Hi folks,
It has been years since I have posted here. It's great to see that this amazing resource is still kicking!
I am currently in a commercial warehouse and I am using the office as a mixing room. These days I am doing almost exclusively ITB producing, so I am not using a tracking room or recording on site (other than the occasional vocal track or DI instrument, etc). I'm using Adam monitors for nearfield monitoring, and I may be adding a small sub to the setup once the room acoustics are sorted and if I still need it.
My control room is 19' x 19' with 10' ceilings. The office actually has 14' ceilings with a dropped ceiling with acoustic tiles to make it 10' Above the drop ceiling is a layer of typical fiberglass insulation (it looks like R-15 or R-19). I have some room acoustics questions. I'm attaching a picture of what I currently have. I have a Primacoustics "London 12" kit from when I was in a smaller room. The picture shows where I currently have the kit placed. I need to keep the desk where it is. You can see there is a door to the left of the desk. The white desk is where I do DIY audio electronics stuff so that can move, but it will be somewhere in the room.
My goal: Basically, I'm just trying to get the best sounding room for me to be mixing in without getting too much adverse influence from the room.
Two questions:
Should I consider the 4' dropped ceiling to already be a substantial bass trap?
All the pictures I have about bass trapping show either doing the front two corners or the back two or both. I can potentially bass trap three corners but not the place where the door is. Should I not do that third corner and only do two?
I will be doing all of my acoustic paneling DIY. I have substantial woodworking experience and a full shop, and I have built regular 4" thick 2x4 panels using OC703. I have no experience yet building bass traps, but I am confident that if I can find some plans that I can build them. Thanks for any thoughts!
Dropped Ceiling and bass trapping three out of four corners?
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mbira
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Soundman2020
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Re: Dropped Ceiling and bass trapping three out of four corn
Hi there "mbira", and welcome back! 
Good choice! But which model? They make a whole range of speakers, from tiny to huge, with very different characteristics...
When I design a studio, the very first starting point is the speakers. I design the room around the speakers, since that's the only way that makes sense.
So FIRST decide on what speakers you will be using, THEN design the treatment based on that.
Opps! It's square! That's a big problem. All of the modal issues related to the width direction will line up perfectly with those related to the length direction, and will be 6 dB more intense that if the room were based on a good ratio.
Here's a link to a room that I designed a few years back, and recently re-tuned when the owner upgraded his speakers: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=20471
There are multiple bass traps in there, including several feet above the ceiling, above the soffits, behind the cloud, in the rear corners, in the top corners, on the back wall, inside the soffits, under the raised sofa platform, and in a few other places too. Even the cloud functions as a bass trap in there. (But there still isn't quite enough... )
So yes, put in as much bass trapping as you can, and make it BIG. The ones you show in your diagram at present are not doing anything useful at all.
However, there's a secondary principle here that also must be taken into account: symmetry. The front section of the room must be perfectly symmetrical, or you won't have an accurate stereo image and sound stage. The rear of the room (behind your head and up to the back wall) isn't so important, but the front is critical. So you'll probably need to rotate your room orientation 90° to the right, or 180°, such that the door is no longer in the front of the room. That will enable you to have symmetrical treatment in the front.
For small rooms where the speakers cannot be far enough away from the front wall, the best option is to put them right up against the front wall, which pushes the first SBIR dip way up into the low end of the mid range, where it can easily be dealt with using treatment on the front wall.
OK, I should backpedal a little here, and say that the absolute best location for speakers is NOT in the room at all, but rather flush mounted in front-wall "soffits". That takes front wall SBIR off the table completely, as well as eliminating edge diffraction, power imbalance, comb filtering, and a bunch of other problems, in addition to all of the benefits that it provides, such as low-end extension, smoother. tighter bass, better loading, etc. So that would be the best possible situation, if you wanted to go that way. In your case, that would also be very beneficial for the modal response of the room, since it would modify the dimensions enough to shift the modal response: the room would no longer be square.
But assuming you don't want to build soffits, then second best is to have your speakers tight up against the front wall.
"tight up against", except for a 4" gap. You need that 4" gap to install the 4" acoustic panel that will deal with the SBIR.
