Help for home studio in sardinia

Thanks BriHar for your reply! :) You're right about the sketch, but in the end I opted for a simpler solution and I put my monitors on monitor stands... Nobody has comments about the analysis of the rooms after the changes? I think there are still some issues in the control room at around 30 Hz where the T60 is about 700 ms ...

What speakers are you using (brand, model), and how did you set them up (position, angle, height, mounting)? Photos would help. - Stuart -

Sorry, I'm not an expert in acoustics and I would like to better understand... the acoustics of the room should not be optimal regardless of the monitors and the position where I put them?

the acoustics of the room should not be optimal regardless of the monitors and the position where I put them?

The acoustics will be different in different locations in the room, and the response of the room as a whole can change, depending on the position of the speakers. For example, if you put a speaker in one of the corners of the room, then it will easily excite many (perhaps all) of the room modes, but if you put the speaker in a position that is a null for one or more nodes, then things will be very different. The same happens with your listening position: as you move around the room, you will hear different things in different locations. If your head happens to be in the null for a certain frequency, then you will not hear that note or any of the harmonics of that note, or you will hear them at a much lower level. Or if your head happens to be at the location of a peak for a certain frequency, then you'll hear that frequency louder than it should be (and also all of its harmonics). There are also other issues: if you put a speaker right against a wall, then you will get a boost in the bass levels, and you will also get comb filtering and other effects from the reflections coming off the wall, and the way they interact with the direct sound from the speaker. As you move the speaker away form the wall, you can easily hear the change in comb filtering moving down to lower and lower frequencies. Etc. That's why it is critical to set up your room correctly, and adjust the location of your listening position (your chair) and the locations of all of the speakers, for optimum results. There are general guidelines for setting up your room, based on percentages, angles, heights and distances: The normal way of optimizing is to set up the room like that, then make small changes to the positions of the chair and speakers, and see if you can get an improvement. So it is also imperative to take the acoustic readings at the exact position where your head will be, and to carefully measure the location of the microphone that you use for the readings, so that you can get it back to the exact same position (accurate to within a half inch or so), for future readings, as you change the room treatment, or the position of the speakers. If you don't get the mic in the exact same place each time, then the readings are not valid and cannot be compared, since you are looking at a different part of the overall room response pattern. So yes, a room can have great acoustics, but you'll could still hear different things in different locations around the room, since the sound waves are traveling around, interacting with the surfaces they encounter, and with each other. It's complicated.... :) - Stuart -

Thanks for your precious explanations Soundman2020 :) I'm sorry but I can not attach photos at this moment because I still have all disassembled in the control room... I have attached a sketch of my listening position with the respective positioning of my Yamaha hs 80 monitors...

You might want to spread your speakers a bit further apart. With that layout, your head is too close to the front wall for optimum acoustics. If you spread your speakers a little more, you can probably get your head where it should be, with your ears about 1.9m from the front wall. Also, if you are using HS80M speakers without a subwoofer, then there's something wrong! According to Yamaha, the bass response of those speakers rolls off to -10 dB at 42 Hz, yet you are showing a +10db PEAK at 30 Hz! So either you have a problem in your signal path somewhere (equalization?), or you have a subwoofer that is set incorrectly, or you did not set the room compensation and bass roll-off controls correctly on the back of the speaker, or you have a really major problem with your first axial mode! Where did you have the mic when you took that measurement? - Stuart -

thanks for the advice about the listening position and the correct position of the monitor... regarding the settings in the rear of the monitors, I have not used any because I believed that the acoustics of the room should be good without corrections from the monitors... when I did the measurements the microphone was where the listening position is in the layout...

regarding the settings in the rear of the monitors, I have not used any because I believed that the acoustics of the room should be good without corrections from the monitors...

