John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Yeah, getting LOTS of sleep; it's about 2:30 am Monday, and cool as I am I've STILL not learned to "sleep-type", although some would argue...

If you take the image of your room and follow the technique I linked to ABOVE your room diagram, it will work the same as far as modes are concerned - you'll still see where to (and NOT to) put heads or speakers.

Keep in mind that any modal measurements are to SOLID barriers, NOT absorbers - if you get stuck, holler and I'll help... Steve

Steve,

Well, I gave it a shot. See if the attached drawing makes any sense. I overlayed the modes on the current studio layout for reference.

It appears that my mix position is as good as any other location in the room, so now I'm wondering about other details, like how things are oriented in the room. I'm playing around with an arrangement that would place the speaker position firing from the wall on the top of this diagram. I would relocate the bass trap to be on the bottom wall to be symmetrical with the door location. I think this would allow me to soffit my speakers (if there is any benefit in this room).

Anyway, I appreciate your input. This was a lot of work, so I see why you don't volunteer to do this for everyone!!

Thanks,
Darryl.....

Cool, Darryl; I should make MORE people do the stuff I do for them, oughta be worth at least a couple "attaboys"

One thing that would make your layout easier to work with is to use only red lines for nulls, and only blue lines for peaks, and make ALL lines thinner - it's hard to be sure, but looks like your speakers are in 4th order null for right channel and close to 4th order null, 3rd order peak for the left channel, and real close to 4th order null on the left channel.

Unfortunately, in that small a room it only takes an inch or two to make a noticeable difference, so making things as dead as you can was the right move so far.

One thing that might help is a sub; if you put it in your CHAIR (raised up as close to ear height as possible) then crawl around the floor til you get the strongest/evenest bass, that spot will be the best place for the sub; at least that might bring down your bass in mixes.

Another possibility; pull both speakers away from the wall just enough to put 4" 703 or rockwool spaced out from the wall by about 4", this would not only push your entire mix area closer to the door and your head further from the dead center of the room, more into that GREEN area - it would also smooth out the SBIR you're likely getting from the two walls behind the speakers.

Sooo, do you step into that room to ditch your glasses and peel off your shirt, exposing your "big red S"??

Attaboy, Attaboy, Attaboy (enough?)!!

Pasq - I hope you are not too bothered that I have hijacked your thread but I thought it would be more useful to both of us to keep it together.

I unfilled the color as requested. I did it that way to make it simpler to identify the spaces for the "green".

Anyway, attached is the revised (hopefully easier to view) version. I'm also attaching a real pic of the studio as you look in the door. I don't know if there is anything that can be done easily to improve things with the current layout or not, so please let me know what pops out as possibilities.

I'm also going to attach a different layout that is a re-arrangement of the entire room. I placed the speakers in a "green spot" which is slightly further out from the wall than I had hoped for. If this arrangement would be easier to work with, please let me know. I have some questions about how to treat it, especially the side walls. I wanted to soffit the speakers but I cannot afford to give up enough space to get them into the "green" so I am open to suggestions.

As always, your insight is greatly appreciated.
Darryl.....

Sorry I forgot about this one; I'm having a hard time coming up with ideas for you on this one - small rooms are bad enough, but corner setups usually cause more problems than they solve - however, that chopped off corner at the door makes it impossible to get a totally symmetrical setup any other way.

If you were to go "straight", you'd need to make sure the door has deep absorption on it to match as closely as possible the corner trap in the lower left; then, whether you change the orientation or not you should have as thick absorption as possible between your speakers and the walls behind them - 4" rockwool + 4" air space if possible, although I'm not sure how you can do that in this size.

Can you post 3 more pix, one taken from each corner so I can see the rest of the room? If it's too difficult to shoot from behind the desk, the other two will probably do... Steve

No problem, Steve. You've got a lot of people asking for your advice these days and I have nothing but time and patience on my side.

Anyway, as far as ideas go, don't be afraid to say there's nothing that can be done to significantly enhance my ability to trust my mixes in this room. I've already given up on it so this is my last ditch effort to see if anything is possible.

I've been thinking about trying to find a way to move the speakers into the long green zone that is just off the corner of the existing shelf to see what affect that would have (I just have to find something to hold them in that location).

Here are the other corner shots as requested. The stuff behind the burlap is 1" of rigid fiberglass. I have some 2x4x1 rigid fiberglass attached to pegboard panels that I occasionally place on the 2 shelving units in an attempt to deaden those spots (these panels double as spot treatment in my "vocal booth" hence they are not in the shots).

Thanks for taking time to think about this. Maybe something will come out of this (even if it is a "see, you really cannot get away with soemthing this stupid" for others to learn from).

Darryl.....

DDev wrote:Pasq - I hope you are not too bothered that I have hijacked your thread but I thought it would be more useful to both of us to keep it together

No worries, it's all very usefull info for me too!


BTW, I replied to the other thread about my mix room in the Studio Design forum. It's over here:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 2843#22843

I tried finding the null/nice spots using the method used in this thread. Not sure I did it right though.