So, to get your geometry correct: Move your speakers up to be 4" away from the front wall, and 65" away from the side walls (implying that they will then be 98" apart). Put them on very heavy, massive, rigid stands, such that they are 47 1/4" above the floor. Careful! Those last three measurements refer to the acoustic axis of the speaker, not the surfaces of the cabinet. So the acoustic axis of the speaker will be 47 1/4" above the floor, and 65" from the side wall, while the rear corner of the cabinet will be 4" from the front wall (almost touching the front face of the acoustical panel). Depending on your speakers and desk, you could actually put the speakers a little higher, up to around 49", but not more than that.
Now for the mix position: in that room, your head will need to be 84" from the front wall. Actually, that's where your ears need to be, so set up your chair such that your ears are 84" from the front wall when you are seated in the typical posture you use while mixing. Now set up a vertical pole (eg, mic stand) directly behind your head, still on the room center-line, and 102" from the front wall (in other words, about 18" behind your head). Carefully rotate the speakers on top of their stands so they are both aimed directly at that pole. I use a laser pointer for that, tape to the top of the speaker cabinet, directly above the acoustic center, and running perpendicular to the front baffle.
That will get you the correct acoustic geometry for your room. Theoretically correct, of course: you might still be able to find a slightly better location using REW, starting from that position.
With all of that in place, you can add your bass traps in the corners: I would do superchunks in that room, at least 36" along the sides, and floor to ceiling. I would put hangers in the 4' gap above the drop ceiling, and in fact I'd pull out that drop ceiling completely, replacing it with fabric, and hang a cloud over the mix position. Hard-backed, and angled.
I would then cover the entire rear wall with at least 6" of porous absorption, with a good diffuser in front of it (your room is big enough to use diffusion). Maybe a simple Schroeder diffuser, tuned with the low cut off at around 1 kHz, or a bit lower, or perhaps a Skyline (QRD is preferable to PRD),or even better, a multi-level fractal diffuser, since you do have the space to do that well. You might even consider doing hangers across the rear wall, with a fractal diffuser in front. You can spare the space.
You would also need 4" porous absorption on your first reflection points.
Once all of that is in place, test the room with REW to see what else needs doing, then design additional treatment as needed to deal with it. I'd guess that you would need a couple more panels on the rear side walls, and maybe one or two other things, but even with just the basic treatment in there, you'd have a reasonably good acoustic environment.
Depending on how big it is, the "white desk" might be able to fit up against the front wall, between the speakers, or if not then it would have to go either on the rear wall to the side of the couch, or on one of the side walls, right next to the superchunk.
- Stuart -
I'm using Adam monitors for nearfield monitoring
Good choice! But which model? They make a whole range of speakers, from tiny to huge, with very different characteristics...If you are going to add a sub, then you should do that now, before planning the treatment, since the go hand in hand. There's no point in adding bass trapping designed for a spectrum that goes down to 25 Hz if your speaker system cannot produce 25 Hz! And vice-versa: There's no point in having a sub that produces 25 Hz loud and clear in a room that isn't designed to handle it.I may be adding a small sub to the setup once the room acoustics are sorted and if I still need it
When I design a studio, the very first starting point is the speakers. I design the room around the speakers, since that's the only way that makes sense.
So FIRST decide on what speakers you will be using, THEN design the treatment based on that.
My control room is 19' x 19' with 10' ceilings.
Opps! It's square! That's a big problem. All of the modal issues related to the width direction will line up perfectly with those related to the length direction, and will be 6 dB more intense that if the room were based on a good ratio.Then the dimensions of your room are not 19 x 19 x 10: they are 19 x 19 x 14. The dimensions are to the hard, solid, massive boundary surfaces that delimit the actual room itself, not any soft, flimsy surfaces that happen to hang around inside it. When you do your room ratio calculations, make sure you use the actual size of your room, which is 19' x 19' by 14'. Those are the dimensions that define the modal response of your room. Acoustic tiles are pretty much transparent to low frequencies.The office actually has 14' ceilings
The you are starting out with a handicap! You should ask yourself this basic question: "Do I want this room to be the best it can, acoustically? Or do I want it to look the way I like it, and screw the acoustics!". Sorry to be so blunt, but that's about the way it works out. If you start with pre-conceived limitations on where things can go in the room, then you are also placing limitations on how good the acoustics can be. If you truly do want this to be an optimal mixing room, then the old architectural adage should take first place: "Form follow function". So you have to first decide if the function of the room is a mixing room with good acoustics that also has some other stuff in it which won't affect its primary purpose? Or is it a general purpose room with poor acoustics that also has a couple of speakers and a DAW in it, that won't affect the primary purpose of being a general junk room?I need to keep the desk where it is.
