Acoustics Newbie with very small bedroom/control room

Started by tathnos on 13 May 2009. 2 replies.

Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 13034.

Hi ya'll! hooray for my first post! This is my bedroom/control room. I plan on building my own acoustic treatment panels out of OC 703 or 705. the room is small, but carpeted and holds a bed. Repositioning furniture in the room is not possible, I tried, and I can't do any permanent construction. Where should I apply treatment/panels and what kind? I'm looking to mix/edit a wide variety of music and movies in this space, and not really planning to record anything other than maybe a voice/over or acoustic guitar here, altho that is of low importance. My Speakers are JBL LSR4326P's, although I am looking to add the matching sub at some point, and I plan on wallmounting my 46" sony tv in the location indicated, as opposed to its stand on the desk. I appologize if this isnt enough information. I'm new to the forum and I am currently a student at a school for sound recording/editing, although I have done a lot of live sound. Let me know if there is anything more I need to include. Thank you! Oh, and ceiling height is 6'9", the object behind the desk is my bed, and there is a small low dresser in the upper left hand corner.
Image not preserved: My Room small.jpg
The first thing that comes to mind is that your speakers are firing across the short axis of the room, instead of down the long axis. Second thing: the room is not symmetrical. Third thing: your doors are in the wrong place. To fix these two, you'd need to get rid of that white thing (bed? sofa?), then move your desk backwards and rotate it 90° to the left (anticlockwise), and seal up the alcove space (where the desk is now) somehow, perhaps with some framing and drywall. That would make it more workable acoustically, as the speakers would be firing down the long axis and the room would be more symmetrical. But it would still leave the issue of the doors being right where you need to place your bass trapping. That's the least serious of the three, and there are probably work-arounds for that too. You need symmetry in order to get a good stereo image. You cannot mix properly without that. You need the speakers firing down the long axis in order to get the reflections off the back wall as far away in time and space as possible. You need serious bass trapping in the rear corners (and as many other corners as possible) because bass trapping is much, much more effective in corners. I also don't see any provision for HVAC in there, and no windows either. That's another issue you'd have to deal with. My 0.02 - Stuart -
Thanks for the reply. Its in a basement which stays pretty cool all year long, so there is no HVAC, and there is a window in the lower left that is hard to see in the pic. I really have to deal with the room layout and construction the way it is. I know this room is way less than ideal, but I'm curious what CAN be done with acoustic treatment even if i will still have a wonky stereo image ie. Bass traps, absorption panels, diffusion. I'd like to make the room sound as good as it can. I've noticed some obnoxious frequencies, but cant quite identify them, and was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.