OK, now I understand why! That looks really cool, but cannot sound very good...
Yep, it is too dead at high and hi-mid frequencies.
I can imagine! It must sound "muddy" and "thunky" in there. I would guess that it is not pleasant to play drums in there at all.
because of that, I was thinking about making at least one wall with reflective material (wood)
Rather than doing one entire wall like that, I would spread it around a bit: Make some reflective panels that you can "checkerboard" around the room, with a few on each wall, and also make some deep, thick bass traps to go in a couple of the corners. That room is still going to need bass trapping, in order to make it sound good.
Then I can place the instruments along that wall and point the mikes toward the reflective surface.
If you do that, you run the risk of creating "comb filtering" artifacts, especially if the mics or the instruments are close to the reflective surface.
I would try to balance the room better, with deeper absorption in some places, reflection in some places, and maybe even diffusers in some places. The room looks big enough that you can use QRD or skyline diffusers, and even simply poly diffusers might help. In fact, I would start by making a few simply polys and a few simple 4" absorption panels, and play around with those.
I am mainly thinking about building a big schroeder diffuser.
You cold do that, but before getting into complicated things like that, I would try simpler solutions. You might still need a QRD, but start with simple, large, bold solutions, like flat reflective surfaces (sheets of plywood), a couple of polys, and a few thick absorption panels. I know it sounds strange to recommend adding more absorption to the room when it already has too much, but the problem is that all of what you have in there is exactly the same, so the entire room is just treating one part of the spectrum while ignoring other parts. Thick absorption across some of the corners will do a lot to improve the overall bass balance, the flat panels will do a lot to return some life to the room, and the polys will do a lot to keep things diffuse, instead of too specular.
- Stuart -
But before doing any of that, please do a REW test and post the data file here, for analysis. Then do the first round of treatment, then another REW test to see what changed, how effective it was, and then plan your next move based on that.
- Stuart -
