trying to make the best of a bedroom sized space (3D)

Well, I'm moving this saturday to a new apartment in Brooklyn, and I've been racking my brain over the best way I can use the new space. The room is pretty small, and pretty odd in its design. I think some outside opinions would help a lot. 1) where should I place my traps? I currently have the budget to build 12 acoustic panels out of 703. I've read about placement but I cant use one corner of the room and cant go over the windows either. Also the left wall had closets (the transparent walls) and they have sliding doors, so I would only be able to put panels on the top slider. What I really want to know is how will the awkward placement of traps affect my sound? 2) how will having those big closets in the room affect the sound/ how will the staggered left wall distort my sound when I try to mix? Will it throw off my left and right perception from my monitors or do you think it should be pretty alright since its a minimal indent in the wall? 3) how high/ low should I place the traps vertically, and should I really worry about the ceiling (yet) since I'm on such a tiny budget? I'm thinking ear level is a pretty good start but I'm not sure. -------------- some extra info - room is roughly 17 x 11.5 (minus the closets which are two feet deep so about 9.5) with 9' 7" ceilings. - wood floors - drywall ceiling and walls - two small windows - neighbors behind the right wall - I play acoustic music ( guitar, banjo, uke, keyboard, piano, trumpet, clarinet, harmonica, vocals) (occasionally i throw down drums) - I'm pretty quiet, and my landlord says I can record whatever till 10 pm so sounds not really an issue. ------------- EDIT ------------- so I've thought some more about the design and I think I'll have better luck covering the entire back wall with acoustic foam, and then just using panels to cancel out the first reflections. This way I should be able to afford to purchase pre-made panels that should catch a little more bass (since I'll only need 3) [ I also couldnt find a dealer selling 703 or an equivalent]. I think this new design makes much more sense, especially since its hard for me to cover the side wall with the closets. thoughts?

To be honest, I think I prefer your first design. The only thing I'd change on that is to take the two panels on the side walls that are just in front of the first reflection points, and move one to be a cloud above the mix position, and the other to the rear wall, to have more absorption back there. And you do need to do something about those windows: they are right behind your speakers, and look like they are first reflection points to me! Even if they aren't, you'll still have all kinds of comb filtering ant other weird reflections coming off those. Maybe build removable absorptive plugs for them, that you can insert when doing critical listening and remove at other times. Or gobos on wheels, to wheel in front of them for critical listening. I doubt that your mixes will translate well if you don't do something about those windows. - Stuart -

thanks for the reply. I thought about flipping the entire set up of the room so that the windows were in the back. do you think it would help at all? I cant completely cover both the windows because one of them will have an air conditioner in it. I thought about making a gobo but I don't have the money at the current moment. right now I'm leaning towards the second design (flipped around) with bass traps in four ceiling corners of the room. My worry about the first design is that its far from symmetrical which i fear might distort the stereo image. I was looking at acoustic foam solutions. In the past I've read that fiberglass is much better as an absorber but now I'm reading that good quality acoustic foam is just as good if used in combination with bass traps or broadband absorbers. What do you think? thanks again for the response.

updated the design to include a movable wall as you mentioned. In your last post said first reflection points would be on that wall with the windows but I did some searching around on Ethan's site and found nothing saying first reflections would be on that wall. I understand the design is lacking bass traps, but I think I can add those later on. I'm just trying to get something usable up and running for the summer. anyway, I think this should be a lot better. The center wall is made from two standard 4x8 sheets of drywall (with stuff inside, not sure what yet) and the sides are two sheets cut directly in half. ( I did this for pricing reasons) what do you think?

There's an easy way to find out where your first reflection points are in a room: While you sit at your mix position, get someone else to hold up a mirror against the walls, ceiling, floor and furniture, and move it around all over the place. Any time you, at the mix position, can see a speaker reflected in the mirror, then there is a first reflection point where the mirror is. At that point, you want absorption. It is surprising where you might find first reflection points, too: Don't forget to move that mirror around the ceiling and floor. A commonly forgotten location is the desk or console surface. Since you can't really put 2 inches of rock wool on top of your desk, you might need to change the design of the desk, or move the speakers slightly in order to deal with that. Or if it is on the console, then you could consider tilting the console a bit, to change the reflection angle.

anyway, I think this should be a lot better. The center wall is made from two standard 4x8 sheets of drywall (with stuff inside, not sure what yet) and the sides are two sheets cut directly in half. ( I did this for pricing reasons) what do you think?

The drywall is fine (although two sheets might be overkill: one would probably be enough) but you need absorption on it. The point of treating your first reflection points is to stop sound "reflecting" off those points directly from the speakers to you ears, so you need to put at least a couple of inches thickness of fiberglass or mineral wool insulation at those points. So you could just make those gobos as frames with drywall, plywood, MDF or something like that on one side, and at least 2" of insulation on the other side, covered with acoustic cloth. You don't really need the center section of that wall, so if you need to save money, you could get by with just making the two angled gobos, and positioning them where the mirror tells you that you need them.

Yeah, I know I need absorption on the panels, sorry I forgot to mention that. As far as ditching the center, I think that's the only way I can cover both the windows and still be able to get to them (because ill have an air conditioner sticking out of one, ( I need to be able to squeeze back there to turn it on and off easily). anyway, I was looking for gobo plans and I thought I saw some stickied on the site a while ago, but now I cant seem to find them. Do you know where they are? and thanks again for your responses.