No problem. It can go where it will do the least damage to room acoustics. Which will be in the rear half of the room (further back than your head).The white desk is where I do DIY audio electronics stuff so that can move, but it will be somewhere in the room.
Great! Then you already answered the above question! It's a mixing room, first and foremost. So it's time to let go of any limitations you wanted to place on the room, that would prevent you achieving that. Get used to the idea that things might end up in different locations in the room...My goal: Basically, I'm just trying to get the best sounding room for me to be mixing in without getting too much adverse influence from the room.
It isn't right now, but it could be if you wanted it to be.Should I consider the 4' dropped ceiling to already be a substantial bass trap?
In a small room like this, the answer is simple: More is better! You can never have too much bass trapping in a small room. And if you are only considering four corners, then you are forgetting about a full two thirds of the possible corners. rectangular rooms have 12 corners, not 4.... Think about it.I can potentially bass trap three corners but not the place where the door is. Should I not do that third corner and only do two?
Here's a link to a room that I designed a few years back, and recently re-tuned when the owner upgraded his speakers: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=20471
There are multiple bass traps in there, including several feet above the ceiling, above the soffits, behind the cloud, in the rear corners, in the top corners, on the back wall, inside the soffits, under the raised sofa platform, and in a few other places too. Even the cloud functions as a bass trap in there. (But there still isn't quite enough...
)So yes, put in as much bass trapping as you can, and make it BIG. The ones you show in your diagram at present are not doing anything useful at all.
However, there's a secondary principle here that also must be taken into account: symmetry. The front section of the room must be perfectly symmetrical, or you won't have an accurate stereo image and sound stage. The rear of the room (behind your head and up to the back wall) isn't so important, but the front is critical. So you'll probably need to rotate your room orientation 90° to the right, or 180°, such that the door is no longer in the front of the room. That will enable you to have symmetrical treatment in the front.
Well, first of all we need to get your room geometry set up optimally. Right now, you show your speakers set up away from the front wall, but the room probably isn't big enough for you to be able to do that properly. It's borderline actually. You didn't mention which speakers you have (model), but assuming that they put out a reasonable amount of energy at 35 Hz, they would need to be about 10 feet away from the front wall to ensure that the first SBIR dip is below that. In your room, that's out of the question, obviously. If your speakers only go down to 45 Hz, then you could get away with six foot spacing to the front wall, which is possible but not recommendable. Even if you wanted to use a sub and crossed over at the typical 80 Hz point, you'd still need to have them at least 4 feet from the front wall. That is much more do-able in your room, but there's a better way.Thanks for any thoughts!
For small rooms where the speakers cannot be far enough away from the front wall, the best option is to put them right up against the front wall, which pushes the first SBIR dip way up into the low end of the mid range, where it can easily be dealt with using treatment on the front wall.
OK, I should backpedal a little here, and say that the absolute best location for speakers is NOT in the room at all, but rather flush mounted in front-wall "soffits". That takes front wall SBIR off the table completely, as well as eliminating edge diffraction, power imbalance, comb filtering, and a bunch of other problems, in addition to all of the benefits that it provides, such as low-end extension, smoother. tighter bass, better loading, etc. So that would be the best possible situation, if you wanted to go that way. In your case, that would also be very beneficial for the modal response of the room, since it would modify the dimensions enough to shift the modal response: the room would no longer be square.
But assuming you don't want to build soffits, then second best is to have your speakers tight up against the front wall.
"tight up against", except for a 4" gap. You need that 4" gap to install the 4" acoustic panel that will deal with the SBIR.
So, to get your geometry correct: Move your speakers up to be 4" away from the front wall, and 65" away from the side walls (implying that they will then be 98" apart). Put them on very heavy, massive, rigid stands, such that they are 47 1/4" above the floor. Careful! Those last three measurements refer to the acoustic axis of the speaker, not the surfaces of the cabinet. So the acoustic axis of the speaker will be 47 1/4" above the floor, and 65" from the side wall, while the rear corner of the cabinet will be 4" from the front wall (almost touching the front face of the acoustical panel). Depending on your speakers and desk, you could actually put the speakers a little higher, up to around 49", but not more than that.
