John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Ok my room with full shag carpet on floor was starting to fatigue my ears after 5 minutes. Couldn't stand it. I believe it is because I had to install so much bass trapping on rear wall that it was killing everything. My bass traps are super chunk in corners and all others are 4" rockwool. I have nothing on front wall since in front of a window but curtains and in corners super chunks. The room dimensions are 11.3 x 13.5 by 9ft ceiling. My setup is on the 13.5 wall facing window. Originally my room with just super chunks and a few front reflection panels still had bad bass in the back of room. The couch and the rest of the traps made the back more equal now but really deadend the room. So here I am.
Question is do you think I have enough or too much bass trappings on the walls.Ears don't feel as bad but still my ears ring abit more. I listen at low volumes.

Question is do you think I have enough or too much bass trappings on the walls.Ears don't feel as bad but still my ears ring abit more. I listen at low volumes.

You certainly did a good thing getting the carpet out! No doubt about that. But it's pretty much impossible to tell how your room is responding, acoustically, just from some photos. You'll need to run some actual acoustic tests in there, using the REW acoustic test software, then post the data file that it creates, so we can download it and analyze it for you. Based on that, we can tell you how your room is doing, what's wrong with it, what's right with it, and what you can do to improve it.

- Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:

Question is do you think I have enough or too much bass trappings on the walls.Ears don't feel as bad but still my ears ring abit more. I listen at low volumes.

You certainly did a good thing getting the carpet out! No doubt about that. But it's pretty much impossible to tell how your room is responding, acoustically, just from some photos. You'll need to run some actual acoustic tests in there, using the REW acoustic test software, then post the data file that it creates, so we can download it and analyze it for you. Based on that, we can tell you how your room is doing, what's wrong with it, what's right with it, and what you can do to improve it.

- Stuart -

I wish I had a way to get settings but I am missing the one thing needed. A measuring mic. I have vocal condensor mics but I am sure not going to tell you anything. ; ( Is there any other form of doing this?

I wish I had a way to get settings but I am missing the one thing needed. A measuring mic. I have vocal condensor mics but I am sure not going to tell you anything. ; ( Is there any other form of doing this?

A good quality omni mic would be a reasonable substitute, as long as it has flat response. But the only way of doing it reliably, is with an acoustic measurement mic. They are not expensive: a decent one will cost you around US$100. (Just do not buy the Behringer ECM8000: I have heard too many horror stories about defective ECM8000s, with noise issues, grounding issues, low signal level issues, and other nasties. I have one of those faulty ones myself, and it is dead useless. I also have some others, including a Presonus PRM1, which works quite well.)

You will need a measurement mic in any case, to properly set up, calibrate, and tune your room, so you might as well get one now. You will also need a decent hand-held sound level meter, to calibrate your system properly, so you might as well get one of those too. Here too a decent one will cost you around US$ 100. Get an Extech or Galaxy, or something like that. Make sure it has both "A" and "C" weighting, as well as both "Fast" and "Slow" integration settings.


- Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:

I wish I had a way to get settings but I am missing the one thing needed. A measuring mic. I have vocal condensor mics but I am sure not going to tell you anything. ; ( Is there any other form of doing this?

A good quality omni mic would be a reasonable substitute, as long as it has flat response. But the only way of doing it reliably, is with an acoustic measurement mic. They are not expensive: a decent one will cost you around US$100. (Just do not buy the Behringer ECM8000: I have heard too many horror stories about defective ECM8000s, with noise issues, grounding issues, low signal level issues, and other nasties. I have one of those faulty ones myself, and it is dead useless. I also have some others, including a Presonus PRM1, which works quite well.)

You will need a measurement mic in any case, to properly set up, calibrate, and tune your room, so you might as well get one now. You will also need a decent hand-held sound level meter, to calibrate your system properly, so you might as well get one of those too. Here too a decent one will cost you around US$ 100. Get an Extech or Galaxy, or something like that. Make sure it has both "A" and "C" weighting, as well as both "Fast" and "Slow" integration settings.

Ok. I will bite the bullet and get this right once and for all. Thank you Soundman. Ordering overnite.
I just realized I have a audiobox usb from presonus. It doesn't have a way to loop back that I can see. Or since it is usb doesn't it matter any more? Hmm. It only has inputs on front for mic and instrument and outs to speakers on back. Nothing else.



- Stuart -

I was only given a choice to REW my left and right speakers independantly since I used asio drivers. I hope this came out right to show. Here we go.

Update. I have now installed a full ceiling of 4 inch absorbers. 2# 6 inch bass traps on front ceiling corners and more on the sides of first side reflections. Back wall I built a diffuser that I will be taking down. Since my chair sits 7 ft from back wall the diffuser is giving me psycho acoustic feelings. So I am assuming I should put at least 2 bass traps on center of back wall? Speakers up front are a bit mid bass heavy. I moved them back to front wall with absorbers behind and that seemed worse. I moved them back 23 inches and they were still a bit honky. Any advice is well heard here.
David

Duplicate post, on a different thread. I'm not going to reply to both!

Sorry soundman. Didn't realize I did that. So many forums.