Suggestions needed RE further treatment of my live room

Hi Guys, Well it has been a WHILE since I've been in these parts of the woods, glad to be back! The studio has been up and running for a year now and slowly getting busier and busier, by enlarge the rooms themselves sound good and am happy to work in them, but the live room needs a bit more work... Most of the music I record is acoustic driven pop/rock and folk/jazz stuff, so the lively room tends to support that. I have just built some large GOBO's to deaden things if needed. A fellow engineer who has been using my place for tracking has noted that while the close mics are great he is constantly having to deal/flight with the overhead mics when mixing and it seems to be the same problem with each project which he puts down to the room itself. He says the cymbals get quite 'splashy' and there is a build up at around 300Hz and I'm wondering if there is away to tame or fix this while retaining the live sound? The room is fairly small and treated with a few IM475 wrapped panels, each is 1.2m x 0.6m in length 50mm (2") thick placed about 2cm off the wall (just under an inch) to make better use of the surface area. IM 475 is Owens Corning's equivalent to 703 in our country and matches the 703 specs. Here are a few pics (forgive the cheap digital camera, the colours look a little gaudy): This is the layout of the room (I have terrible handwriting, all sizes are in meters, not so good with feet and inches). Below are pics of each wall, from the door they are right to left... As you can see there is no absorption on the window/door side of the room, do I need more here? There is a carpet on the floor and the ceiling is slightly elevated as to not be parallel with the floor (as shown in the side profile above). There are no diffusers and am wondering if they may help, something like the Auralex T'Fusor on the celings? Along with the pictures (I know I should attach them, but every-time I try it kicks me out so I've created a folder that I won't delete on my personal server!). I've also linked an audio clip. I placed a large diaphragm condenser mic (fixed cardioid pattern) at chest height in the room and stood 3 feet back and clapped and allowed some time for the quick decay, I'm not sure it this proves anything but thought I'd offer it up :? It can be found HERE Thanks in advance for any suggestions you bright bunch might have! Cheers Matt

Just thought I would add these.... I used Ethan's Mode Calculator and punched in the live room's values. I used the shortest sides as opposed to the longest, not sure if that is the best way or not given then room is not perfectly rectangular, but pretty close. Not sure if that info helps at all. Thanks again Matt

welcome back ;) Those black panels look great against those OSB walls. Thumbs up so far. btw, did you have another threat already where you posted your construction of your studio? Please add a link here, so we know what's up. :D

Ro wrote:

welcome back ;) Those black panels look great against those OSB walls. Thumbs up so far. btw, did you have another threat already where you posted your construction of your studio? Please add a link here, so we know what's up. :D

Hey Ro, Thanks for the welcome back. RE the studio I don't have a detailed build as I took over an existing studio but spent 2 months doing renovations and with the help/advise from Rod was able to further isolate the Live Room. I posted back then under the username of upsidedown, matta is my original one but couldn't' recall my password and login... GRRR, though I now have and will stick to being, well, me! Here is the thread in question: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=60304 It shows my updated control room, which I treated with dead front wall and have some QRD's on the rear wall, still waiting for the last QRD and then will fill in with some further bass traping, but so far so good! I decided to keep the OSB like it is, it gives the room a nice organic feeling and put in walnut poliface laminate flooring and the contract of the black and OSB looks sexy ;-) Here is the layout of the studio: Here is a pic of the completed Control Room: I also built a little kitchen and lounge are to relax in after/between takes: Pics of the Live room can be seen above and the vocal booth isn't that special, LOL! I've made the best of the limitations that were before me, but have one of the coolest studios in town I think ;-) I'd still like to address the live room issues and am open to suggest! Thanks Matt

Ah, yeah I just read about it in the construction part :) Keep things together by linking these threads is easier to read and see what's going on. Thanx for the update

