Please help me to choose Mixing Room and Mixing Position!

[Symphonicmind]

Hi everybody, my name is Ha and I am an mixing engineer (I dont record, just mixing). English is not my native language, so please forgive me.

I respect everybody in the forum very much for your knowledge and willingness to help others. I decided to post my problem here to ask for your opinions.

As you can see in the attachment, my house is a apartment in a building. Terrible room dimensions ratios everywhere. Sadly, I cant change the room ratios due to the HUGE cost it requires. My current mixing room is originally the master bedroom. It's a nearly PERFECT cube (L3.35 m x W3.245 m x H3.11 m)!

My current Cube mixing room.jpg

Current Mixing Place.jpg

You can also see my living room, which is much larger (L7m x W3.06m x H3.11m) but has average dimensions ratio, too (ModeCalculator told me that). But I can think it is minor (maybe) improvement for the bass response if I move mixing room to Living Room. The Living Room has a sliding door (made of glass, covered by a heavy curtain) which can be really flexible and throw away two 90 degree corners of death by sliding side panels easily.

Living Room - Look from Main Door to Balcony.jpg

Living Room - Main Door.jpg

Room Mode Calculator.jpg

This is the Walkthrough video to illustrate my living room:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Viw7ROoAdvI


My question is:
Will my living room really improve the bass response? Is it worth to sacrify the living room for such amount of improvements? If yes, which mixing position is the best?

I am considering two optional positions as attached files: Position A and Position B.

POSITION A

Considering - Position A.jpg

Position A 's advantages:
• Speakers point across the long side (7m)
• Two 90 degree front corners can be threw away by opening 2 side doors

Position A's disadvantages:
• The worship place (fixed) prevent me to put the basstrap at one side wall
• The transportation areas to balcony is limited by the mixing desk


POSITION B

Considering - Position B.jpg

Position B's advantages:
• Distance between speakers and sidewalls is larger
• Can place speakers really close to the front wall to minimize SBIR
• So much more comfortable than Position A as a combined living room and mixing room

Position B's disadvantages:
• Rear wall is quite close (but there's an area lead to kitchen behind mixing position)
• Cant place the basstrap at the right-front corner due to the worship

Just one more question, please help me.
Some trusted acoustic experts recommend place Monitors as close to the front wall as possible to minimize SBIR. But my monitors are JBL LSR305 that has rear ported design. So how close I can get to the front wall without totally change my monitors' response? I searched a lot but almost everybody use front ported speakers, they have no problem following this advice. But, that's not my case

Thank you very much for reading this long and boring text!

[Symphonicmind]

Please help me

[Soundman2020]

Hi there Ha, and Welcome to the forum!

It's a nearly PERFECT cube (L3.35 m x W3.245 m x H3.11 m)!

Ouch! That's not so good. Also, your setup is not symmetrical there, and symmetry is very important.

You can also see my living room, which is much larger (L7m x W3.06m x H3.11m)

That's better than the bedroom, for sure! Not fantastic, but still better.

Will my living room really improve the bass response? Is it worth to sacrify the living room for such amount of improvements?

Yes! It's a big improvement, nit just a small one. It's not just about the ratio, but also about the room volume, room length, and other factors: those are all much better in the living room.

If yes, which mixing position is the best?

Position "A", for sure.

Some trusted acoustic experts recommend place Monitors as close to the front wall as possible to minimize SBIR.

Correct! For a small room, that's the best position. If the room is bigger, then it is better to place them at least 2.5m from the walls. You could do that in your room, but then you would end up with an uncomfortable layout, practically, as the desk would be in the middle of the room, and also acoustically, as your head would be almost in the dead center of the room. It's better to have them close to the front wall.

But my monitors are JBL LSR305 that has rear ported design.

That's OK. You still need to leave a small gap (about 10 to 15cm) between the speaker and the wall, so you can have a thick acoustic absorber panel in there. So there should be no problem with your speakers. However, you will need to adjust the bass roll-off control to -6 dB.

- Stuart -