Now for the mix position: in that room, your head will need to be 84" from the front wall. Actually, that's where your ears need to be, so set up your chair such that your ears are 84" from the front wall when you are seated in the typical posture you use while mixing. Now set up a vertical pole (eg, mic stand) directly behind your head, still on the room center-line, and 102" from the front wall (in other words, about 18" behind your head). Carefully rotate the speakers on top of their stands so they are both aimed directly at that pole. I use a laser pointer for that, tape to the top of the speaker cabinet, directly above the acoustic center, and running perpendicular to the front baffle.
That will get you the correct acoustic geometry for your room. Theoretically correct, of course: you might still be able to find a slightly better location using REW, starting from that position.
With all of that in place, you can add your bass traps in the corners: I would do superchunks in that room, at least 36" along the sides, and floor to ceiling. I would put hangers in the 4' gap above the drop ceiling, and in fact I'd pull out that drop ceiling completely, replacing it with fabric, and hang a cloud over the mix position. Hard-backed, and angled.
I would then cover the entire rear wall with at least 6" of porous absorption, with a good diffuser in front of it (your room is big enough to use diffusion). Maybe a simple Schroeder diffuser, tuned with the low cut off at around 1 kHz, or a bit lower, or perhaps a Skyline (QRD is preferable to PRD),or even better, a multi-level fractal diffuser, since you do have the space to do that well. You might even consider doing hangers across the rear wall, with a fractal diffuser in front. You can spare the space.
You would also need 4" porous absorption on your first reflection points.
Once all of that is in place, test the room with REW to see what else needs doing, then design additional treatment as needed to deal with it. I'd guess that you would need a couple more panels on the rear side walls, and maybe one or two other things, but even with just the basic treatment in there, you'd have a reasonably good acoustic environment.
Depending on how big it is, the "white desk" might be able to fit up against the front wall, between the speakers, or if not then it would have to go either on the rear wall to the side of the couch, or on one of the side walls, right next to the superchunk.
- Stuart -
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mbira
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Re: Dropped Ceiling and bass trapping three out of four corn
Hi Stewart,
Thanks for the thorough reply.
Here are the answers to your questions and some clarifications:
I'm using Adam A7x monitors.
I work on primarily electronica and experimental synth music, so while I can not purchase a sub right now, I do indeed plan to purchase it in the future and want to build the acoustic treatment with a sub planned for the future. Your recommendation for getting the sub first makes total sense, but I'm not really financially ready to buy the sub. If it doesn't make sense for me to do bass trapping right now-even knowing that I will be getting a sub, then I understand.
Regarding the desk-it does indeed need to stay there. It's not an asthetic choice, as I'd prefer to have it against the rear wall. In the main portion of the warehouse, we do projection mapping, LED lighting for our concerts, and DMX lighting that are all controlled with ethernet network cable and I have already pushed the length of those cable to the max and they are coming in from the ceiling right next to the door there. Moving the desk to the rear wall could potentially add interference to those ethernet cables for the shows so I can't take that chance. So indeed-I do want the best sounding room possible...but I do have to make those compromises that will unfortunately not be idea from a mixing standpoint.
Regarding the roof-since you mention "hard, solid, massive boundary"-I should say that this is just a typical metal commercial warehouse, so at that 14' ceiling, it is just a thin piece of metal (not even insulated). The rear wall of the studio (with no door) is a firewall and so is a layer of 5/8' sheetrock and then an air gap of a few inches and then another layer of 5/8" sheetrock. All the other walls are just standard sheetrock and frame (5/8" thick).
This is in a commercial warehouse in which we have four more years left on the lease. If all goes well, we will be able to extend the lease another five years after that, but here in Austin there is always the chance that the land owner will be tearing it all down for condos. This is all to say that this room will not be my "dream build" room, but rather a compromise of cost going with the understanding that eventually I will be starting all over again somewhere else...is there a forum area for those sort of builds? ha!
I'm glad to hear that the speakers can go right up against the wall. That is pretty much where they are now, but I just pulled them out on the picture since that seems to be how studios have their speakers lol.
EDIT: Something I didn't mention that hopefully makes things easier in general-I don't really need to playback at high volume. I am perfectly happy playing at low to moderate volumes as 99% of the time I am there working on my own for full days so I need to keep things quiet....so quiet to and balanced for for full range of frequencies that electronic music produces is what I'm after.
Thanks for the thorough reply.
Here are the answers to your questions and some clarifications:
I'm using Adam A7x monitors.