Consider them linked! Man I'll tell you this... the work is ALOT harder than it looks, now I can see WHY people choose to pay contractors to do this stuff. In making those 703 type panels they required an MDF frame for rigidity and to make up cover them required 2000 staples, all I had was a hand held staple gun, by the end of it I had six blisters, blood and alot of raw skin... I was close to breaking down in tears... can't have the pleasure without the pain! I look back on it now and can laugh but at the time I really was wondering if I could/would get through it all :shock: Now it is a matter of just tightening it up a bit, hoping some others will chime in with suggestions. Cheers Matt

Ro wrote:

Ah, yeah I just read about it in the construction part :) Keep things together by linking these threads is easier to read and see what's going on. Thanx for the update

matta wrote:

I used Ethan's Mode Calculator and punched in the live room's values. I used the shortest sides as opposed to the longest

That all looks good. I always enter values from longest to shortest, so when ModeCalc tells you the ratio the "1:" part is always on the left as expected. --Ethan

Thanks Ethan, While the room is smaller than the recommended cubic value, it is all I have to work with and seems to look pretty well RE the actual sizes etc. Any hints/tips on treating it further so as to retain some of the live feeling, but eliminate the so called 300Hz build up (though I'm beginning to wonder since nothing seems to be RIGHT on top of each other with a fairly even spread?) Maybe diffusers on the ceiling? Thanks again! Matt

You do have a mode at around 391Hz on all three axis though... Frank

Thanks Frank, I didn't see it on the Graph that way but I spot the values on the chart... is this physical limitation I have to live with or is there something that can be done to treat it? Cheers Matt

Weasel9992 wrote:

You do have a mode at around 391Hz on all three axis though... Frank

Sorry, it was 381Hz of course. That mode is just a by product of the size, shape and composition of the room. Aside from a physical change in those factors I'd say the only way to deal with it would be to add more broad band absorption. I feel like you could knock that resonance down some on one or maybe two axis without killing all of the ambience, but it would probably require moving around some of the treatment you have now. Frank

Hah hah, yeah I got the figure was 381Hz, the figures don't lie, LOL! Any idea of placements of the treatments? Do you think they are sufficient or should I try to add one or 2 more? Is diffusion worth it in a room of this side? Thanks for the input Frank. Cheers Matt

Weasel9992 wrote:

Sorry, it was 381Hz of course. That mode is just a by product of the size, shape and composition of the room. Aside from a physical change in those factors I'd say the only way to deal with it would be to add more broad band absorption. I feel like you could knock that resonance down some on one or maybe two axis without killing all of the ambience, but it would probably require moving around some of the treatment you have now. Frank

matta wrote:

Any idea of placements of the treatments?

Corners, and first reflection points. That's most of it. --Ethan

Hi Ethan, Thanks again for chiming in. I understand the basic principle of early reflections/first reflection points and gained much of that understanding from your articles, specifically: http://www.realtraps.com/rfz.htm and used that approach when tweaking my control room... but how does one do that in a live room? Speakers are directional in that they come out at you, what happens with a drum kit where sound emanates from pretty much everywhere? As you can see in my photo's and illustrations I have placed panels on 3 of the 4 walls that I deemed as early reflection areas. I could add a 4th on the 1.6m side, not as easy on the Window side unless it straddles the floor and I guess I could put up a few in some of the corners. What about the roof to floor reflections? The ceiling does go from 2.25m to 2.53m, not sure if the degree there constituents as being parallel or not. Should I apply some absorbers to the ceiling as well? Thanks in advance. Matt

Ethan Winer wrote:

matta wrote:

Any idea of placements of the treatments?

Corners, and first reflection points. That's most of it. --Ethan

matta wrote:

but how does one do that in a live room?

Sorry, I was speaking too generally. In a live room it's not a stereo imaging issue as much as basic comb filtering off the walls and ceiling etc. This is especially a problem in small rooms where no distance is greater than 10 feet. That's the distance at which reflections become "early" and comb filtering dominates. Not that you want obvious slap echo from a more distant boundary either! So generally speaking, the smaller the room, the more surface needs treating proportionally.

Should I apply some absorbers to the ceiling as well?

Yes, especially anywhere you'll use overhead microphones. --Ethan