ready to treat my control room

[cmuller0420]

I am now ready to treat my control room and I am not quite sure what would be best for me to do. So I'll give some background into what i did. I started with a 3" floating floor filled with sand with 3/4" plywood on top. The walls are 2x4 studs with 3.5" safe and sound roxul (a mineral wool insulation) and there is 3/8" donnaconna and 1/2" drywall for the walls and the roof has about a 15cm airgap with 3.5" of roxul and then 1/2" drywall. Then the wall that leads out of the cement cubby hole has another wall with 3.5" mineral wool 1/2"donnaconna and 1/2" drywall and 2 solidcore doors. So now comes my predicament.....im not sure what steps to take now to make best of what i have.....

1. Should I buy foam or build my own bass traps and absorbers?
2. Do I need diffusers or deflectors?
3. Should I make the roof absorptive to compensate for such low ceiling height?
4. What material would be best for the floor? carpet?
5. Where should i place traps etc?
6. Where should the mix position be?
7. Should the end in front of the mix position be more dead and the back part of the room more live?
8. There is an old fireplace in beind the narrow wall...does this help or hurt me in any way?

Those are some questions that i could come up with, but I'd apperciate any other comments or advice that can be offered.

[Ethan Winer]

CM,

> not sure what steps to take now to make best of what i have. <

I don't know what kind of file your drawing is, but I wasn't able to view it so I can give only general advice. Can you post it as a standard GIF or JPG file?

> Should I buy foam or build my own bass traps and absorbers? <

You can build bass traps or buy them, depending on what your time is worth and what kind of results you expect. I will point out that there are other choices besides "foam" for commercial traps.

> Do I need diffusers or deflectors? <

How big is the room? Most rooms need absorption much more than diffusion. Especially smaller rooms.

> Should I make the roof absorptive to compensate for such low ceiling height? <

Yes.

> What material would be best for the floor? carpet? <

It depends on a lot of things.

> Where should i place traps etc? <

Corners. Always.

> Where should the mix position be? <

You should set up so the seakers fire the long way down the room, then sit so your ears are 38 percent of the way back from the front wall.

> Should the end in front of the mix position be more dead and the back part of the room more live? <

That too depends. It's not necessary to make the entire front half dead as is commonly done. Most important is to treat the first reflection points on the side walls and ceiling.

> There is an old fireplace in beind the narrow wall...does this help or hurt me in any way? <

I can't say without seeing the image, but small things like a fireplace matter less than big things like the overall size and shape.

--Ethan

[cmuller0420]

Here is a quick sketch with the dimensions on it other than the ceiling height which is 7ft

[Ethan Winer]

CM,

> Here is a quick sketch <

I suggest you turn things around so the speakers are on the left facing toward the right. It's considered "better" for a room to become wider or higher toward the rear rather than the other way around.

As for carpet or reflective, you could use either. But with carpet you might be able to get away with less ceiling treatment. Either way, you definitely need to treat all of the first reflections points including those on the ceiling.

In a room that size I'd focus on absorption more than diffusion.

--Ethan

[kendale]

Aloha C,

So now comes my predicament.....im not sure what steps to take now to make best of what i have.....

1. Should I buy foam or build my own bass traps and absorbers?

Depending on your skills, many here feel that you can DIY with as good if not better results than commercially available products for less $$$. And, as Ethan pointed out, there are other choices besides "foam."

John's Wall Unit Plans: http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm
Ethan's Website: http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html
RealTraps: http://www.realtraps.com/index.htm

2. Do I need diffusers or deflectors?

I think the distance from mix position to rear wall will be too short for diffusion and may actually cause some comb filtering problems instead. Having some front/side absorbers/slot resonators would help manage the early reflections at the mix position.

3. Should I make the roof absorptive to compensate for such low ceiling height?

A cloud centered above the mix position would help for starters. More if the room is still too "live."

4. What material would be best for the floor? carpet?

Personally, I would go with a hardwood/laminate floor. Easier maintenance, rolling around on your control room chair/equipment racks, easier to lay down/remove area rugs as needed to curb reflections than removing carpet if too dead.

5. Where should i place traps etc?

Corner Traps - front & rear corners
Absorbers - centered over mix position, front/rear walls and possibly left/right of mix position depending on the kind of angles/reflections in the mix position

6. Where should the mix position be?

About 38% from the 87" wall. See attachment.

7. Should the end in front of the mix position be more dead and the back part of the room more live?

Try thinking of it as more of a reflection free zone. Not necessarily dead, but one that minimizes/manages your early reflections so that it does not interfere with your monitoring.

8. There is an old fireplace in behind the narrow wall...does this help or hurt me in any way?

Hard to say. You may find it resonates at a certain frequency (or not.)

Hope this helps,

Aloha