I work on primarily electronica and experimental synth music, so while I can not purchase a sub right now, I do indeed plan to purchase it in the future and want to build the acoustic treatment with a sub planned for the future. Your recommendation for getting the sub first makes total sense, but I'm not really financially ready to buy the sub. If it doesn't make sense for me to do bass trapping right now-even knowing that I will be getting a sub, then I understand.
Regarding the desk-it does indeed need to stay there. It's not an asthetic choice, as I'd prefer to have it against the rear wall. In the main portion of the warehouse, we do projection mapping, LED lighting for our concerts, and DMX lighting that are all controlled with ethernet network cable and I have already pushed the length of those cable to the max and they are coming in from the ceiling right next to the door there. Moving the desk to the rear wall could potentially add interference to those ethernet cables for the shows so I can't take that chance. So indeed-I do want the best sounding room possible...but I do have to make those compromises that will unfortunately not be idea from a mixing standpoint.
Regarding the roof-since you mention "hard, solid, massive boundary"-I should say that this is just a typical metal commercial warehouse, so at that 14' ceiling, it is just a thin piece of metal (not even insulated). The rear wall of the studio (with no door) is a firewall and so is a layer of 5/8' sheetrock and then an air gap of a few inches and then another layer of 5/8" sheetrock. All the other walls are just standard sheetrock and frame (5/8" thick).
This is in a commercial warehouse in which we have four more years left on the lease. If all goes well, we will be able to extend the lease another five years after that, but here in Austin there is always the chance that the land owner will be tearing it all down for condos. This is all to say that this room will not be my "dream build" room, but rather a compromise of cost going with the understanding that eventually I will be starting all over again somewhere else...is there a forum area for those sort of builds? ha!
I'm glad to hear that the speakers can go right up against the wall. That is pretty much where they are now, but I just pulled them out on the picture since that seems to be how studios have their speakers lol.
EDIT: Something I didn't mention that hopefully makes things easier in general-I don't really need to playback at high volume. I am perfectly happy playing at low to moderate volumes as 99% of the time I am there working on my own for full days so I need to keep things quiet....so quiet to and balanced for for full range of frequencies that electronic music produces is what I'm after.
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Soundman2020
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Re: Dropped Ceiling and bass trapping three out of four corn
Good choice!I'm using Adam A7x monitors.
It absolutely does make sense to install all of your bass trapping now! You just won't be able to test it properly, to find out if it is working as designed, until you get the sub.If it doesn't make sense for me to do bass trapping right now-even knowing that I will be getting a sub, then I understand.
Which desk are we talking about??? The white one, that you said is for your electronics work? Or the actual mix position desk, with your DAW on it?Regarding the desk-it does indeed need to stay there. It's not an asthetic choice, as I'd prefer to have it against the rear wall.
Then add a repeater! Or an extender. Or a switch. Or even a hub. They all reconstitute the signal, and you can daisy-chain them. It's also surprising that you say you have reached the limit: For Ethernet, the maximum run for CAT 5e and CAT 6 cables is 390 feet (without a repeater), and DMX512 is 3,900 feet, when using proper cable with a terminator on the far end.In the main portion of the warehouse, we do projection mapping, LED lighting for our concerts, and DMX lighting that are all controlled with ethernet network cable and I have already pushed the length of those cable
You are looking at the problem from the wrong direction: the problem is not that the desk needs to stay where it is: the problem is (possibly) that you are approaching the limits for cable length (maybe). If that's the case, then solve the actual problem (cable length, not desk location) by installing whatever is necessary to do that. Repeaters are cheap, and work very well. Once you solve the real problem, then you can move the desk wherever it needs to go.
Then frankly, there's not a lot of point in optimizing the room, or even setting such a goal! If there's an underlying issue that prevents you from optimizing the room, then your goal is unattainable. If you cannot set up the room geometry correctly, then you cannot get get optimum acoustics at the mix position. So either you need to lower the goal post and realize that you'll never be able to mix well in there, or you'll have to solve the problem, which is cable length, not desk location.So indeed-I do want the best sounding room possible...but I do have to make those compromises that will unfortunately not be idea from a mixing standpoint.
There's a concept in mixing and room acoustics called "translation". It refers to how your mixes will sound when played in other locations. You can certainly make a mix sound good in pretty much any room that has basic treatment in it, but it won't "translate": it won't sound good when played in a car, club, house, office, church, on ear-buds, on the radio, on TV, or anywhere else. It might sound fantastic in your room, but terrible elsewhere. That happens when the room is not symmetrical, not acoustically neutral in frequency response, and/or has uneven decay times. In other words, when the room lies to you, your mixes will never translate. On the other hand, if your room is symmetrical, is neutral, and does have smooth, even time-domain response, your mixes WILL translate, perfectly, to all other locations. If they sound good in such a room, they will sound good in every other room.
