Is this room too small to mix in?

Pasz · Post by **Pasz** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:07 am

I have a small bedroom in my appartement with concrete walls. Dimensions:

(N-S, E-W, Floor-Ceiling)

3 x 2,70 x 2,60 = 21 cubic meter

9,8 x 8,8 x x 8,5 (ft) = 733 cubic feet

I read that a room should be at least 1500 cubic feet for recording. Does the same apply for a room where I'm mixing in, alone? Is the room too small to fix the acoustical problems?

dymaxian · Post by **dymaxian** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 6:19 am

Mixing rooms are recommended to be that size (1500CF) to let low frequency sound develop better. This isn't required, though. You could mix in a broom closet once you got really, really used to your speakers and how the space sounded.

Yes, there's hope for your room. Your mixes will most likely need to be double-checked in other rooms and on other systems, but that's a given for the top-dollar studios, too, so don't feel bad. You'll need to spend plenty of time getting used to how the room sounds before you mix in it, so make sure you set aside time to just hang out and listen to it.

My advice for this size of room would be: make the ceiling as absorbent as you can- 4" rigid fiberglass, and if you don't mind the ceiling being 7'6 or so (that's how high mine is right now, and i've seen people work with much lower than that) space it down from the ceiling 4". Look at John Sayers' absorber page- that's pretty much what you'll want to do. Especially with a concrete box to work in... you'll need to make sure you control the low freq's.

Hope this helps.

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 8:28 am

Here's the link to said absorber page -

http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm

Could you please update your profile to include a location? Makes it easier to recommend things based on availability in your part of the world... Steve

Pasz · Post by **Pasz** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 5:29 am

Hello! Sorry for the late reply!

I'm in The Netherlands, Europe.

DDev · Post by **DDev** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 3:24 am

I mix in a room that is quite similar in size (8x8x7.5 ft). Like was previously mentioned you will want to make the room as dead as possible, then just learn how things translate to other systems (another room, a boombox, in the car, etc). It usually takes me 2 or 3 mix burns to find the right balance still (but that is an improvement from the 7 or 8 I started with!!). CD-R's are cheap so it is really just a time and convenience issue.

As far as the sound in the room goes, I have found that bass and vocal ambeince are the most difficult to get the right balance. If I can clearly hear the bass, it will be way too loud in the mix elsewhere. Conversely, the vocal ambience (ie. reverb, delays) needs to be too prominent in the room to be balanced elsewhere. I haven't tried to figure out why these conditions exist or if there is anything I could do to fix it, I've just gotten used to it.

Good luck,
Darryl.....

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 2:07 pm

Darryl, one reason may be that with that small a room you could be sitting in a center null in TWO axes, LR and Front/Rear - if you're also near center height wise, you'd be in a near VACUUM for the lowest bass notes. Are you using a sub? If so, where is it located? Steve

Pasz · Post by **Pasz** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 5:52 pm

knightfly wrote:Darryl, one reason may be that with that small a room you could be sitting in a center null in TWO axes, LR and Front/Rear - if you're also near center height wise, you'd be in a near VACUUM for the lowest bass notes. Are you using a sub? If so, where is it located? Steve

Do you think I will have the same problem in my design (See http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3156)?

The chair is very close to the center...

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 10:58 pm

Running too late to do this right now, but "bump" this up and I'll calculate usable positions for speakers and your head in that specific room when I get some time... Steve

Pasz · Post by **Pasz** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 11:06 pm

knightfly wrote:Running too late to do this right now, but "bump" this up and I'll calculate usable positions for speakers and your head in that specific room when I get some time... Steve

! Great!

Pasz · Post by **Pasz** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 8:01 am

knightfly wrote:Running too late to do this right now, but "bump" this up and I'll calculate usable positions for speakers and your head in that specific room when I get some time... Steve

*bump*

John added a reply to my other topic about this room: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3156, to which I will reply later. I thought it'd be nice to mention that here.

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 8:37 am

This takes more time than I remembered; here is a link to the last time I explained it, along with all you need to do it for yourself -

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=18996

give it a try, if you're on a Mac I'm sorry. IF you have questions about the method, post back... Steve

DDev · Post by **DDev** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 3:21 pm

Steve,

Man, are you good. After reading your post, I went down and put the tape measure to my mix position, and lo and behold my head sits at 48" from the floor, 48" from the center point of all 4 walls. I could've sworn that my position was closer to the door corner than that but it isn't.

Attached is an old layout drawing of my space. The room is not completely square, but rather has one corner chopped off for the door. The mix position is located across a corner to give me a wider work space (and for symmetry since I had to chop off that one corner due to a ceiling fan on the outside of the room). In the corner in front of the mix position I installed a cross-corner (variable depth) membrane-style bass trap. About 3 inches from the front surface of the bass trap I installed some pegboard to which I attached 2" Auralex foam (and a couple of diffusors mainly for aesthetics; I'll post pics later on). The 2 walls that are behind the mix position have bookcases and other hanging storage. The door is covered with 2" foam. All other wall surfaces and a good part of the ceiling have 1" rigid fiberglass installed.

Most of the room was done 2.5 years ago before I really started learning from you guys. I added the rigid fiberglass after some input from John about trying to deaden the space, but for some reason I never thought about my being in a null (can't see the forest syndrome, I guess).

OK, now with all that said, how do I get out of the vacuum?

Thanks,
Darryl.....

Pasz · Post by **Pasz** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 6:06 pm

Wow, DDev, and I thought MY room was small!!

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 1:44 am

After careful thought, I'm recommending Sennheiser HD280's

Seriously, I've gotta hit the sack (12-hr graveyards, gotta love 'em) I'll try to get you something later this afternoon or tomorrow, but I'll warn you I pretty much gave up on corner desk for my own bedroom writing area, more later... Steve

DDev · Post by **DDev** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 7:21 pm

knightfly wrote:After careful thought, I'm recommending Sennheiser HD280's

Funny you should suggest that. Guess what I got for Christmas?

Because of my lack of trust in my room I have started doing a lot more time with the headphones. They work well for getting tone and stereo imaging (and editing) but I still struggle with overall balance (especially drums and bass) and ambience (reverbs, delays). On the whole, though, the mixes I've done the last few weeks have definitely improved in overall quality, and I don't know if that is because of the HD280's or because I'm just more focused on the quality now and taking more time to work on it.

Anyway, I hope you managed to get some sleep. I'm here at 3 am on Sunday because I couldn't sleep (and, of course, I have to be at church at 8 for rehearsal; experimenting with in-ear monitoring this weekend in addition to training a new sound tech). Should probably make the night productive and get downstairs to the studio.....

Darryl.....