I have turned my bedroom into a small home studio or at least as much as I can as a tenant. My goal is to listen to music, write, compose, record, mix and master. I am going to buy some acoustic treatment for New Years but don't know much about what I need to buy and where to place it - I was wondering if I could get some help on this? I have attached some photos to show the layout of my room. I've also found this website which seems to supply cheap acoustic foam:
http://www.acoustic-foam.co.uk/pro-acoustic-tiles
Does anyone have experience with this website and it's products? And would it be suitable for my room? Any and all advice would be appreciated.
A little more info:
- I will be recording acoustic guitar and vocals so it shouldn't be too loud (I don't have room for a vocal booth so I will probably end up just putting a reflection filter around my condenser mic)
- Room has carpet but honestly not sure what the walls/ceiling are made from
- Budget is up to £200
- Initially didn't think this was worth mentioning but there is a small storage room with a door next to the wardrobe, you can see it in some of the photos
Setup:
- PC is iMac 2015 Model
- Speakers are Yamaha HS5's with Adam Hall foam pads
- Mic is AT4040 (thinking of buying Rode PSA1 swivel mount)
- Audio interface is Clarett 2Pre
Advice on acoustic treatment for my bedroom
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glottore
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Mon Dec 18, 2017 4:24 am
- Location: Manchester, UK
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Soundman2020
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Re: Advice on acoustic treatment for my bedroom
Hi "glottore", and Welcome! 
The only sensible, usable layout for your room is to move things around so that your desk is facing the wall at the right of your diagram, marked "2.6m" The bed and night stand will have to go somewhere else. So set up your desk such that your chair will be about 170 cm from that wall. That's where your ears need to be: about 170 cm from that wall.
Next, you need to get your speakers off the desk, and onto proper speaker stands, that are very massive, heavy, sturdy, and rigid. Do not get flimsy stands: some people just stack up concrete blocks or bricks, wrap fabric around them to make it look nice, and use that as the speaker stand. The speakers need to be tight up against that wall, except for a gap of 10cm, where you will be inserting acoustic panels to deal with the SBIR and other issues coming off the back of your speakers.
Your speakers need to be set up such that the acoustic axis is 1.2m above the floor. In your case, the speakers need to be about 75 cm from the side walls, and therefor about 110cm apart. Angle them so they are both aiming at a spot about 30cm behind where your head will be (ie, about 2m form the front wall).
That's roughly the correct geometry for your room: speakers 10cm from front wall, 110cm apart, 75 cm from side walls, 1.2m above the floor, and your head 170cm from the front wall. All of that perfectly centered on the wall, of course.
Now you need to get decent treatment in there. Forget the commercial stuff: it is expensive, and you can make your own that performs much better, cheaper. Get a bunch of 10cm thick (4") panels of Owens Corning OC-703 semi-rigid insulation: that's the best stuff out there right now. The panels measure 120cm wide by 240 tall. Cut one in half vertically (so you have 2 pieces 60cm wide), and put one directly behind each speaker, centered, in that 10cm gap I mentioned before. If you want, wrap it in attractive fabric, or build a light wooden frame around it and wrap that in fabric. Use only "breathable" fabric (hold a piece over your nose and mouth, and see if you can breathe almost normally, without too much resistance to the air moving trough it. Some resistance is fine, but not so much that you have to pant hard to move air through it.)
Now you'll need to make bass traps: Get rid of the wardrobe, since you need all of that space for bass trapping. Cut panels of OC-703 into large right-angle triangles, 90cm on each side, and stack those floor to ceiling in the two rear corners, where the wardrobe was. These are calle "superchunk" bass traps, and they are very effective. Do the same in the front corners, but smaller triangles, 45cm on each side, so they fit in between the corners and the panels behind your speakers.
Now use more panels to fill the the rest of the rear wall, between the 90cm traps that you made: You'll need two layers of panels there, so it will be 20cm thick across the entire rear wall, plus the large "superchunks" in the corners.
Next, you'll need another panel of 703 split in two vertically, with one half on each side wall at the first reflection point.
And one more panel of 703 on the ceiling, about half way between the speakers and your mix position (your ears).
That will over-treat your room, with too much absorption in general, so then you'll need to cover some of those panels selectively, and intelligent, with either plastic sheeting or wood slats, to get the high end back again.
Once you have that setup in place, do a set of REW tests to see how it is working out, and we can help you decide on additional treatment. Here's how to set up and use REW: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =3&t=21122
Actually do one test with the room empty: correct geometry but no treatment at all. Then do another test each time you put in a treatment device, so you can see for yourself how it is working.
