What to do with the windows?

Charles · Post by **Charles** » Sat Mar 15, 2003 6:17 am

Hello John et al.,

So glad to find this forum John, I have always admired your work and advice all the way back to the days at homerec.
My first question is, as a graphically challanged audio engineer, how can I make a simple floor plan diagram to post like all the nice ones I see here. Software... photoshop??

Now the real question. Times being what they are, I am now mixing alot here in my home. A 14'x11'x8' converted bedroom with an Argosy type desk, two racks, smaller couch in the back and Mackies on stands. The room is (for now) oriented towards the shorter wall away from the entrance (door would be on bottom of a diagram on far right side, the desk facing the left side. make sense?). Behind the near-fields are two normal-sized windows that I have filled tightly with plywood board lined on both sides with 703 and then wrapped with colored burlap. These units ended up about 6 or 7 inches thick and fit tightly into the window wells. There is also foam (thin and thick - up to 6" wedge) around and above the windows as well as on the ceiling in front of the mix position. The front corners are filled floor to ceiling with Leonards (someone gave them to me!).

In the back (the right side of our imaginary .jpg) is the sofa, two home made panal type traps in the corners and a very crude homemade diffuser made from concrete post forms sliced into quarter-rounds and mounted onto plywood. It is mounted over the sofa. One of the panel traps the one that hides behind the door if open, has had the front taken off and then been wrapped in cloth. It is basicaly wrapped 703 floating two inches off the back wall.

I am wondering if I can take the units out of the front windows. I would like to have the light and I am wondering if I have created a LEDE thing. The window units might also be acting as bass traps though, right? In this small room, I think I need all of that that I can get.

Thanks for reading this,

Charles

Post by **John Sayers** » Sat Mar 15, 2003 8:29 am

Ok the drawing program is Smartdraw - you can go to their site and download a trial version for free. http://www.smartdraw.com

Is this how your room is laud out??

cheers
john

Stuntmixer · Post by **Stuntmixer** » Sat Mar 15, 2003 6:07 pm

John,

When you're good, you're good, thanks for the tip on smartdraw, I've got the demo and will wrestle with it.

As to your jpg. - That is pretty much it. Let's see...The desk and speakers are a little closer to the wall, there are 3' tall racks off of each corner of the desk angled so that the front edge of the racks and the desk form a semi-circle around the mix position. There is another window (curtains) to the right of the mix position and a table/storage in the corner to the right of the sofa. Other misc. stuff is: guitars on wall, a closet/tape/machine space to the left of the mix poition and a small, now unused bathroom with its door just to the left of the left speaker, behind the left rack.

1st question - right now the backs of the speakers are 6" from the window units. The actual cones are about 18" from the front wall. The center of the speakers are 31" from the side walls. Where would you place them? I worry that they are to close to the wall, but placed them there on the advice of an acoustician. Also, with not too much work I could reinforce the top of the desk and get them up there as in your draft. OH, yeah, there is also a computer monitor on a stand up against the walls between the windows.

2nd question - leave the windows filled or open them up? I am not a fan of glass as a reflective surface in general. Someone suggested angled vertical slats with 703 tucked in on the backs of the slats...? It sure would be nice to have the natural light but am worried about noise escaping out at night and the reflections.

3rd - I realize that I am trapped in my own slice of standing wave hell with the 8' foot ceiling and boxy dimensions, but any tips on how to best trap the big problems would be greatly appreciated. I have learned to mix through the room and have been fairly satisfied with how my work translates to other rooms, but any leg up is good.

Thanks again and Cheers,

Charles
Southwind Studios
Austin, Tx.
crieser@austin.rr.com

Post by **John Sayers** » Sat Mar 15, 2003 8:39 pm

well I'm like you and would want to open up the windows and see out

so in your case I would. If your speakers can't handle it I'd get other speakers.

:)

Free field monitors have eq built into them and normally adjustments are available on the rear. After anserwing Oliver's question recently I think I'm going to have to ask barefoot to answer this aspect in more detail.

barefoot???

cheers
john

Stuntmixer · Post by **Stuntmixer** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 8:25 am

Thanks again John,

It's not a matter of the speakers being able to handle the small room, They are probably over powered. My concern is that opening up the windows and exposing the glass would have a detrimental sonic effect. The windows are RIGHT behind the speakers and I assume there would be some direct reflection issues (?).
Also since the window units are plywood surrounded by some 7" of 703 and wrapped in cloth I assume they are acting as bass traps of a kind and maybe helping even out the room.

While the natural light would be lovely, the sonic concerns are far more important (I work at night alot anyway).

One last query, how far out into the room should I go with speakers? Floor space is scarse but I need even response more than floor space.

Thanks so much,

Charles

Post by **John Sayers** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 9:00 am

yes the glass would be reflective but I assume the walls are also?? If you get well back from both you should be OK. Perhaps you could deaden the walls and leave the glass??

the aim of nearfields is to get them close to you so the room has less effect.

cheers
john

Stuntmixer · Post by **Stuntmixer** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 4:39 pm

Cool

thanks John

barefoot · Post by **barefoot** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 4:07 am

Charles,

I would pull the speakers away from the front wall as John illustrated. Then, yeah, definitely open up those windows.... it's good for the soul.

Thomas

Stuntmixer · Post by **Stuntmixer** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 7:53 am

I don't want to drag this on but I have a question about speaker placement. As I understand it the relationship of the distance from the speaker to the front wall vs. the distance to the back wall will have a great impact on the nodal (is this a word?) activity. I have often heard that with 8' ceilings, for example, the worst place for speakers is 4' off the floor.

One acoustician told me that the speakers would be best at least 1/3 of the way out into the room. Seeing as that would render the room uncomfortable at best, he said next best would be to move close to the wall and treat the side walls with diffraction and poly-traps in front of the mix position.
His design was interesting. It involved a "stage-style" trap UNDER the couch with open front section filled with hanging 703 baffles. And he recommended window units of these angled 1x6 vertical slats. On the backs of the slats would be affixed absorbtion near the glass to keep any reflections from getting out. Pretty clever, I thought.

Anyway, thoughts on speaker placement would be greatly appreciated, is there any formula or theory for this?

Thanks