 pm

NewSc2 wrote: I DIYed some bass traps on the corners, 4" thick, on all my corners, and it very noticably tightened up the sound. The most important ones were covering the front corners.

Check out Gearslutz's studio building/acoustics forum for more help.

I spent all day yesterday on the gearslutz acoustics forums. Can I ask how you built your traps, which materials etc? I'm not very handy and would struggle making frames but if I can get a good result by packing some fiberglass/rock wool or wotever into some pillowcases then I'll do that!

By 'front' corners do you mean the ones your speakers are facing or the corners you are facing when sitting at the console?

::BLM:: · Post by **::BLM::** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:04 pm

I have been doing loads of research on this topic for the last couple of months. According to some of the experts on Gearslutz you want to face your monitors down the longest bit of the room and then sit 30% in the room.

Check out this site as it has loads of great information:

http://www.realtraps.com/experts.htm

Edit: Sorry I have just seen a load of people said what I have just said already.

NewSc2 · Post by **NewSc2** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:38 am

breaktwister wrote:
NewSc2 wrote: I DIYed some bass traps on the corners, 4" thick, on all my corners, and it very noticably tightened up the sound. The most important ones were covering the front corners.

Check out Gearslutz's studio building/acoustics forum for more help.
I spent all day yesterday on the gearslutz acoustics forums. Can I ask how you built your traps, which materials etc? I'm not very handy and would struggle making frames but if I can get a good result by packing some fiberglass/rock wool or wotever into some pillowcases then I'll do that!

By 'front' corners do you mean the ones your speakers are facing or the corners you are facing when sitting at the console?

I bought premade bags from readyacoustics.com, and 2'x4'x4" Auralex mineral wool off Amazon. I don't remember the weight of the mineral wool, but it's basically the same stuff that everybody uses. The mineral panels are very rigid—they could easily freestand and hold their shape.

Each bass trap came out to something like $50-60, and took maybe 5 minutes to put together. Really easy. Slip the mineral wool panel in (the kinda frustrating part) and zip the bag up. My ceiling is 8', so I stacked 2 4' bass traps tight from floor to ceiling, no mounting necessary.

By "front" corners I mean the corners I face when sitting in front of my computer. They're much closer to your ears and facing your ears, so they immediately clean up the most audible bass booms and reflections. One of the rear corners is alongside a window and closet, so I left it un-trapped for a couple days before I decided to go ahead and cover the corner anyway. I didn't notice much benefit from trapping that last corner, but that's just me.

I had planned to buy another 4-6 bass traps to cover the wall-to-ceiling corners in my room, but I'm reasonably happy with my monitoring situation right now. I honestly think room acoustics is a bit overrated. It does make a difference, and the sound is much better, but unless you're very skilled or have a perfect room, your mixes are not going to end up great on the first go. I still double check my mixes on my car stereo, headphones, computer speakers, friends' studios, etc. to figure it all through.

Torque · Post by **Torque** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 9:00 am

Sometimes i see people try to make a room too dead. That can sometimes work against you. You need at least a couple of places in the room that you can go to with some fucked up acoustics. Very rarely will a club have perfect acoustics. If the room is too dead sometimes you see producers putting in too much reverb, then it gets to the club and after it bounces around off the walls it ends up all muddy. One box of auralex for a small room is all you need. Maybe 2 basstraps if you have a hall shaped room. Don't overdo it. All you need is one small area right around where you sit that has flat eq.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:29 am

read this very informative article on home studio design mate ;

http://mixguides.com/studiomonitors/Bas ... nd-studios

its written by an acoustic engineer, and explodes the old wives tale about placing your monitors on the short wall, it states clearly that it totally depends on your room dimensions and that there is no rule of thumb.
there is a calculator to help you decide how to place your monitors based on your room dimensions.

lcvl · Post by **lcvl** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:37 pm

small, cubic rooms are def the hardest ones to make sound decent.

making broad band panels is pretty easy.
just build a wood frame, stuff it with a rockwool sheets (more sheets = deeper panel = lower freq absorption) and cover the front surface with some fabric.

you'll find plenty more details on gearslutz.com

astley · Post by **astley** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:42 pm

get an Analogue decibel meter wich you can connect to your soundcard

download "room eq wizard", a program to measure the frequency response of your room

speakers close to the wall

use the program together with your decibel meter, look at the graphs where the holes in your sound are, move your speakers around and measure again, thisway at least you can see what you are doing

move the decibel meter to the corners (or everywhere where walls meet) of your room while playing a sub sinewave continuously over your speakers and notice what happens on the meter

to measure is to know

blablabla etcetera