A few questions about treating my NEW room.

Hi, I have been reading for a while (not to mention being interested in studio design/building for years. I am a freelance audio engineer who works out of several private and public studios in the area. I am a couple years out of college and have not really had a room of my own since then. My wife and I are currently in the process of buying a house. We have our mortgage and are just waiting for the house to be finished so we can close (2 to 3 weeks!). We have probably had the worst story you have ever heard about buying a house. loooong story short, after fighting to remain in contract on a house for 4 months, a week before closing we found out that the city would not allow the house to be sold. ( :shock: ) So we ended up calling the realtor whom was handling a new neighborhood which was the first location we looked in. As it turns out, one of the houses had come back on to the market that morning and there were already offers on the table. If we signed the contract that day though, we could reserve the lot and the contractor would finish part of the basement. I pretty much designed the rooms on the way to the house to sign the contract. Hopefully I am on the right track. I had two rooms built. One, I did not put any specifics on the dimensions...the other I did. I am primarily looking to do editing/mixing, and some overdubs in my rooms. I play drums on occasion, but doubt I will ever track them there. I did not have the builders attempt to decouple the walls/ceiling as the loss of room height did not seem worth it to me, especially without HVAC silencers. I am not super concerned with acoustics in the larger "tracking" room as of right now, my mix room is the most pressing issue...but if you have any suggestions about any issues I might have in the tracking room, I will certainly listen. I will probably just do bass traps in the corners, a couple clouds, some absorption panels and maybe attempt some kind of curved diffuser to help with flutter and see how it sounds. This room is mostly rectangle, 26'x14' with a split basement stair section measuring 6' long and 3.5' wide in one corner. On to my mix room. I designed the room with a ratio of 1:1.4:1.9, then splayed the side walls ~6 degrees. The front wall is 9' 4.25", the back wall is 12' 4.75", and the distance from the front to back wall is 14' 5.75". The ceiling height of the basement is 7' 7". I'm not sure what I will go with for monitoring yet, and like multiple monitors...so did not want to soffit mount. My plan for acoustic treatment is: 1.Bass traps in all 4 corners, either superchunk or OC 703/705 straddling the corner and something lighter stuffed behind it. 2.OC 703 panels in 1st reflection points (including cloud over mix position). 3.Homemade skyline diffusers on the back wall. My questions: 1.Are there any other positions I should think about doing absorption? I can't find a lot of information about traps straddling the corners between the ceiling and walls? (is there a technical term for this angle?) 2.There is a section of the back wall that is boxed out that has some plumbing, and ventilation that runs along the center beam of the house hidden. Will this cause any isses? The box drops about 13" and comes out into the room about 2.5'. This box is also in the tracking room. 3.How much diffusion would I benefit from on the back wall in a room this size. 4.I am planning to put my mix position 1/3 or 2/5 of the room, is there a way to calculate the best place for standing waves? (I'm sure this has been answered, I'm sorry...I'm searching.) 5.Does the angle of the bass traps matter with the splayed walls? 6.Do you see anything else I might want to pay attention to in my room? Thanks so much for all the information on this site, I think a lot of my questions stem from the complication of splaying the side walls in terms of calculations.

welcome! have you considered putting the drywall on the outside of the CR and making it inside out? then cover the walls with slats and cloth to do the bulks of the treatment? on the wall-ceiling corners, you could build out soffits for the absorption, or super chunks, or just panels. with the right clouds though you might not need those.

Thanks! Actually, I had not considered that. That sounds like it would have been a pretty cool plan, unfortunately drywall started going up this morning. What kind of design are you referring to with "the right cloud design"? Do you know what locations I may benefit the most from putting traps in the wall/ceiling corners? What about diffusion in a room this size for the back wall?

even though you have angled the walls minimally, there is a possibility that you could still end up with unwanted reflections between the walls and at the listening position. so with this in mind, consider that first reflection points may still need treatment. on the cloud side, you're going to have a floor-ceiling mode and the cloud will help eliminate or reduce the impact of that on your listening position. depending on it's size, angle, position, height, etc you may also solve some of the bass trapping/ (which regardless you'll have to address via the corner treatments). the diffusion on the back wall seems like a decent approach.

The 1st reflection points will certainly be addressed. As far as how many ceiling-wall corner traps that are needed will probably just be a build and test process right? Do you know if I would get better results building them in the front of the room, rear, or both? (in addition to corner traps)

i would start with the vertical trapping and do some room measurements to see how much more you might need.