Then that will need to be fixed too.that this is just a typical metal commercial warehouse, so at that 14' ceiling, it is just a thin piece of metal (not even insulated).
Which wall is that? The only doorway on your diagram does have a door attached, so I'm not sure which wall you are referring to when you talk about the one with no door in it.The rear wall of the studio (with no door)
That's not really much of an issue for the room acoustics: that's more related to the isolation of the room, which is an entirely different thing. Isolation and internal acoustics are very different things. There is some connection between them, but not in the sense you are thinking, and the level you listen at doesn't have much influence on the room geometry, layout, or treatment. Those will all need to be the same regardless of whether you listen at 70 dBC or 110 dBC.Something I didn't mention that hopefully makes things easier in general-I don't really need to playback at high volume.
The "standard" calibration level for studios is 86 dBC. That's the level you will use for doing the testing and treatment. It's also the calibration level for cinemas. And it turns out that it's also a common level for listening and mixing. And 86 dBC is also well within both OHSA and NIOSH limits for workplace noise exposure. You can happily listen at 86 dBC all day, every day. You might listen at lower levels, but that's the level you should be checking your final mix at.
The spec for the acoustics of a mixing room (control room) are laid out in ITU BS.1116-2. The basic goal is absolutely neutral, flat acoustic response, in both frequency and time, regardless of the genre or listening level. Meeting those specs is a challenge under the best of conditions, in a large room with no restrictions on furniture location or treatment. The smaller the room is, the harder it gets, but the specs don't change for smaller rooms, or listening level, or genre. If you truly do want your room to be the best it can be, so that you can mix confidently, knowing that what you hear in the room will translate well to every other place on the planet, then BS.1116-2 is what you need to shoot for.so quiet to and balanced for for full range of frequencies that electronic music produces is what I'm after.
- Stuart -
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mbira
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Re: Dropped Ceiling and bass trapping three out of four corn
Hi Stuart,
Thanks for your detailed reply. The one point that I made that you didn't address is that this is a leased property in which we may possibly need to vacate in as early as four years. So I won't be changing the construction of the metal roof, or taking out the drop ceiling, etc. What I'm looking for is the best solutions to the situation at hand.
I have looked extensively at the ethernet situation. We are projecting to four different projectors over HDMI to ethernet-this requires two ethernet cables per hdmi connector. The signal can not go through a switch or router. The maximum length that I have found to work reliably was a little under 100 feet which just barely reaches the furthest projectors. I know this because I had to re-run all the cables (on 20 foot tall scaffolding) three times because we kept having interference and dropouts. We are also using USB over ethernet to control webcams that are interacting with the video. The most I have been able to squeeze out of that particular situation is 80 feet reliable for shows.
This is all to say that the desk (the studio desk) can't really move-despite your insistence
. The white desk can go anywhere.
I moved the speakers back against the wall today and mounted them on some nice new stands that are filled with sand. The bass is much fuller now!
While it sounds like obviously it is not ideal, I'm hoping that bass trapping the back corners and soffit mounting bass traps on the ceiling to wall corners on at least the back wall and the side walls will help things out.
You asked which wall was the rear wall. It is the wall with the couch on it in the diagram.
I'm afraid that it sounds like what I'm asking for is how to improve my room within non-ideal circumstances, and it sounds like you are telling me that it's not worth it. I'm hoping there is a compromise there and that I can continue to improve things even though they will obviously not live up to the standards that you have mentioned. Even the humble Primacoustic treatment and moving those nearfields back have dramatically helped things from how they were. Small victories.
Thanks for your detailed reply. The one point that I made that you didn't address is that this is a leased property in which we may possibly need to vacate in as early as four years. So I won't be changing the construction of the metal roof, or taking out the drop ceiling, etc. What I'm looking for is the best solutions to the situation at hand.
I have looked extensively at the ethernet situation. We are projecting to four different projectors over HDMI to ethernet-this requires two ethernet cables per hdmi connector. The signal can not go through a switch or router. The maximum length that I have found to work reliably was a little under 100 feet which just barely reaches the furthest projectors. I know this because I had to re-run all the cables (on 20 foot tall scaffolding) three times because we kept having interference and dropouts. We are also using USB over ethernet to control webcams that are interacting with the video. The most I have been able to squeeze out of that particular situation is 80 feet reliable for shows.
