Making the best out of what I have to work with

[MarcoR]

Hello again, I posted originally in the design section but the room was already near completion and the mistakes were made. I did not have the option or time to tear down and restart so I am trying to do the best with what I have to work with. Here is the link to that: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =1&t=19423

The goal is to have a room to play music in, record, video and mix. Critical mixing and mastering would be done at a different location. My budget has been spent but I have all the materials to do the acoustic treatment.

The room is not symmetrical so to deal with mixing issues, I intent to build movable walls to improve the situation. The walls could be rolled into place for mixing and moved out or around when tracking.

I just got my desk setup and have begun wiring things. I have not done a REW test yet but intend to soon. I do have a friend that is an acoustician that will be testing the room with his professional equipment (I don’t remember all the technical stuff he mentioned).Before I get too crazy with putting up traps everywhere, I want to have the room tested to see what it really needs.

I felt it was safe to assume I would need traps in the corners so I have just finished building these superchunks.

Stacked and packed.

Covered with Guilfords of Maine.


Now... my question for today is how to deal with the back wall with off centered doors? I know I need some absorption but how do I make it look decent?
Here is the back and side wall before the sheet rock:

Here is the wall after the superchunks are installed and the window stuffed with 703:

Why the guy who framed the room couldn’t have centered the doors, I don’t know!! Uggg…
Here is a rendering of what I might do using 4” OC about 4” off the wall and doors to try and get a more uniform look:

Any thoughts or suggestion?
Here is the front of the room which also shows the obvious issues (not the kids):

[Soundman2020]

so to deal with mixing issues, I intent to build movable walls to improve the situation. The walls could be rolled into place for mixing and moved out or around when tracking.

IT sounds like you are talking about gobos: Those would work fine for tracking, to provide some separation between instruments, but they will not solve your symmetry problems for mixing. Your room modes will be far larger than the gobos, and unless they are sealed hermetically to the rest of the room, the mode won't even really see them much. You might succeed in somewhat redirecting some of the energy, but the modes will still be there. So it looks like you are stuck with an unbalanced front end.

I felt it was safe to assume I would need traps in the corners so I have just finished building these superchunks.

Definitely you need them, and that's nice work you did there! Those should be pretty effective.

However, you really should take them out again temporarily so you can run REW: You need a baseline measurement of the room with nothing in it except the basic gear, so you can check all your future measurements against that to see what is working, what isn't working, and what you still need to attack. So I'd strongly suggest taking out the superchunks for a bit, running REW, then putting them back in and running REW again. Without that, you'll never know what the real behavior of your room is like.

Here is a rendering of what I might do using 4” OC about 4” off the wall and doors to try and get a more uniform look:

That looks pretty good, and it should work very well. 6" of OC-703 would be ideal, but 4" is certainly a lot better than nothing at all!

Here is the front of the room which also shows the obvious issues:

And some other issues that aren't so obvious! First, your desk is too close to that wall: the listening position (the point in the room where your head is located) should be about 38% of room length away form the front wall: your looks to be much closer than that. Second, you have the speakers ON the desk, which is a really bad idea: Put them on stands behind the desk, never on the desk, and push them right up against the front wall, leaving only enough space to fit in a 4" panel of OC-703 between the speakers and the wall. Make the stands very heavy, large, massive, rigid and solid, and build them so that the speakers end up with their acoustic axes 1.2m above the floor (47-1/2"). That's the standard height. Then adjust the speaker toe-in angles and positions such that they are toe'd in about 30° and set about 28% of room width away form the side walls, with the intersection of the acoustic axes happening at an angle of about 60°, about a foot or so behind your head.

So do that first, then take out the superchunks, run REW, put them back in, then run REW again. Post the MDAT file from REW here, so we can take a look at it.


- Stuart -

[MarcoR]

so to deal with mixing issues, I intent to build movable walls to improve the situation. The walls could be rolled into place for mixing and moved out or around when tracking.

IT sounds like you are talking about gobos: Those would work fine for tracking, to provide some separation between instruments, but they will not solve your symmetry problems for mixing. Your room modes will be far larger than the gobos, and unless they are sealed hermetically to the rest of the room, the mode won't even really see them much. You might succeed in somewhat redirecting some of the energy, but the modes will still be there. So it looks like you are stuck with an unbalanced front end.

That’s what I was afraid of. Apply this to the stereo image, when you say “redirecting some of the energy “does that mean that the reflection will have a more similar timing (with the gobos) but the perceived frequencies still won’t match? I’m just wondering where in my mixing I will have to compensate.

