Small studio control room acoustic repair project

Started by Ducharme on 29 June 2009. 0 replies.

Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 13224.

I want to first say thank you to John for starting this forum and also to the many people that give great advice to those who need it. I have been reading here for about 2 years and this is my first post. I need help with a reasonable plan to help the acoustics in my small control room. A brief overview of the studio: My studio consists of a small control room L=9'7" W=6'10" H=7'7", a small vocal booth 4' 4' aprox. I use the large untreated 21X14 room to record drums and guitar cabs. Construction materials: I have 2x4 studs with light duty home insulation in between the studs. Looking from the images below perspective the walls in the front and on the right have the studs positioned sideways to allow the wall to be closer to the cement basement wall and leave more room for the control room. History:The control room was constructed about 16 years ago and the budget was pretty strict at the time. I have made two previous attempts to improve the acoustics once about 10 years ago and then again two years ago. During the only serious mixing project this past few months I came to the realization that the room had some serious issues and perhaps the last attemp even made matters worse. My plan is to use what resources and a small budget to make it as good as it can be for now. In 2 to 3 years. I will do a complete demo and construction project with time and budget. Current: During my research this go around, I used one of the popular free measurement software packages EQ Wizard and took readings that have been all over the map, some ok some very bad. I have a new set of JBL LSR4328p main monitors and the 4312 sub with room mode auto calibration. I believe that the room mode helps but I have read that you should not use a sub in critical listening in general. I am experiencing problems based on the room nodes in the 250 450 ranges node areas and I am sure Ethan will respond with his " you need more bass traps" response and he will be right as always. There is a 4 inch sealed plasterboard membrane panel trap in the rear wall that spans the entire wall next to the door. I have a fair supply of 703 3" and 1" on hand from all that I have removed from the room thus far. I currently have a flush mounted 20 space equipment rack just before the control room door on the left side. I watched a video on Ethan's website about the ultimate basement studio and decided to use the same treatment on the ceiling. In my dimensions I listed the height as 7'7" but prior to the changes I made from the video it was 6'10" which had me at a much worse room ratio. I removed the ceiling panel traps and sheet rock and stuffed the 12" floor joists with R19 pink fluffy insulation. Which adds broad band bass trapping to the entire ceiling. Unfortunately I did not take any impulses prior to the demolition, I can say that I had some mid range ringing pointed out by a friend and once I noticed it I went into immediate action and removed the faces from the panel traps that are located in the front of the control room I had 4 panel traps on the ceiling 2 low mid and two for low frequency that we added two years ago, I added 5 panel traps in the 10 year ago project. After deciding that these were not helping, as I said I removed all the ceiling panel traps and took the face off the ones in the front and exposed the 1 inch 703 (see image green boxes). I am quite sure either those types of traps do not work well in a space this size or I built them incorrectly. Questions 1: Would flush/soffit mounting the LSR monitors be a solution. In my measurements I found that moving the dual computer monitors up and out of the way from the speakers removed a null I had at 1 or 1.4 k depending on how I had the speakers and comp monitors positioned. Would I be able to improve the room and deal with the computer monitor issue by flush mounting/soffit mounting the monitors and elevate them with a @10 degree pitch down to the listening position. One of the SKP room designs by John shows the soffit mounted speakers up higher than the listening position and I was unable to see any pitch. Question 2: If I ended up Soffit mounting the speakers would it be good to build resonator panels on either side of the mix position like in some of Johns designs? I have a panel with 3" of 703 board on one side and somehow I have a 1" 703 board with 2" of space behind it now, not sure what I was thinking..... Question 3: Would super chunks be a better solution than soffit mounting? I would then place the speakers on sand filled stands and create a very small desk for the computer monitors and small mixer. Question 4: Should I keep the monitors full range with no sub while testing and improving the room? Perhaps it is OK to use the sub while mastering or while comparing the Kick drum or bass guitar and possibly using it while it is soloed for those same instances. Question 5: Would it help to move the entry door to the left rear side wall, I could probably pull that off though if it is not going to make that much difference I would prefer to leave it for now. Please feel free to answer these questions by making a complete recommendation/overview of what you would do. I can provide other information if needed. Here are three images one shows the beams overhead, to give you an approximate placement if that helps.
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