- Stuart -
That's the first thing you'll need to fix: "layout of your room". At present, your setup is not symmetrical, and symmetry is critical for mixing, even more so for mastering.I was wondering if I could get some help on this? I have attached some photos to show the layout of my room.
The only sensible, usable layout for your room is to move things around so that your desk is facing the wall at the right of your diagram, marked "2.6m" The bed and night stand will have to go somewhere else. So set up your desk such that your chair will be about 170 cm from that wall. That's where your ears need to be: about 170 cm from that wall.
Next, you need to get your speakers off the desk, and onto proper speaker stands, that are very massive, heavy, sturdy, and rigid. Do not get flimsy stands: some people just stack up concrete blocks or bricks, wrap fabric around them to make it look nice, and use that as the speaker stand. The speakers need to be tight up against that wall, except for a gap of 10cm, where you will be inserting acoustic panels to deal with the SBIR and other issues coming off the back of your speakers.
Your speakers need to be set up such that the acoustic axis is 1.2m above the floor. In your case, the speakers need to be about 75 cm from the side walls, and therefor about 110cm apart. Angle them so they are both aiming at a spot about 30cm behind where your head will be (ie, about 2m form the front wall).
That's roughly the correct geometry for your room: speakers 10cm from front wall, 110cm apart, 75 cm from side walls, 1.2m above the floor, and your head 170cm from the front wall. All of that perfectly centered on the wall, of course.
Now you need to get decent treatment in there. Forget the commercial stuff: it is expensive, and you can make your own that performs much better, cheaper. Get a bunch of 10cm thick (4") panels of Owens Corning OC-703 semi-rigid insulation: that's the best stuff out there right now. The panels measure 120cm wide by 240 tall. Cut one in half vertically (so you have 2 pieces 60cm wide), and put one directly behind each speaker, centered, in that 10cm gap I mentioned before. If you want, wrap it in attractive fabric, or build a light wooden frame around it and wrap that in fabric. Use only "breathable" fabric (hold a piece over your nose and mouth, and see if you can breathe almost normally, without too much resistance to the air moving trough it. Some resistance is fine, but not so much that you have to pant hard to move air through it.)
Now you'll need to make bass traps: Get rid of the wardrobe, since you need all of that space for bass trapping. Cut panels of OC-703 into large right-angle triangles, 90cm on each side, and stack those floor to ceiling in the two rear corners, where the wardrobe was. These are calle "superchunk" bass traps, and they are very effective. Do the same in the front corners, but smaller triangles, 45cm on each side, so they fit in between the corners and the panels behind your speakers.
Now use more panels to fill the the rest of the rear wall, between the 90cm traps that you made: You'll need two layers of panels there, so it will be 20cm thick across the entire rear wall, plus the large "superchunks" in the corners.
Next, you'll need another panel of 703 split in two vertically, with one half on each side wall at the first reflection point.
And one more panel of 703 on the ceiling, about half way between the speakers and your mix position (your ears).
That will over-treat your room, with too much absorption in general, so then you'll need to cover some of those panels selectively, and intelligent, with either plastic sheeting or wood slats, to get the high end back again.
Forget the reflection filter. Those things don't work. There was an article in Sound on Sound magazine while back where they tested several of them, from different manufacturers, in a proper acoustic lab, and the results where basically that they do nothing at all. To start with, they are on the wrong side of the mic! What matters for vocal recording is what the mic is facing, behind the singer, not what the singer is facing, behind the mic! Waste of money. If you set up your room as above, you can then stand in front of the rear wall, with the mic in front of you (facinf the rear wall), nd record like that. By changing your position and relative angles of you, your instruments, and your mic, you can have some control over the sound. Far more effective that a reflection filter.(I don't have room for a vocal booth so I will probably end up just putting a reflection filter around my condenser mic)
Lose the carpet. It has to go. It is doing the exact opposite of what your room needs, and in addition it messes up the psycho-acoustic perception of the room.- Room has carpet but honestly not sure what the walls/ceiling are made from
Once you have that setup in place, do a set of REW tests to see how it is working out, and we can help you decide on additional treatment. Here's how to set up and use REW: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =3&t=21122
Actually do one test with the room empty: correct geometry but no treatment at all. Then do another test each time you put in a treatment device, so you can see for yourself how it is working.
- Stuart -