revolving solving

First, you have an extraordinary site. I've seen nothing like it. It's a great service to the industry. congratulations. Now for the bad stuff. I've researched the forum, checked all the things I was to do before posting. I'm still in need. As instructed, I'll set the description of the particulars and then state the problem. This is an existing basement one room studio, a basic rectangle whose dimentions are 9'H, 16'W, 36'D. To image this, the short [16'] front wall [north], is across the top of the page, and is presently the front wall of the studio. The rear wall, [south], is across the bottom. The 36' west wall has an intrusion 3' deep and 13' long, so the room is narrowed to 13' beginning 11' from the front wall and extending toward the rear. The front,[north] wall has a large bass trap across it, floor to ceiling,18" deep at the center and then, 5' from each side wall, it angles 4' into the room. So, effectively, I have in each corner, a 5' x 9' corner panel where I used to have large JBJ monitors flush mounted. The entire front wall is covered with 5" foam. The desk faces this north wall and my Adams3a monitors sit on stands 2' from the wall firing south. The north half [mixing area] of the studio floor is wood, the south half is carpeted. The walls, other than the front, are painted double 5/8ths drywall, and the ceiling is the same, save for a 2.5' x 6' 1" foam board attached to the ceiling directly over the mixing area. I have a few portable 4' x 6' foam covered boards, and that's about it. Now, the problem: I would like to " revolve " my desk/monitors, etc., 90 degrees clockwise, so that the studio is facing the east wall. This would help in that my back would not be facing the few musicians I record.I need help in identifying and solving the problems involved in this, such as: The monitors will now be appx. 12" from the east [ now front ] wall. Problems? solutions? The west [ now rear ] wall will only be 5' to 8' behind my head. Problems? Solutions? Absorption? Diffusion? The new side walls will now not be symmetrical. The left monitor will have a 5" foam covered wall angled outward 3' to the left, where the right monitor will have a wall to the right over 25' away. I am not aware of any other possible negitives. I realize it may be expensive to accomplish this move and I would spend a reasonable amount to do it. But if, even then, if it severly hadicaps the sound, I'm not afraid to give up. Thanks for reading this. Hopefully you can help me understand the problems and advise me as to the possible solutions. Barn. Buffalo, N.Y.

Symmetry is important to get an accurate stereo image, and greater depth behind you gives a bit more flexibility in positioning your head and speakers to keep them out of peaks/nulls in the room - instead of doing that, I'd consider getting a video camera and monitor, or two of each if you need visual communications. Then I'd absorb all first reflection points, ditch the foam, (mineral wool or rigid fiberglass costs less and does more)... In fact, if you need to see what's going on in the room I would turn your setup 180 degrees before I'd do 90 degrees; you'd keep symmetry, then you'd just need to position things away from peaks/nulls. (still need absorption at reflection points) This method http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=18059 should help you get close on positioning... Steve

Steve, Thanks for the advice. I'll stay put, but I did not realise how strongly you feel about the four inch foam ...Whew! If I stay with stand mounted monitors three feet from the front wall, wouldn't the foam be sufficient? I assume from your comments that I should keep first reflections down and therefore need Something on the front wall in addition to other things you've said in the forum re side walls, etc.. Thanks. Barn.

If you already have the foam and are counting pennies, then you could use about twice the thickness of foam - I'd also put the FLAT side of the foam outward, as the sculpting does nothing but make it cheaper to manufacture. (They can do mirror imaged sheets almost as cheap as one) - putting the flat side outward gives effectively greater material depth from the wall, which gives more absorption to a lower frequency. You can also help things by spacing the foam away from the walls; one way to do this is to glue foam blocks to the underside of the panels, then glue the blocks to the wall. 3M spray adhesive works pretty well for that. For a non-soffited monitoring setup in a typical room, you need deep absorption behind the speakers to combat SBIR (Speaker Boundary Interference Response) , ceiling "clouds" and sidewall absorbers to take care of early reflections, and deep trapping at the rear of the room. virtually all smaller rooms will also need broadband corner trapping, such as 3 or 4" thick rockwool or rigid fiberglass - if possible, filling the entire corner so the face of the insulation is at least 3 feet wide is even better. Auralex and Illbruck make a pretty dense product that can almost keep up with high density insulation, but the "wanna-be" sites like "foam-r-us", foam-by-mail, etc, have claimed Auralex specs on un-tested, NON-fire rated foam. To put it gently, those "wanna-be's" are a bunch of crap. One problem with using foam, for instance in a booth - people tend to try and save money, so they buy the 2" foam from foambymail, which is about like 1" auralex, then they cover the entire surface of the booth with it. You might as well just carpet the entire thing with stuff from a dumpster IMO - all you've done is to suck out all the highs and a lot of high mid frequencies, leaving the booth sounding like a box. A better, cheaper way is to use at least 4" thick absorbent, and only put it within a foot or two of the same height as the "instrument" (your mouth, if this is a vox booth) and on the ceiling. Then, make some recordings and listen to them critically. If they sound good, you're done. If they're too bright or "ring-y", you need a bit more. If you use this "cut and try" method, you'll use less material and "sneak up on" your ideal sound, without losing too many highs in the process. Remember, if you have a really dead booth and you "turn up the treble" to make it bright, you're ALSO turning up the HISS and any other high frequency noise in your recordings; do this on more than one track, and you MULTIPLY the CRAP. Not a good plan... Not trying to sound "rabid", but booths are hard enough to get sounding good without "mattress factories" trying to sell you ineffective stuff... Steve

barn, If your primary goal is to be able to see the band behind you while you are riding the mixer, wouldn't a mirror in the center of the North wall up high and at a slight angle solve the problem? Or have I oversimplified the problem? len

Steve, That was as good and tight an education on absorbtion as I'll ever receive in a book. Thanks very much for your time. Barn