Hi everybody, lemme give you some background first:
-I am a 28 year old mechanical engineer currently living at home with parents.
-They are cool enough to let me take over this room with my audio toys.
-The basement is filled with musical equipment (that's my 'live tracking room').
-The area of the room I'm using for mixing and monitoring is what I'm stuck with. I can't move the couches and a bunch of other stuff so I've put things in the positions that I imagine is the best for what I'm working with.
-I am not concerned with the response being perfect everywhere in the room, I just want the best response I can get for my mixing work.
-I am only worried about treatment, not isolation.
I have not made any measurements yet, so initially here I'm looking for subjective opinions about what problems I may run into and how important they are...
For instance,
-I know the 1 ft. drop in the ceiling and the wall to my left will affect stereo positioning, but how can I minimize the effects?
-How much will having the glass sliding door benefit me by allowing bass frequencies to escape?
-I have a nasty flutter echo so far with no treatment but I have walked around the room and don't hear huge nulls when playing pink noise, even in the room corners.
-Also the rear wall currently is shared with the laundry room and is VERY thin. I imagine this could be a very big positive in allowing the bass frequencies to pass through as well.
I plan to make some measurements and use your feedback to show before and after effects.
My 'unique' studio case study -- HELP!
Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 18333.
by the way, these pictures were taken with a very wide angle lens, so dimensions look a bit skewed. I have 3D room models and dimensions, I can post those tonight after work. For instance, the speakers as pictured are about 3 feet from the corner, 3 feet from front wall, and 6 feet apart.
am I getting no responses because the anti-symmetry is making you all cringe? :lol:
Hi "drone007", Welcome!
I would rotate your setup 90° to the left, so you are facing the curtained windows. That way, you get symmetry and solve all your basic issues.-I know the 1 ft. drop in the ceiling and the wall to my left will affect stereo positioning, but how can I minimize the effects?
Not much. :)-How much will having the glass sliding door benefit me by allowing bass frequencies to escape?
Pink noise and your ears won't help much there. Sine sweeps is what you need, but even then it's better to do a full analysis with REW, as that tells you an lot more than your ears ever could.-I have a nasty flutter echo so far with no treatment but I have walked around the room and don't hear huge nulls when playing pink noise, even in the room corners.
Not really. It might be acting as a membrane trap, or it might be acting as a resonant cavity... hard to say. And either way, it is most likley tuned to the wring frequency for your room... Once again, REW would help to reveal that.-Also the rear wall currently is shared with the laundry room and is VERY thin. I imagine this could be a very big positive in allowing the bass frequencies to pass through as well.
Nope. It's far more likely to be the forum rules! Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things! :) - Stuart -am I getting no responses because the anti-symmetry is making you all cringe?
That is how I imagined the "best" layout would be... however, I need to take some time and think about how I can pull that off while keeping the sliding glass door accessible for people. The challenges of home studios... hahaI would rotate your setup 90° to the left, so you are facing the curtained windows. That way, you get symmetry and solve all your basic issues.
I guess it was my assumption that it would be at least better than a fully insulated rigid wall. My hope was that the glass door might slightly mimic the opposite side, which happens to be the open room. Very wishful thinking, I know.Not much. :)
I was using pink noise because I thought I might be able to walk around the room and maybe hear tonal changes -- I'm not really confident in my speakers (Alesis M1 Active mkii) so I thought pink noise maybe take a bit out of the equation in case the speakers have trouble with certain frequencies... here's what a sweep looked like from my mix position, captured on my phone. don't laugh :) 40KHz sample freq 8kHz sample freq Looks like: - ~30dB null around ~200Hz - Maybe a peak problem at ~80Hz, but could be poor performance from the speaker? - I think those are a couple harmonics of the sine wave maybe? Following the signal trajectory... - The thing following an opposite trajectory, I'm thinking that is aliasing from the sample frequency? - Not entirely sure what the vertical lines are... thought that would be ringing in the room, but they aren't identical when the trajectory comes down, so that doesn't seem right. random broadband pops and clicks maybe?Pink noise and your ears won't help much there. Sine sweeps is what you need, but even then it's better to do a full analysis with REW, as that tells you an lot more than your ears ever could.
OK, that will be an interesting thing to look at. I'd like to see what effect opening and closing the door to that room is also. (just brainstorming here)Not really. It might be acting as a membrane trap, or it might be acting as a resonant cavity... hard to say. And either way, it is most likley tuned to the wring frequency for your room... Once again, REW would help to reveal that.
OK, I'm sorry I didn't read thoroughly enough. my apologies. we can close this thread if you'd like and maybe I can repost once I have more info. I do appreciate the perspective you've given already. Oh and one more thing -- I was looking for acoustic modeling software (thought about trying to write my own code in MATLAB also) and found that the U.S. distributor for CARA software is about 5 minutes from my house here in Maryland! So I will be buying that software and will create a model of the room you see in the photos above. This should be a great learning tool!Nope. It's far more likely to be the forum rules! Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things! :) - Stuart -
Sine sweeps are fine, but they only tell you a very small fraction of the overall acoustic response of the room. Download REW and run that... :)I was using pink noise because I thought I might be able to walk around the room and maybe hear tonal changes -- I'm not really confident in my speakers (Alesis M1 Active mkii) so I thought pink noise maybe take a bit out of the equation in case the speakers have trouble with certain frequencies... here's what a sweep looked like from my mix position, captured on my phone. don't laugh
It's hard to say from just looking at frequency-domain response on an i-phone from sweeps .... Those things you mention cold be anything at all. REW will tell you the truth...Looks like: - ~30dB null around ~200Hz - Maybe a peak problem at ~80Hz, but could be poor performance from the speaker? - I think those are a couple harmonics of the sine wave maybe? Following the signal trajectory... - The thing following an opposite trajectory, I'm thinking that is aliasing from the sample frequency? - Not entirely sure what the vertical lines are... thought that would be ringing in the room, but they aren't identical when the trajectory comes down, so that doesn't seem right. random broadband pops and clicks maybe?
Naah. it's fine... as long as you correct the basic problem! Check the big blue text, about half way down the page of rules.... :)we can close this thread if you'd like and maybe I can repost once I have more info.
Acoustic modeling only goes so far: and since the room is already built, and you have permanent access to it, it would be much smarter to spend that money on a good acoustic measurement mic and a basic sound level meter, then download REW and run some real-world tests on the real-world room, to see how it is actually performing in reality, rather than what theory predicts... - Stuart -Oh and one more thing -- I was looking for acoustic modeling software (thought about trying to write my own code in MATLAB also) and found that the U.S. distributor for CARA software is about 5 minutes from my house here in Maryland! So I will be buying that software and will create a model of the room you see in the photos above. This should be a great learning tool!