This is all to say that the desk (the studio desk) can't really move-despite your insistence
. The white desk can go anywhere. I moved the speakers back against the wall today and mounted them on some nice new stands that are filled with sand. The bass is much fuller now!
While it sounds like obviously it is not ideal, I'm hoping that bass trapping the back corners and soffit mounting bass traps on the ceiling to wall corners on at least the back wall and the side walls will help things out.
You asked which wall was the rear wall. It is the wall with the couch on it in the diagram.
I'm afraid that it sounds like what I'm asking for is how to improve my room within non-ideal circumstances, and it sounds like you are telling me that it's not worth it. I'm hoping there is a compromise there and that I can continue to improve things even though they will obviously not live up to the standards that you have mentioned. Even the humble Primacoustic treatment and moving those nearfields back have dramatically helped things from how they were. Small victories.
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mbira
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Re: Dropped Ceiling and bass trapping three out of four corn
Hi again Stuart,
After sleeping on it, I did come to a realization. It is not actually the desk that needs to remain on that side of the room...it is the computer. It would be possible to add a longer hdmi to my studio monitor and run that through the drop ceiling and I'm already using wireless keyboard and touch pad on the mac pro tower. I think it would be doable to leave the computer by the door and then put the studio desk against that back wall...
Another idea is that I think it is also fairly doable for me to move the door against the side wall. That will give me access to all four wall to wall corners.
PS: I should note that the window in front of my studio desk is not some sort of control room window looking out. It serves no purpose and just looks at a wall. It was just there and can easily be covered up.
Something like this:
After sleeping on it, I did come to a realization. It is not actually the desk that needs to remain on that side of the room...it is the computer. It would be possible to add a longer hdmi to my studio monitor and run that through the drop ceiling and I'm already using wireless keyboard and touch pad on the mac pro tower. I think it would be doable to leave the computer by the door and then put the studio desk against that back wall...
Another idea is that I think it is also fairly doable for me to move the door against the side wall. That will give me access to all four wall to wall corners.
PS: I should note that the window in front of my studio desk is not some sort of control room window looking out. It serves no purpose and just looks at a wall. It was just there and can easily be covered up.
Something like this:
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Soundman2020
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Re: Dropped Ceiling and bass trapping three out of four corn
That makes sense! Perfect! That's what I meant about thinking of a way to solve the actual real problem (cable length), not the presumed problem (location of the desk).It is not actually the desk that needs to remain on that side of the room...it is the computer. It would be possible to add a longer hdmi to my studio monitor...
Also a very smart move! I didn't know that was an option, but it makes a lot of sense. If you do that, I would suggest that you also flip the "sense" of the door, so that it opens to the right, not to the left, as you face it. That's a practical thing, not an acoustic thing: it just makes more sense to have the door opening towards the larger part of the room, rather than towards a wall.Another idea is that I think it is also fairly doable for me to move the door against the side wall. That will give me access to all four wall to wall corners.
It's fine. Many studios do have glass up front, and there's no problem with that, as long as the rest of the room is treated correctly.PS: I should note that the window in front of my studio desk is not some sort of control room window looking out. It serves no purpose and just looks at a wall. It was just there and can easily be covered up.
I moved the speakers back against the wall today and mounted them on some nice new stands that are filled with sand. The bass is much fuller now
Ain't it grand when theory works out so well in practice! Did you also set up the geometry the way I laid out in one of my previous posts? "Speakers 65" away from the side walls, implying that they will then be 98" apart, ...", etc? If not, then please try that as well. Your updated diagram does not seem to show that, but it's always a good idea to keep your model fully up to date, accurately reflecting the way the room really is.
Once you have that set up, install REW, run through the calibration procedure but do it at 80 dBC for each individual speaker (which will automatically give you 86 dBC with both speakers on) then run a set of three tests: first with just the left speaker on (right turned off completely), then with just the right one (left turned off) then with both of them on together. Post the MDAT file on a file sharing service, such as Dropbox, then post the link here.
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mbira
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Re: Dropped Ceiling and bass trapping three out of four corn
I have made some progress. I got a sub - the Adam Sub7. It is definitely loud enough for my room! I also built two superchunk bass traps for the rear corner. Pardon the mess as I'm rearranging things, etc...