The controls are there for a purpose! They have nothing to with the acoustics of the room: rather, they correct the interaction of the speaker with the room boundaries. It fixes the problems that the room creates for the speaker itself. If you place a speaker in the middle of a large room, far away from all walls, then it needs no correction. If you place the speaker up against a wall, then you have changed the environment of the speaker. It is no longer radiating freely in all directions (normally called "full space"). Because it is now against a wall, the sound that normally would have gone backwards behind the speaker and never returned, is now bouncing right back immediately, and increasing the apparent output by up to 6 dB. In other words, the speaker is now radiating into "half-space", instead of "full space". So you have distorted the power response curve of the speaker, simply by placing it close to a wall. The problem is that this effect is not the same for all frequencies. It only affects very low frequencies, and is different for every speaker. This has nothing at all to do with the room acoustics: it is simply a matter of the way sound waves interact with walls. It is a law of physics. The situation would be exactly the same for your speaker, even in the best studio in the world. That's why the manufacturer put the controls there: because you need them! Two of the controls on the back of the HS80M are pertinent here: First and foremost is the one marked "Room Control": Set that one to -4dB and run your tests again. There should be a big improvement. But if that isn't enough, you might also need to set the "Low Cut" control to 80 Hz, and try again. Post the results from those tests, so we can take a look. One word of warning here: The HS80M is a rear-ported speaker, so you can't put it right up against the wall. You need to leave at least a small gap at the back (a few inches), or you could change the tuning of the rear port. - Stuart -

I run again the tests following the directions of Soundman2020, I placed the room control to -4 dB ... I also changed the listening position that is now at a distance of 1.9 meters from the front wall and spaced apart the monitors...

Any comments regarding these measurements?

Hello, it's been a while since I last wrote ... I finished all the work I had been suggested. Thank you very much to all for the valuable information! I did a test recording with a 4 x 12 cabinet in the live room and I think there are still some problems because when I play the G# (103,83HZ), the A (110 HZ ) and the A# (116,54 HZ) there is a big increase in volume, for the rest of the notes does not happen . I hope something can be done to solve this problem because the recordings are very compromised. I attach some tests made ​​with REW. Thanks in advance!

Please is there anybody who can lend me a hand? I need your expertise to solve some problems with my recording room. Bye

when I play the G# (103,83HZ), the A (110 HZ ) and the A# (116,54 HZ) there is a big increase in volume, for the rest of the notes does not happen

I', not seeing that on the graphs, though, so perhaps you did not set up the speaker and mics in the same position where you were playing and listening? There seems to be a slight modal issue around that area, but once again you need to set the graph parameters correctly, so that we can see what is going on. Try to get it looking like the ones you did before for the control room. Also, please post a diagram showing what treatment you have in that live room right now, and also some photos of the room. Another question: Are you using an equalizer for that amplifier/speaker? It looks like you might be. - Stuart -

I'm sorry, you're right, I loaded the graphics of the control room rather than those of the recording room. I have now uploaded the correct ones. I made ​​the measurements with a monitor that I use in the control room, a PMC TB2s AII without any equalization with the mic at 10 inches from the speaker in the same point where I played with the guitar cabinet.

I hope someone can give me some advice on how to solve this problem because when I play those notes there is an increase in volume of about 14 dB which damages the records :(

In those graphs, I'm still not seeing the issues you mention: There doesn't seem to be anything unusual in that region. Maybe the mic was too close to the speaker? Try moving them very far apart, and take new readings. - Stuart -

Thank you very much for your reply! So if the recording room has no problems, I will make the new recordings trying to move the mic in other points :) what do you think of the control room? I have attached some measurements! Thank you!

what do you think of the control room? I have attached some measurements!

The control room definitely seems to have some modal issues that need treating. The left and right speakers are showing problems at the same or similar frequencies. I think you need more bass trapping in that room. - Stuart -

Thanks Stuart for your reply. I attach some photos of the room so you can see where I put the panels. In all four corners there are superchunks, in the corner on the sofa I put two Lenrd bass traps. Where is better to put more absorption?

If I remove the two inclined panels in the two upper corners on the long sides and put other lenrd bass traps in place of these may solve the problem?

If I remove the two inclined panels ...

What is behind those panels? What type of insulation are you using up there? From the photos, they don't seem to be very thick. - Stuart -

Rock wool panels, 4 cm thick and with a density of 40kg/m3.

OK, that might be part of the problem: they should be at least 10cm thick, and 20cm would be even better. 4cm is not going to do much. Acoustic absorption needs to be thick. So add in plenty more absorption on all of your panels, and you should see an improvement. - Stuart -

Are you referring only to the two top inclined panels?

All of the bass trap panels. And the ones in the front corners also. Bass trapping needs to be thick. - Stuart -