I felt it was safe to assume I would need traps in the corners so I have just finished building these superchunks.

Definitely you need them, and that's nice work you did there! Those should be pretty effective.

Thank you!

However, you really should take them out again temporarily so you can run REW: You need a baseline measurement of the room with nothing in it except the basic gear, so you can check all your future measurements against that to see what is working, what isn't working, and what you still need to attack. So I'd strongly suggest taking out the superchunks for a bit, running REW, then putting them back in and running REW again. Without that, you'll never know what the real behavior of your room is like.

I was afraid of that too… That wouldn't be easy.

Here is a rendering of what I might do using 4” OC about 4” off the wall and doors to try and get a more uniform look:

That looks pretty good, and it should work very well. 6" of OC-703 would be ideal

Done!

Here is the front of the room which also shows the obvious issues:

And some other issues that aren't so obvious! First, your desk is too close to that wall: the listening position (the point in the room where your head is located) should be about 38% of room length away form the front wall: your looks to be much closer than that. Second, you have the speakers ON the desk, which is a really bad idea:
Put them on stands behind the desk, never on the desk, and push them right up against the front wall, leaving only enough space to fit in a 4" panel of OC-703 between the speakers and the wall.

Should there be an air gap between the OC-703 and the wall?

Make the stands very heavy, large, massive, rigid and solid, and build them so that the speakers end up with their acoustic axes 1.2m above the floor (47-1/2"). That's the standard height. Then adjust the speaker toe-in angles and positions such that they are toe'd in about 30° and set about 28% of room width away form the side walls, with the intersection of the acoustic axes happening at an angle of about 60°, about a foot or so behind your head.

Critical information that I would have spent hours searching for. So good to have it in one place! Thank you!

So do that first, then take out the superchunks, run REW, put them back in, then run REW again. Post the MDAT file from REW here, so we can take a look at it.

I will sans removing the superchunks, bummer on that. Can you recommend a specific mic to do the testing with? Edit: I bought an ECM800
Thanks!

[Soundman2020]

Should there be an air gap between the OC-703 and the wall?

Not necessary, no. If you space it away, that also moves the speaker away from the wall more than it needs to be, which drives the artifacts down to lower frequencies. Not good. Keep the speaker as close to the wall as you can get it, allowing for the 703 and a little bit of ventilation gap, to make sure the speaker is cooled properly.

Can you recommend a specific mic to do the testing with? Edit: I bought an ECM800

That's fine. The ECM8000 is OK.

- Stuart -

[mickel12]

Nice Post

[MarcoR]

Nice Post

I don't get your point? But with one post, you must be a troll.

While I'm here I might as well provide an update... I have not posted because I wanted to wait until I was able to complete the suggestions Soundman2020 provided. And before I could run the REW tests, I needed to install the door to the room for obvious reasons. Once I do the tests I planned to post the results here to get suggestions on how to complete the acoustic treatment.

The room makes a great guitar room to jam in, capture ideas and test gear. It will likely never make a great room for mixing but I'm happy.
Here's a shot of the lounge looking into the studio.



If no one minds, I'll continue to post updates. So sorry if I'm ...

[Soundman2020]

I don't get your point? But with one post, you must be a troll.

Yup! Very likely. There's been a spate of similar stupid spammers lately, but they don't last long. They all follow the same scheme: Post something meaningless, or copy-paste a phrase from another thread, then come back later and update their signature block wit the spam. As soon as they do, they get banned within minutes, but we don't ban preemptively, since sometimes there are some very strange but legitimate comments! However, suspicious posts like the above do get locked, and their signatures do get blocked, which basically neuters them.

But if this guy hijacks your thread again, then please PM me right away, and he won't bother you again! I promise...

The room makes a great guitar room to jam in, capture ideas and test gear.

Excellent! And you forgot one other attribute: it looks pretty darn nice, too! Good workmanship, and good taste.

Once I do the tests I planned to post the results here to get suggestions on how to complete the acoustic treatment.

Absolutely!

If no one minds, I'll continue to post updates.

Nobody minds in the least! On the contrary, that's what the forum is for! The only thing we do mind, is sick, low-life spammers that hijack great threads, like yours....


- Stuart -

[mickel12]

[SPAM DELETED BY MODERATOR: SPAMMER BANNED AND BLOCKED]

[Soundman2020]

I don't get your point? But with one post, you must be a troll.

Yup, you were right. He finally "dropped the other shoe", so to speak, by posting his actual spam payload. Even when warned these guys never learn. Probably not even real people: just badly written spambots.

But he's gone for good now, and he won't be back! He won't be bothering your thread any more...

- Stuart -